Indian High Commissioner to Canada Dinesh K Patnaik has launched an intensive diplomatic offensive in Ottawa, holding consecutive high-level engagements with top Canadian officials to systematically rebuild and deepen bilateral relations that had plunged to their lowest point in decades following the 2023 diplomatic crisis.

In a significant parliamentary outreach, Patnaik met Speaker of the House of Commons Francis Scarpaleggia for wide-ranging discussions on strengthening legislative cooperation, exchanging best practices in democratic governance, and reinforcing shared Commonwealth values, with both sides expressing strong commitment to elevating inter-parliamentary dialogue to a new strategic level.

The meeting secured Canada’s high-level participation in the prestigious 28th Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers of the Commonwealth (CSPOC) scheduled in New Delhi next month, where Speaker Scarpaleggia will lead a senior delegation, marking one of the first major reciprocal visits since the freeze and signalling a deliberate thaw at the institutional level.

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Separately, Patnaik held an extensive session with Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Lena Metlege Diab, focusing on streamlining immigration procedures, addressing persistent challenges faced by Indian students and professionals, enhancing consular coordination, and establishing structured mechanisms for faster resolution of visa and permanent residency bottlenecks that have long strained people-to-people ties.

These back-to-back engagements — combining legislative, immigration, and educational dimensions — reflect a calibrated, multi-track strategy by both capitals to methodically restore trust, expand cooperation, and place the India-Canada partnership back on a positive trajectory despite lingering geopolitical sensitivities, with sources indicating more high-level exchanges are already in the pipeline for early 2026.

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