ABSTRACT
In 2006 Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced his intention to repair the relationship between Canada and India. Since India’s peaceful nuclear explosion (PNE) in 1974, nuclear trade with India – including the export of reactors, technology and fuel – had been subject to an embargo (Touhey 2007, 2008). This reopening of trade talks arrived on the back of Washington’s initiative to engage India effectively as a nuclear weapons state. The initiative would allow nuclear supplier states, as stated in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) waiver, and India to trade in nuclear materials as long as India agreed to IAEA safeguards and inspections. Canada, a long time trade partner with India before 1974, has used the opportunity of the US led initiative as a starting point to reassess Indo-Canadian trade relations.
