For member nations, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) is already proving to be a boon for business. However, the potential of a free trade pact in the form of a Canada–Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (CJEPA) has not attracted much international attention.
Following the March 7, 2012, release by Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Report of the Joint Study on the Possibility of a Canada-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement, such a deal was proposed during former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s March 25, 2012, visit to Japan, when he and then-Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced the launch of comprehensive and high-level economic partnership agreement (EPA) negotiations.
In November 2014, the then-chief Canadian trade negotiator Ian Burney — who is now the Canadian ambassador to Japan (page 11) — spoke in Tokyo about the possibilities that might result from a CJEPA.
