Leaders share solemn moments, then get down to business

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined Stephen Harper in a visit to the Etobicoke memorial to the victims of the 1985 Air India bombing before setting off on the Vancouver leg of his state visit to Canada.

Amid tight security, the two prime ministers placed wreaths at the site in Humber Bay Park and met briefly with families of some of those killed when the plane was blown out of the skies off the Irish coast.

The stop followed a round table at which Modi and Harper sat down with business leaders.

Modi extolled India’s virtues as a trade partner.

“I see the rare combination of capability and opportunities coming together,” he said.

“I can visualize the heights we can attain.”

Harper said Canada’s trade relationship with India was important.

“It’s our sense that much, much more can be done . . . to realize the potential between us,” Harper said.

Modi is the first Indian prime minister in more than four decades to make a stand-alone visit to Canada — and Harper and thousands of others have greeted him enthusiastically.

Critics, however, brand him a Hindu extremist responsible for hundreds of deaths in his home state in 2002, but protesters have been kept well away from his events.

At a packed Toronto arena on Wednesday night, Modi gave a lengthy speech — part politics, part homily — in which he praised India’s new-found confidence as a developing economic power.

He returned to that theme Thursday in his meetings with business leaders, praising Canada as a country with great strengths.

“If you want to come to India in the financial sector, we are proceeding with reforms very rapidly,” he said.

“As far as the infrastructure sector, there are immense opportunities and in fact you can make projects for the next 50 years.”