Canadian Firm Doubles Down on Pakistan With Massive 240MW Clean Energy Bet

ISLAMABAD: Almost twenty years. That's how long it had been since a Canadian foreign minister set foot in Pakistan. Anita Anand closed that gap this week, and trade was the first thing she talked about.

She marked the visit with a short ceremony at Canada's High Commission planted a tree, said a few words about renewed engagement. "Nearly two decades have passed since a Canadian Foreign Minister last visited Pakistan," she posted on X, adding thanks for the Canadian and locally engaged staff who keep the mission running day to day.

Anita Anand Pakistan Visit Revives Diplomatic Engagement

Behind that gesture sit some actual numbers. Trade between the two countries totaled roughly C$1.2 billion in 2025. Canadian exports to Pakistan jumped 65 percent year-on-year, to C$499.7 million; Pakistani imports into Canada came in at C$696 million, per Global Affairs Canada. Canola is part of that story too shipments had been suspended, resumed late last year, and have already reached C$426 million. Officials signed a phytosanitary protocol on genetically modified canola during the visit. Ottawa also put more than C$47 million on the table for security and development work in Pakistan.

Also Read: Pakistan Turns to Canada's Canola Expertise to Slash $5 Billion Edible Oil Import Bill

Then there's the energy piece, which Anand spent real time on publicly. She pointed to JCM Power, a Canadian firm already running a 50-megawatt wind farm in Sindh 29 turbines, feeding clean power into the regional grid. "The company will soon build on that work through its 240-megawatt Dhabeji hybrid wind-solar project with Karachi Electric," she wrote in a second post.

Before the JCM Power Paragraph

She'd talked with JCM Power's CEO, John Bahen, about what comes next: more generation capacity, a steadier power system for Pakistan. Her words: "Projects like these show how Canadian companies can advance renewable solutions and create new investment opportunities between our countries."

The rest of her schedule in Islamabad was standard diplomatic ground Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi. Dar called the relationship's potential "huge scope" for trade, investment, defence and security cooperation, and both sides committed to annual reviews of a joint statement. Talks on a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement also moved forward, building on a second negotiating round Canada hosted back in June.

Anand's next stop was the Philippines, part of a broader Indo-Pacific push. But the Islamabad leg alone canola, wind power, counterterrorism cooperation, all inside one visit says something about pace. Twenty years of nothing at the ministerial level, and Ottawa just tried to make up for most of it in a single afternoon.