.The government is considering restoring its High Commissioner to Canada, sources said, in signs that the exit of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau from office could signal a thaw in bilateral ties that have been virtually frozen since 2023 over the Nijjar case. Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s (CSIS) chief Daniel Rogers is also set to visit India next week to attend a meeting of intelligence chiefs hosted by the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS).
The meeting, which is held each year on the sidelines of the Raisina Dialogue (March 17-19 this year) since 2022, will be the first such meeting since a heated, extended exchange over the case between Indian and Canadian national security teams headed by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and his Canadian counterpart in Singapore last October.
According to the sources, the Ministry of External Affairs has discussed possible candidates to replace previous High Commissioner to Canada Sanjay Kumar Verma, as the position remains vacant since he was expelled along with five Indian diplomats in October 2024, a few days after that Singapore meeting. The Trudeau government called them “persons of interest” in the June 2023 killing of Khalistani separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, but the Modi government denied all the charges, and claimed that no evidence has been shared of the claims, including those linking Home Minister Amit Shah to the plot.