Cancelled yoga summit: New details from Trudeau’s India trip

Trudeau’s trip to India was marred by what seemed to be endless photo-ops of him in costume. New documents unearthed By Global reveal that one more photo-op had been planned that never came to fruition.

Indian Prime Minister Nahendra Modi, Trudeau and his wife Sophie, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and some Bollywood celebrities were scheduled to do a public yoga session.

It was to be an hour-long yoga session at dawn, with television cameras and press to boot, that would take place at Humayan’s Tomb in Delhi. The tomb is from the 16th century and is one of India’s most important cultural treasures.

Referred to as the “Yoga Summit”, it was cancelled just before Trudeau left Canada, however.

Prime Minister Nahendra Modi, an avid yoga enthusiast wanted to do the yoga session in an attempt to improve Canada-India relations, according to the detailed to page note prepared for Trudeau. Modi begins his day with a one-hour session.

“Promoting yoga globally has been a soft power priority for Prime Minister Modi,” bureaucrats wrote in a briefing note for Trudeau.

A copy of the briefing was included in the 300-page briefing book given to Freeland so she could prepare to accompany Trudeau on the trip. The briefing book was eventually granted to Global News nearly two years after it had been requested, however much of it had been redacted by bureaucrats.

The United Nations General Assembly declared June 21 the annual International Day of Yoga which was under the guidance of Modi back in 2015

It was believed that the morning yoga session involving the two prime ministers would be useful as an event to “demonstrate people-to-people ties through sports” and “deepen [the] relationship with Prime Minister Modi through sharing his personal love for yoga and supporting India’s yoga cultural diplomacy.”