Now that Brexit's a go, how about that Canada-U.K. trade deal?

...U.K. election might have settled the question of whether Brexit will proceed, but it didn't settle how it will work, so trade partners such as Canada aren't any farther ahead. 

When the mandate letter for Canada's new minister of small business, export promotion and international trade was published on Friday morning, it didn't list a bilateral trade deal with Britain among Mary Ng's priorities.

Canada's an ally that wants to keep working on good terms with both sides in the U.K.-EU divorce. And until the details are worked out — what tariffs apply to existing supply chains, how customs will operate and how much harder it will be to deliver services across the English channel — it's hard to proceed...

But for now, there's no hustling back to the table.

Canada's negotiators decided to take a walk earlier this year, after an economically anxious Britain, faced with the prospect of a "hard" exit (with no preferential trade agreement), suddenly announced it had lowered nearly all its import tariffs for every country, not just partners with whom they enjoy trade deals now as a member of the European Union.

What would be the rush, Canadian officials reasoned, of offering to let the concessions they'd made to Europe stand, if a desperate U.K. was already planning, at least for a transition period, to offer the entire world low- or no-tariff access to its market, without requiring any preferential treatment in return?..

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a statement congratulating Boris Johnson on his electoral victory Friday, pledging to co-operate on "issues that matter to both of our countries" but notably not listing bilateral trade as one of them...

This was excerpted from 14 December 2019 editio of the CBC News.