TORONTO, May 29 -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi may visit Canada before the end of this year to seal the free trade deal which is currently being negotiated, India's top diplomat in the country said. Modi and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the launch of negotiations towards the comprehensive economic partnership agreement or CEPA when they met in New Delhi in March during the latter's first bilateral visit to India. Two rounds of negotiations have concluded and the third will commence in the weeks ahead in Ottawa. Dates for Modi's visit are under discussion, India's High Commissioner to Ottawa Dinesh Patnaik told the Hindustan Times: "We are expecting him by the end of the year or by the beginning of next year." When the visit does occur, it will be the first standalone bilateral visit by the Indian PM to Canada since April 2015, when Stephen Harper led Canada. Modi never visited the country during Justin Trudeau's decade-long tenure as Canada's PM. Modi did, of course, come to the country in June last year, but that was for the G7 Leaders' Summit in Kananaskis, to which he was invited by Carney. That invitation and their meeting on the margins of the summit at the Alberta resort spurred the reset in bilateral ties. Patnaik was at a reception organised by the Canada-India Foundation or CIF for visiting commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal in Toronto on Wednesday evening. Addressing the gathering, Goyal said, "We have had a serious political reset in our relationship. We are both vibrant democracies who believe in the rule of law. We have the confidence we will not be wrong, either in Canada or in India, justice shall remain, whatever be the circumstances." It was his last engagement in Canada before he travelled to the United States on Wednesday night. Goyal met Carney in Ottawa on Monday, where the Canadian PM sought an accelerated timeline for the conclusion of the CEPA negotiations, wanting the talks to conclude by the end of November. If that comes about, it will set the stage for Modi's visit to finalise the deal with Carney. Patnaik described the commerce minister's visit as "extremely successful", but stressed what was more important were "the signals" that were sent of the "complete reset of relationship, of the complete closeness of cooperation between both sides, and the fact that both countries are working towards a lot of activities in the near future". CIF president Ritesh Malik expressed optimism about the future of India-Canada ties. He said, "I think it was a very good visit and I'm actually very excited to hear in the news that they are 100 per cent sure that they're going to conclude the CEPA in November of this year." Given that relations had cratered under Carney's predecessor Justin Trudeau, such a visit may not have been possible even a year back. But Malik said, "Changes do happen like this only. I'm not too surprised -- this was supposed to happen because what was happening was very unnatural. This is the natural relationship of the two countries, so actually I'm not very surprised." Between June and the end of this year, there will be continuing traffic at the highest levels between the two countries, with several cabinet ministers from both sides expected to travel to strengthen sectoral ties....