Marking Turnaround in Ties, Modi Accepts Late Canadian Invitation to Attend G7 Summit Next Week
New Delhi: With just over a week to go for the occasion, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that he would travel to Canada after receiving an invitation to attend the G7 summit from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Ottawa also stated that both sides had agreed to maintain engagement between their law enforcement agencies and work on resolving “security concerns”.
In an announcement on X on Friday (June 6) evening, Modi thanked the new Canadian leader for the invitation to the summit during their conversation over the phone. “Look forward to our meeting at the Summit,” he wrote.
Glad to receive a call from Prime Minister @MarkJCarney of Canada. Congratulated him on his recent election victory and thanked him for the invitation to the G7 Summit in Kananaskis later this month. As vibrant democracies bound by deep people-to-people ties, India and Canada…
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 6, 2025
In his post, Modi added that “as vibrant democracies bound by deep people-to-people ties, India and Canada will work together with renewed vigour, guided by mutual respect and shared interests.”
The last time that Modi visited Canada was in 2015.
A few hours later, Carney’s office issued a readout confirming the phone call and invitation. Carney’s own tweet about the phone call didn’t directly refer to the invitation.
“Importantly, there was agreement to continued law enforcement dialogue and discussions addressing security concerns,” the Canadian statement said.
Modi had earlier congratulated Carney on his election victory through social media, and the two nations' foreign ministers spoke over the phone last month, which were seen as signs of a possible thaw.
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh attended five summits, when the group was still known as the G8, as a special invitee for outreach sessions.
Modi received his first outreach invitation in 2019 during the French G7 presidency and subsequently participated in four more editions. The 2020 summit was held virtually due to the pandemic.
The invitation and Modi’s decision to accept it mark a striking turnaround in India-Canada ties, 20 months after then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the Canadian parliament on September 19, 2023 that Indian agents were involved in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian citizen whom New Delhi had labelled a Khalistani terrorist.
India denied the allegation and scaled down diplomatic ties. Since then, both countries have been without high commissioners and their diplomatic missions have continued to function with limited staff.
Tensions escalated further in October last year when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) alleged that there was evidence linking Indian government agents to “widespread violence” in Canada.
The claims led both sides to expel their top envoys in tit-for-tat measures.
Two weeks later, Canadian deputy foreign affairs minister David Morrison revealed in a parliamentary hearing that he had confirmed to a US newspaper that Indian home minister Amit Shah was “involved” in the plot to kill Canadian nationals. India termed his statement as “absurd” and “baseless”.
New Delhi has maintained that its core concern is the political space afforded to Khalistani groups in Canada. Ottawa, on the other hand, has argued that it adheres to constitutional protections of free speech as long as it does not cross into incitement to violence.
Security concerns and broader context
The reference to “security concerns” in the Canadian readout – absent from Modi’s post and without any clarification from New Delhi – suggests that Ottawa is likely to continue raising issues related to the alleged activities of Indian agencies in Canada.
That interpretation gained some traction later in the day, when Carney was grilled by the media on the invitation to India. He suggested that India was now more willing to cooperate with Canadian probes. "We have now agreed importantly to continued law
enforcement dialogue. So there's been some progress on that, which recognises issues of accountability," Carney said at a news conference.
He declined to answer a question on whether he believed that Indian PM was involved in the June 2023 shooting of Nijjar, noting that it was not appropriate to make comments when a legal process was underway.
But, he also asserted that there would be no change in the RCMP investigations. “My message is that we are a country of the rule of law. The rule of law is proceeding as it should in Canada, and I am not going to disrupt that process”.
His expanded remarks elaborated the background to the invitation:
“First, we are in the role, Canada is in the role, of the G7 chair, and in those discussions, as agreed with our G7 colleagues, we’re addressing important issues like energy security, the digital future, and critical minerals, among others. Partnerships in building infrastructure in the emerging and developing world are also part of the agenda. There are certain countries that should be at the table for those discussions. In my capacity as G7 chair, and in consultation with others, some of whom also make these determinations, it makes sense to include India, the fifth-largest economy in the world, effectively the most populous country, and central to a number of those supply chains. In addition, bilaterally, we have now agreed, importantly, to continued law enforcement dialogue. So there's been some progress on that, which recognises issues of accountability. I extended the invitation to Prime Minister Modi in that context, and he has accepted”.
Carney’s comments came amid wider efforts by Ottawa to stabilise its foreign relations and recalibrate key partnerships. In recent weeks, Canadian officials have signalled a willingness to re-engage with India, albeit cautiously, even as they continue to underline the independence of domestic investigations.
'Independent' RCMP
In an interview with The Globe and Mail last month, Canadian foreign minister Anita Anand said that relations would be repaired “one step at a time”.
However, she underscored that “the rule of law will never be compromised” and that the investigation into the Nijjar case remained ongoing.
She stressed that the RCMP inquiry was entirely independent. “That investigation is independent and it will continue under the auspices of an independent agency,” she said.
Anand made it clear that the Canadian government was looking to have a better relationship with India as “part of the process of diversifying our relationships and building relationships around the world”.
Carney had campaigned in the April parliamentary elections on a platform that commercial and strategic dependence on the US was unsustainable, after relations had become strained over President Donald Trump’s repeated description of Canada as America's ‘51st state’ and the imposition of import tariffs.
A day earlier on Thursday, the Canadian PM had also agreed with Chinese Premier Li Qiang to “regularise channels of communication” as part of efforts to restore strained relations between Beijing and Ottawa, in response to shifting global trade dynamics under Trump’s disruptive tariff policies.
For Modi, the G7 invitation will give him valuable political optics of mingling with world leaders, particularly at a time when the government is facing domestic criticism after the recent hostilities with Pakistan and its diplomatic fallout.
Until Friday’s announcement, both media reports and opposition leaders had raised questions over the delay in a G7 invitation being extended to India.
Timing
By usual standards, it is highly unusual for an invitation to a high-level diplomatic summit to be issued so close to the event.
The Wire asked a number of retired diplomats if Modi ought to have accepted an invite that came barely a week before the G7 summit and whether the acceptance made India look desperate.
“Perhaps”, said a former foreign secretary. “But [not going] could look like we are sulking. And it would be useful for the Supreme Leader to perhaps gauge for himself, through interactions with leaders present, how they view India, what has happened over the past few weeks and the possible road ahead.”
Another former diplomat said he did not agree with the suggestion that accepting an eleventh hour invitation made Modi seem desperate. “It was clear to us for 15 days that he had been invited. This was only the phone call between leaders,” he insisted, brushing aside the orchestrated appearance of anti-G7 spin in regime-friendly news outlets in the 24 hours before the Carney-Modi phone call as “more a case of media managers losing their nerve!” “Would it have been less demeaning not to have been invited?”, he added.
When Italy hosted the G7 last year, India had received its invitation in April, two months ahead of the meeting.
Even this time, media reports indicate that invitations from Canada began going out in early May.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese publicly confirmed receiving his invitation in the first week of May. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she was invited during a phone call with Carney on May 15. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva also received an invitation around the same time, as per local media reports.
South Africa’s high commission in Ottawa told a Canadian news agency that Pretoria had been invited, though it did not confirm whether the country would attend.
The only exception was Canada’s outreach to Ukraine. Carney extended an invitation to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shortly after taking office in March, even before the snap elections.
Earlier, Canada-based Sikh groups had urged Ottawa not to invite Modi to the summit. Protests are expected during Modi’s visit, but it remains to be seen how they will unfold and how Canadian authorities will manage them.
At any G7 summit, rallies by civil society groups of different hues are the norm. This time, the Canadians have designated three protests zones that will be at a distance from the meeting venue. However, they plan to livestream these protests on screens inside the venue so that leaders and delegations can see and hear them.
Note: This report has been updated since publication with Mark Carney's words to reporters and retired diplomats' quotes.
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