Ontario’s Trade Minister is scheduled to begin a mission to India on Monday to attract Indian tech businesses to the Canadian province. Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade Victor Fedeli’s week-long visit will also be the first by a prominent Canadian leader to India since bilateral tensions erupted in September over the killing of pro-Khalistan figure Hardeep Singh Nijjar on June 18 in Surrey, British Columbia.
In an interview with the Hindustan Times prior to the visit at his office in downtown Toronto’s business district, Bay Street, Fedeli said, “This trip will be very tech heavy. We’ll meet with a lot of tech companies and I think the importance is to share with them the great opportunities that they have by looking at a facility in Ontario to augment their head office capabilities in India. That this won’t cannibalise the work that they’re doing there or their market share in their region, this is a way for them to enter the North American market.”
He described the trip, which will take him to Mumbai and Bengaluru as a “roll-up-your-sleeves sales mission”.
He said preparatory interactions with Indian companies have been positive without the overhang of the nosedive in bilateral relations between the Federal governments. “Part of it (the visit) is a signal to India that Ontario is open for business. And, the real message that we’ll deliver is the value proposition of coming to Ontario hasn’t changed in the last year. There’s still those solid business reasons why they should be here,” he said.
Fedeli was expected to travel to India in November last year for a trade mission but was caught in the bilateral freeze. His visa had expired in September and he was unable to get another in time as India had suspended issuance of visas to Canadians after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s statement in the House of Commons that there were “credible allegations” of a potential link between Indian agents and Nijjar’s murder.
“We just opted to come in February instead and look forward to our trip back again in November,” Fedeli said, adding, “We just thought, we’ve always got this great value proposition. It’s not going anywhere.”
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