Prime Minister Mark Carney has invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Canada for an official visit later this year, Carney’s office said Tuesday after the two leaders met on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in France.
The Prime Minister’s Office readout of the meeting did not include any mention of foreign interference or transnational repression, which India’s government has been accused of pursuing in Canada.
The readout did, however, say that Carney and Modi agreed to launch negotiations on a General Security of Information Agreement, which would strengthen the exchange of classified defence and security information. Carney signed a similar agreement with France earlier this week.
“They also looked forward to forthcoming dialogues in the areas of defence, finance and migration,” the readout said.
“Prime Minister Modi thanked Prime Minister Carney for his invitation to visit Canada in 2026. Both sides agreed to remain engaged through diplomatic channels to work towards a mutually convenient date for the visit.”
The developments are the latest steps in a thawing of relations between Canada and India that Carney has pursued since becoming prime minister last spring. India is one of several countries Ottawa has sought closer ties with in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war.
Another is China, which Carney visited in January and signed a number of agreements with, including a security cooperation pact between the RCMP and Beijing’s Ministry of Public Security that has drawn scrutiny for remaining under wraps.
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Carney travelled to India in late February and early March, where he and Modi agreed to pursue a free trade agreement and struck a new energy partnership.
Trade talks with India were shut down by Ottawa in 2023 after the federal government accused New Delhi of playing a role in the assassination of Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C.
The RCMP believes members of the India-based Lawrence Bishnoi gang was hired by India to assassinate Nijjar in 2023 in an alleged act of transnational repression due to his activism in the Khalistan movement, which seeks independence for India’s Punjab.
Modi’s government was later implicated in a second attempted assassination of a Canadian Khalistan activist who resides in New York.
An internal RCMP report obtained by Global News said the Bishnoi group engages in murder-for-hire in Canada, and has been “acting on behalf of the Indian government.”
India denies any involvement, and its top envoy in Ottawa Dinesh Patnaik told the Globe and Mail last month that Canada’s national security agencies had been “compromised.”
The Bishnoi gang has also claimed responsibility for a wave of extortion-related violence in multiple provinces, writing in a letter to a B.C. police station last year that it had 1,000 foot soldiers willing to carry out shootings in Canada.
Canada declared the Bishnoi gang as a foreign terrorist entity last year.
Ahead of Carney’s India trip, a senior government official told reporters during a background briefing that Canada is confident Indian foreign interference is not happening anymore. The official said that if Canada believed India was still interfering in its democracy, Carney would not be making the trip.
That was despite continued warnings by police to Canadian Sikh activists that their lives, and those of their families, are in danger. Sikh groups have protested in front of Parliament and said they feel “betrayed” by Carney’s shifting stance toward India.
Following the India trip, when asked by reporters in Australia whether he agreed with the government official’s comments, Carney said: “I would not use those words.”
Yet he also refused several times to say whether New Delhi is interfering in Canadian democracy or repressing Sikh separatists in Canada.
“I will tell you that there is progress on these issues,” Carney said.
“It’s a product of the resources we’re putting in. It’s a product of the clarity of our position … We will not tolerate foreign interference, transnational repression, by anyone, and I stress, by anyone. There’s a wide range of countries who make these efforts from time to time.”
—With files from Global’s Stewart Bell and the Canadian Press
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
