Indian PM to attend community gathering in Toronto during Canada visit

Toronto: While the final details of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s forthcoming visit to Canada are being finalised, that he will attend a community gathering in Toronto on December 11 was announced on Thursday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the inauguration of Emerging Science, Technology and Innovation Conclave 2026 at Bharat Mandapam, in New Delhi on October 27.

(ANI)The event will be held at a prominent location in Toronto and the aim is to have nearly 30,000 members of the Indo-Canadian community in attendance, a person familiar with its planning said. A website has also been launched for community organisations to register for the event, even as a flyer promoting it was circulated on Thursday.

The final schedule for the bilateral visit is yet to be decided and while Modi will be in Canada on December 11 and 12, it may extend beyond those two days, another person told the Hindustan Times. After his engagements in Ottawa, the capital, and Toronto, Modi will fly to Miami for the G20 Leaders’ Summit there.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told a gathering of the Indo-Canadian community in Calgary earlier this month about the expected visit “He [Modi] is coming, I think it’ll largely be to Ottawa and Toronto but we’ll see if we can broaden it out.

I know the dates are December 11 and 12,” Carney said in an informal chat with community members. The Indian High Commission in Ottawa mentioned the same dates in a social media post regarding the visit, though the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the finer details of the visit are yet to be locked down.

People familiar with Modi’s schedule said the PM will meet Carney in Ottawa and meet with businesses in Ottawa and attend the diaspora gathering in Toronto. Besides travelling to Canada and the US, Modi is expected to go to the Belgian capital of Brussels during December 16-17 for the signing of the India-European Union (EU) free trade agreement.

India and Canada are expected to announce the conclusion of negotiations for the comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA) during Modi’s visit. Five negotiating rounds are complete and officials are expected to meet twice in November to review outstanding issues while the items agreed upon undergo legal scrubbing.

As HT first reported, India is considering Carney as the chief guest for the Republic Day celebrations in January 2027. This will be Modi’s first bilateral trip to Canada since 2015, when he travelled to Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver during Stephen Harper’s premiership.

Both sides have worked to repair ties after Carney became PM in March 2025. Canada is keen on bolstering economic ties with countries such as India to offset its trade tensions with the US. The trade talks have coincided with an upswing in bilateral relations, which fell to their lowest level in decades after then Canadian PM Justin Trudeau accused Indian government agents of involvement in the 2023 killing of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

India described those accusations as “absurd” and “motivated”. The process of repairing ties began when Carney invited Modi to the G7 Summit in Kananaskis in June 2025. During her visit to New Delhi this month, foreign minister Anita Anand emphasised India’s importance as a “valuable partner” for Canada amid geopolitical uncertainty as she met Modi and external affairs minister S Jaishankar to strengthen ties in trade, energy and security.

Anirudh Bhattacharya is a Toronto-based commentator on North American issues, and an author. He has also worked as a journalist in New Delhi and New York spanning print, television and digital media. He tweets as @anirudhb.Read More