Stewart Beck, who currently serves as his country’s consul general in San Francisco, is among the front-runners to be appointed Canada’s new high commissioner in India soon, according to well placed sources.
Joseph Caron, who is the current envoy in New Delhi, is retiring and leaving to join the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver as an honorary research associate. With Canada signing nuclear and mining deals with India and opening new trade offices in three Indian cities, the likely appointment of Mr Beck will give the much wanted fillip to trade ties between the countries. “A new envoy with expertise in trade will definitely play an important role as India and Canada jointly work on an economic partnership agreement to triple their trade in the coming years,’’ the sources said. —IANS