As Mark Carney heads to Asia later this week he’ll be fighting a poor perception of Canada, that we’re an unreliable trading partner. It’s not the Americans saying this at the moment, though they would agree, it’s not the Brits who might nod their heads, and it’s not the European Union, which would also side with the sentiment.

It’s India, which has declared Canada an unreliable partner, which is not good when you consider what Carney’s office said about his trip to the region, which starts Friday.

In a news release issued last week it was announced that the prime minister would “travel to Malaysia, Singapore, and the Republic of Korea, from October 24 to November 1, 2025, to deepen trade relationships in the Indo-Pacific region, shore up defence partnerships, and unlock new opportunities for Canadian workers and businesses.”

Carney is headed to the “Indo-Pacific” region and India, a country with one of the biggest economies in the region, one of the biggest populations and a growing influence is saying Canada is not a reliable trading partner.

In an interview that aired on CTV’s Question Period on Sunday, India’s High Commissioner Dinesh Patnaik was asked about buying Canadian oil and gas to replace India’s current reliance on product from Russia.

“We look for suppliers where they can be a reliable supplier,” he said. “Not a supplier who today says, ‘Okay, I’m going to supply you,’ and tomorrow says, ‘No, I have this problem with you, I cannot supply you.’”

Trudeau poisoned relations with India

Relations with Canada soured quickly two years ago after former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly accused India of carrying out an assassination on Canadian soil. Relations were not good between India and Canada under Trudeau before he accused the Modi government of killing Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June of 2023, but they fell apart after the accusations.

Now Canada is trying to mend fences, and India is understandably wary with Patnaik saying “not yet” when asked whether Canada is a reliable trading partner.

Carney wants to sell Canada as a reliable energy partner while in Asia, but many of the countries he will be pitching to will also be wary. It was in 2017 that the $36-billion Pacific Northwest LNG project was abandoned after a long period of delay mostly driven by government regulation and policy.

That project was backed by Petronas of Malaysia and supported by Sinopec of China, JAPEX of Japan, Indian Oil Corporation and Petroleum BRUNEI. Less than a decade later, without changing any regulations, without speeding up the approval process and after adding more regulations that would make such a project more difficult, Carney will try to sell Canada as a reliable partner to these same countries and companies.

These other countries, like India, are going to be wary of signing deals with Canada.

It’s also not just energy that Canada is not seen as a reliable partner on.

Moving towards Europe won’t work without change at home

As Carney talks a lot about moving closer to Europe, we have no free trade agreement with Britain while countries in the European Union such as France, Italy, Greece and Ireland among others have so far not ratified the EU free trade deal.

Talks with Britain were called off in January 2024 because Canada refused to grant the U.K. the same access to the Canadian cheese market as they had in the European trade deal. One of the major reasons that there are still 10 EU countries that have failed to ratify the deal is also our dairy sector.

As Canadians bristle at the protectionist policies of our American neighbours and President Donald Trump, we remain incredibly protectionist of our dairy, banking, telecom, aviation, media, our cultural sector, and more. We demand that other countries provide us with wide access to their economies while being incredibly protectionist in our own.

Mark Carney can head to Europe or Asia seeking out new trading partners all he wants. Unless and until he deals with issues such as our protectionism, until he deals with the regulatory and investment climate in this country, these trips will provide nice photo ops but little results.

The real work needs to be done here in Canada, in Parliament, a place that Carney so far seems to want to avoid.

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