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'Canada wants ties with India strengthened'
By Sridhar Krishnaswami
The Canadian Deputy Prime Minister, John Manley, at the Golden Temple in Amritsar on Sunday. - AP
OTTAWA, JAN. 20. The Deputy Prime Minister of Canada, John Manley, has embarked on a tour of India that will go the distance in raising bilateral relations to newer heights and starting a process that hopefully will have learnt the lessons of the bumpy and testy past of the last three years.
``From the day I arrived in this portfolio on October 17, 2000, I have been saying that one of my objectives was to normalise and improve our relationship with India because it's the world's largest democracy, because it's such an important player on the world stage that for Canada, as a member of the G- 8, continuing this relationship of quasi-isolation was not appropriate,'' Mr. Manley remarked in the course of an exclusive conversation with The Hindu here.
Mr. Manley spoke in his capacity as Foreign Minister only to realise hours later that the Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, will be officially making him his Deputy. The fact that Mr. Manley stayed with his South Asia programme that took him to Pakistan and now to India shows two things: the seriousness with which the current Deputy Prime Minister takes the substantive part of his tour; and an indication that Mr. Manley will continue to have a major voice on foreign affairs and national security.
``I am looking forward to the visit. I see it as a crucial step in the normalisation process... Almost two per cent of our population is Indo-Canadian and they have felt, I think very strongly, that our point about nuclear proliferation has been made and it was very important for Canada to revitalise its relationship, both commercially and politically.''
In the course of the week, Mr. Manley will not only be having extensive and indepth discussions with the political leadership in New Delhi - including with the Leader of the Congress party, Sonia Gandhi - but also will have travelled to Amristar, Agra, Mumbai, Chennai and Goa. He has a special interest in Chennai - his father-in-law was born there!
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