12. Canada and International Regulatory Cooperation: A Comparison of USMCA, CETA and CPTPP

Regulatory coordination now covers most areas of public regulation and, increasingly, corporate governance. With globalization, the debate has taken on a new twist, as far as trade along value chains, commercial services or electronic commerce are concerned. However, despite some notable progress, the number of countries that have a coordinated approach or that use impact analysis remains limited. A new path has been taken since the 2010s, that of preferential trade agreements. Three of them deserve attention in this chapter: the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the latest, the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement. The chapter highlights three points: (1) even if the common objective is to improve the efficiency of regulatory processes, political principles, priorities and procedures are very different in each agreement; (2) despite all the precautions taken by Canada, there is every reason to believe, given the gravity effect, that regulatory cooperation will continue to strengthen in North America in favor of the United States; and (3) in view of this, transatlantic regulatory dialogue is likely to be a source of misunderstanding and disillusionment for both Canadians and Europeans.