Modi to visit Canada December 11-12 as trade deal talks hit the homestretch

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Canada on December 11 and 12 – a trip both governments have now officially confirmed, and the clearest sign yet of the Canada-India relationship’s remarkable reset.

Prime Minister Mark Carney let the dates slip while chatting with diners at a Calgary restaurant Thursday – “I just spoke to him,” he said, adding the visit covers Toronto and Ottawa, with “maybe we can broaden it out.” The Indian High Commission in Ottawa confirmed the dates hours later.

The trade deal is the headline

The visit’s centrepiece: the push to conclude a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA). Both sides aim to wrap negotiations by year’s end – ideally by the G20 summit in Miami on December 14-15 – supporting a goal of doubling two-way trade to $70 billion annually by 2030 that Global Affairs Canada says starts from $30.4-billion in 2025 two-way trade. Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu concluded a Team Canada trade mission through India on October 17 – the largest in three decades, with nearly 300 delegates and 34 commercial agreements worth close to $300 million. Foreign Minister Anita Anand met Modi in New Delhi on October 14.

How far the relationship has come

Two years ago this relationship was in freefall: Canada expelled six Indian diplomats over allegations linking agents to homicides and extortion in Canada; India retaliated in kind. Under Carney, the tone has flipped – his India visit was the first by a Canadian PM since 2018, the RCMP has said it sees no current evidence linking the Indian government to its transnational-repression files, and Modi’s December stop will be his first bilateral visit to Canada since his 2015 state visit. Diaspora communities in the GTA and beyond will be watching the itinerary closely.

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Correction – October 25, 2026: An earlier version said Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu was leading a Team Canada mission through India “this week”; that mission ran October 12-17, 2026, concluding before this story was published. It also described Modi’s December stop as the first visit by an Indian prime minister in years; Modi attended the G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, in June 2025, and the December 11-12 trip will be his first bilateral visit to Canada since 2015. The story has been corrected, and the RCMP reference clarified to concern India specifically.