OTTAWA — Canada and the United Kingdom have done away with restrictions on where firms in one country must store their data while doing business with the other, opening the door to greater digital trade flows even if they have yet to settle on beef and cheese. 

That is one of the changes to trade, investment, procurement and immigration rules between both countries as the Canada-U.K. part of the Pacific Rim trade pact comes into force on Tuesday. In early July, Canada became the last country to ratify the U.K.’s accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). The trading bloc includes a dozen countries representing a combined $19 trillion in gross domestic product, or about 15 per cent of global economic output. It includes Australia, Mexico and Japan, among other member nations. It does not include the United States, which withdrew from an earlier version of the pact during the first Trump administration.

The expanded arrangement between Canada and the U.K. comes as Ottawa tries to forge trading relationships beyond the United States—an effort that has grown in urgency now that negotiations with the Trump administration have once again collapsed, sparking a new round of tariffs and retaliatory duties between the longtime allies. Prime Minister Mark Carney has been promoting the idea of a bridge between the Indo-Pacific trade pact and the European Union, although the 27-nation continental bloc does not expect to formally join the CPTPP.

The U.K., which was the first country to reach a deal with U.S. President Donald Trump after he slapped his so-called reciprocal tariffs on much of the world last year, is also keen to expand its options. In an interview with The Logic last week in Ottawa, British High Commissioner Robert Tinline danced around the suggestion that his country views the CPTPP as a hedge against American protectionism. “We want to build U.K. trade around the world,” he said. “None of us are monogamous on this.” 

Canada and the United Kingdom have had a temporary bilateral trade deal in place since 2021, which was negotiated after Brexit forced the U.K. out of Canada’s agreement with the European Union. That provisional deal already removes 99 per cent of the tariffs on Canadian exports to the U.K., but the CPTPP will give Canadian exporters greater access to the British market for sweet corn, poultry, eggs and some meats, as well as some fish products processed in Canada. (The other agreement remains in effect; businesses can use whichever best suits their situations.)

Tinline suggested the opportunity to expand trade in digital services is a big step forward in the CPTPP,  not least because it lets businesses take part in cross-border electronic payments services. The pact forbids members from imposing restrictions on cross-border data flows when it comes to doing business, including requirements to store data on local servers.

“We spend quite a lot of time talking about other aspects of trade—the cheese and the beef and other bits,” he said. Both countries are grappling with how to expand their digital sectors, including artificial intelligence, while also ensuring there are safeguards in place. (In July, the U.K. followed Australia and Canada in announcing plans for a ban on social media for children under the age of 16.) 

Tinline mentioned Toronto-based Cohere, whose CEO Aidan Gomez met Keir Starmer, then the British prime minister, when Starmer was in Ottawa ahead of the G7 summit last year. “Trying to make it easier for those sorts of companies to work seamlessly between both countries is at the heart of growing the tech space,” the high commissioner said.

The CPTPP also lets Canadian firms compete for government contracts in the U.K., including at the regional and municipal levels. In services, Canadian construction and real estate companies are now on a level playing field with domestic U.K. firms. The agreement also helps protect Canadian investment in the U.K. and vice versa, without hamstringing each government’s right to bring in regulations regarding public safety, the environment or health.

The expanded arrangement also brings more flexibility for business-related travel. Canadians will now be able to remain in the U.K. for up to 90 days within any one-year period, up from a six-month timeframe in the temporary trade deal. Investors can live and work in the U.K. for up to one year to set up and manage investment operations. Canadian highly-skilled professionals, such as architects and engineers, will be able to work on a short-term contract in the U.K. for up to one year—double the maximum length of stay allowed under the bilateral deal.

Last year, the professional regulatory bodies for architects in Canada and the U.K. reached a mutual recognition agreement to make it easier for architects in one country to register to work in the other. Tinline said the U.K. is trying to “encourage that conversation to get further” when it comes to engineers, but when it comes to provincial regulators, “Canada can be complicated.”

So can international trade. In speaking of the U.K.’s desire to expand its trade around the globe, Tinline said it also has choices to make about which countries it can deal with “safely.” The text of the deal the U.K. reached with the U.S. in May 2025 says both countries intended to “strengthen co-operation on economic security, including by co-ordinating to address non-market policies of third countries.” Janice Charette, Canada’s chief trade negotiator to the U.S., said in an interview with CBC News on Saturday the Trump administration had been interested in “constraining or limiting Canada’s ability to enter into future free trade agreements for important products like primary steel that would come into the Canadian market.” Last week, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the request was for a co-ordinated approach.

Asked how the U.K. views its own deal with the U.S. on “non-market economies,” Tinline suggested there is more than one way for Western countries to address the challenge. “We’re making slightly different choices depending on how our economies work,” he said, “and we keep having that conversation with the EU, with the U.S., with Canada, with all of our partners, and looking at what others are doing and thinking about how that informs what we do.”

Meanwhile, Canada and the U.K. still plan to eventually reach a permanent bilateral trade pact. Talks resumed last year under Starmer after breaking off in January 2024 due to the impasse over cheese and the U.K.’s ban on hormone-treated beef. The U.K. “is where it is” on hormone-treated beef, Tinline said, and the CPTPP does not change that. “But the broader conversation that says where we want to take trade between the U.K. and Canada continues,” he said.