Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks during a press conference at Ritan Park in Beijing on January 16, 2026. ( Adek BERRY / AFP via Getty Images)
Prime Minister Mark Carney is travelling to Asia this week to bolster cooperation with India and Japan, with a stop in Australia as well.
A Feb. 23 statement from the prime minister’s office (PMO) described the trip to the three Indo-Pacific countries as a bid to help Canada diversify its trade relationships and attract new investment opportunities. Canada is seeking to diversify trade away from the United States and double non-U.S. exports over the next decade.
“We are forging new partnerships abroad to create greater certainty, security and prosperity at home,” the PMO said.
The prime minister will fly to Mumbai, and then to New Delhi to meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Feb. 26 to discuss “elevating and expanding the Canada-India relationship,” according to the statement. The two will discuss partnerships on trade, energy, AI talent, culture, and defence.
The PMO said Carney will then travel to Sydney and Canberra in Australia, where he will meet with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to discuss further cooperation on defence, critical minerals, and trade. Carney will also deliver an address to both Houses of Australia’s Parliament, marking the first time in nearly two decades that a Canadian prime minister has done so.
Carney will then fly to Tokyo, Japan, to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. The two will discuss partnerships in energy, critical minerals, and food security, as well as increasing defence cooperation in the region before Carney’s return to Canada on March 7.
The prime minister’s visit to Japan comes a few weeks after a general election that saw Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) win a sweeping majority. The LDP is a conservative and nationalist party that favours increasing defence spending—as well as revising Article 9 of Japan’s constitution to allow for collective self-defence—to counter China’s rise.
Ottawa has been seeking to rebuild relations and expand trade with China. Carney wrapped up a trip to Beijing in January that resulted in a deal in which Canada pledged to reduce tariffs on 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) annually from 100 percent to the “most-favoured-nation” tariff rate of 6.1 percent. China is expected to lower tariffs on Canadian canola, lobsters, crabs, and peas in response.
Canada-India Relations
The prime minister’s trip to India comes shortly after Ottawa and New Delhi signed a joint statement to increase bilateral trade in oil and gas. The Jan. 27 statement said Canada’s desire to diversify its energy exports and India’s need for oil and gas provided a “natural and symbiotic partnership.”
Carney’s trip to India, as well as the joint statement on energy exports, is part of a re-establishment of relations between the two countries following a period of cooling that began under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Relations between the countries soured in September 2023 after Trudeau accused India of being involved in the assassination of pro-Khalistan activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia, an allegation that India denied. India has long accused Canada of being a safe haven for Sikh separatists who want to carve an independent state called Khalistan out of India’s Punjab region.
Canada expelled six Indian diplomats in October 2024 that it labelled “persons of interest” in the assassination of Nijjar, which led India to also expel six Canadian diplomats. The RCMP has accused agents of the Indian government of being involved in serious criminal activity in Canada, such as homicides and extortion.
Relations between the two countries began to warm after Carney invited Modi to attend the G7 Summit in Kananaskis, Alta., last June.
Canada and India appointed new high commissioners on Aug. 28, 2025. Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand’s visit to India last October also led to the establishment of a new roadmap for their relations, with an emphasis on bilateral trade, climate initiatives, and energy cooperation.
Carney and Modi then agreed at the G20 Leaders’ Summit on Nov. 13, 2025, to formally launch negotiations for a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), which had been paused during the diplomatic spat in 2023. At the same time, Canada’s International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu visited India in mid-November for a ministerial dialogue.
Anand was asked by reporters on Feb. 23 if she would address transnational repression and the killing of Singh Nijjar during upcoming meetings with India, and she replied, “of course.”
She said the “security situation at home and abroad in terms of Canadians is of extreme concern and priority” for the government.