Canada is dispatching its largest trade delegation to India in over three decades, with Indian-origin Canadian International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu leading nearly 300 business delegates to Mumbai and Bengaluru from 12 to 17 October 2026. The Team Canada Trade Mission comes as the two countries push to finalise a comprehensive trade agreement before year-end, underscoring a significant diplomatic and commercial reset.

What the Mission Covers

The delegation spans businesses across aerospace and space, clean technologies and energy transition, information and communication technologies, life sciences, and agri-food sectors. The Trade Commissioner Service has additionally listed forestry and wood products as a priority area, with programming that includes business-to-business meetings, site visits, and briefings by Canadian trade commissioners.

The mission is organised by Global Affairs Canada's Trade Commissioner Service, which typically focuses on helping Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises enter foreign markets. At nearly 300 delegates, this edition is notably larger than any Team Canada mission to India in living memory.

The Trade and Investment Backdrop

Two-way goods and services trade between Canada and India totalled C$30.4 billion in 2025, according to the Canadian government. Canadian merchandise exports to India were C$3.9 billion, led by vegetables, mineral fuels and oils, and wood pulp, while Indian merchandise imports into Canada stood at C$9.7 billion, driven by precious stones and metals, machinery, and pharmaceutical products.

Canadian direct investment in India reached C$11.4 billion in 2025, with Indian direct investment in Canada at C$9.7 billion. Canadian pension funds and asset managers reported approximately C$108 billion in total exposure to India that year, according to Export Development Canada — a figure that signals institutional conviction well beyond headline trade flows.

CEPA Talks and the Diplomatic Reset

The mission follows the fifth round of negotiations on the Canada-India Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), held in Ottawa from 5 to 9 October. Neither government has released an outcome of that round. Minister Sidhu had earlier met Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on the sidelines of the G20 Trade Ministers' Meeting in Milwaukee on 1 October, where the two reviewed negotiating progress.

The CEPA talks were relaunched after Prime Minister Mark Carney and Prime Minister Narendra Modi moved to reset ties that had deteriorated sharply in 2023, when bilateral relations soured over allegations related to Khalistani separatism. The current diplomatic momentum marks a tangible departure from that period of strain.

Geopolitical Context: Diversifying Beyond the US

The mission carries clear geopolitical subtext. Canada, facing its own trade friction with the Trump administration, has stated a goal of doubling exports to markets beyond the United States over the next decade. India, meanwhile, is simultaneously negotiating trade deals with several partners — including the United States — amid its own tensions with Washington over tariffs and New Delhi's continued purchases of Russian oil.

Notably, both nations share an incentive to reduce dependence on a single dominant trade partner, making the India-Canada alignment structurally logical even if the political path to CEPA has been bumpy. The target of more than doubling bilateral trade to $70 billion by 2030, as stated by Minister Sidhu, would require a near-tripling from current goods and services volumes — an ambitious but not implausible trajectory given the scale of Canadian institutional exposure already embedded in India.

What Comes Next

With the fifth round of CEPA negotiations just concluded and a sixth round presumably in the pipeline, the mission's outcomes — in terms of memoranda of understanding, investment commitments, and partnership deals — will be closely watched as a signal of whether the diplomatic reset is translating into commercial reality. Both governments have indicated a desire to conclude the agreement by the end of 2026.