Business owners in British Columbia, among those exporting products to India, expressed their concerns about the future of their businesses due to the deterioration of diplomatic relations between Ottawa and New Delhi. India is the fifth-largest trading partner of this Canadian province located on the Pacific Coast.

Sani Brar is a farmer in the city of Langley, which is part of Greater Vancouver, and he is trying to assess alternatives for his blueberry farm.

“It’s extremely scary,” said Brar. As his local sales were declining, Brar was able earlier this year, for the first time, to export about 10% of his fresh blueberry crop to India.

Brar noted that this export project took years of preparation, which leads him to wonder whether his investment was in vain or if he will be able to develop it further.

Sani Brar is collaborating with “Fruitsy,” a company that specializes in supply chain management and exports.

The company owners stated that much of their business is entirely dependent on Indian demand for Canadian fruits.

“India has other options” for importing such fruits, said co-founder of “Fruitsy,” Vivek Doom, “but for us this is our livelihood.”

Doom also added that this situation has made him feel anxious and confused about what he will have to tell the farmers he works with regarding the next year.

Bad timing...

Analysts like Carlo Did from the “Canada West Foundation” (CWF), a think tank and research group focused on public policy in Canada’s western provinces, stated that the recent diplomatic tensions between Canada and India could not have come “at a worse time” as trade negotiations between the two countries, as part of Canada’s new Indo-Pacific strategy, were about to begin.

Before Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s surprising announcement in the Canadian Parliament regarding India, the federal government’s Minister of International Trade and Economic Development, Mary Ng, canceled a trade mission to the country that was scheduled for October.

It is noteworthy that Trudeau announced to the Canadian House of Commons earlier last week credible allegations that India was behind the assassination of Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia last June. Following that, diplomatic representation between the two countries was reduced, and India suspended processing visa applications from Canadian citizens.

However, despite the current uncertainty, Carlo Did expects trade between the two countries to continue, as it did when relations between Canada and China soured in recent years.

Did believes that trade between the two countries will continue to grow as long as neither imposes sanctions or bans on the other.