Canada's objectives for negotiations for a Canada-India Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement

On November 23, 2025, Canada and India announced the launch of negotiations toward a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA). On November 24, 2025, the Government of Canada submitted to Parliament a Notice of Intent (NOI) to enter into these negotiations, in accordance with the amended Policy on Tabling Treaties in Parliament.

In negotiating a CEPA with India, the Government’s objective is to create opportunities and benefits for Canadian businesses, workers and families by reducing barriers to trade, and creating rules that will enhance predictability for traders. The agreement is intended to provide new preferential market access for Canadian goods and services in the world’s fourth largest economy. It will also enhance transparency and predictability in trade relations and strengthen access to Indian supply chains.

The Government will seek to ensure that the CEPA promotes sustainable prosperity and that the benefits of trade with India are widely shared, including among traditionally underrepresented groups. Beyond commercial opportunities, Canada will seek to uphold internationally recognized labour rights principles, advance environmental sustainability, and safeguard the ability of governments to regulate in the public interest, including in areas such as public health and safety, education, social services, and environmental protection. Canada will also seek to preserve flexibility to adopt and maintain measures related to Canada’s cultural sector and seek to fulfill Canada’s legal obligations to Indigenous Peoples, including rights as recognized and affirmed by Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, and the rights set out in self-government agreements. In addition, the Government will preserve the supply management system for dairy, poultry and eggs, by ensuring no further market access is granted for supply-managed goods.

In pursuing the CEPA, the government will continue to be guided by feedback obtained from Canadians during public consultations. This includes feedback received during public consultations which were launched in December 2025 and concluded in January 2026, as well as ongoing engagement with a broad range of stakeholders that will be conducted throughout the negotiating process. Canada’s approach to negotiations will also be guided by a comprehensive Sustainable Trade Impact Assessment.

The government is fully committed to a high level of transparency throughout the negotiation of a Canada-India CEPA. In this spirit, the government is publishing a summary of its objectives for the negotiation of the trade agreement.

In line with the considerations listed above, Canada will seek to negotiate a CEPA:

Trade in goods

National treatment and market access for goods

• Delivers commercially meaningful market access opportunities for Canadian exporters, achieved through the elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers.
• Addresses the concerns of sensitive Canadian sectors. In particular, Canada will continue to fully defend its supply-management system for dairy, poultry and eggs, including by not conceding any additional market access in these sectors.
• Reaffirms and builds upon key international market access commitments and obligations to prevent and address non-tariff barriers.

Rules of origin

• Establishes criteria for determining the origin of goods that are clear, as simple as possible, and leave little room for administrative discretion.
• Includes product-specific rules of origin that take into account existing production patterns, regional integration as well as the sectoral interests of Canadian producers, processors and manufacturers.

Origin procedures

• Sets out the procedures to be used by the customs administrations both to administer the rules of origin and to enable the trade community to take advantage of the preferential tariff treatment afforded under a CEPA.
• These procedures will support the evolving trade environment and allow certification of origin by the exporter with verifications performed on a risk-managed basis after the good is imported.

Customs and trade facilitation

• Affirms and builds upon the WTO Agreement on Trade Facilitation.
• Includes provisions that promote a transparent, predictable and consistent border environment that facilitates legitimate trade in goods, while safeguarding Canada’s ability to protect its borders and provide certainty around Canada’s ability to administer or introduce new measures that ensure or enhance trader compliance with Canada’s laws, regulations or procedural requirements relating to the importation, exportation or transit of goods.

Trade remedies

• Preserves the WTO Agreement’s exclusive governance of trade remedy rights and obligations, including the settlement of related disputes.

Sanitary and phytosanitary measures

• Builds upon the WTO Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) Agreement to enhance transparency, strengthen cooperation and facilitate trade through science-based measures, while preserving each party’s right to take measures necessary for the protection of human, animal or plant life or health.

• Establishes a bilateral mechanism to address and prevent SPS issues.

Technical barriers to trade

• Builds on the key commitments of the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT).
• Promotes regulatory transparency and predictability while preserving each party’s right to regulate in the public interest to achieve legitimate public policy objectives.

Investment and trade in services

Investment

• Includes rules regarding the protection of investment and investors, as well as transparent and predictable rules and disciplines relating to investor-state dispute settlement.

Cross-border trade in services

• Include comprehensive rules on services to secure market access, address barriers, and substantially improve predictability, certainty and transparency. Canada will seek to address disciplines on domestic regulations and provisions to facilitate trade in professional services, including non-binding guidelines for the negotiation of mutual recognition agreements.

Financial services

• Includes a comprehensive outcome for trade in financial services that reflects the unique prudential considerations that are inherent to the financial sector, and includes commitments that provide a level playing field for financial institutions, and a robust prudential carve-out that ensures financial sector authorities can take measures to preserve the integrity, security, and stability of the financial system. Canada will oppose any commitments that would require changes to its existing financial sector legislative and regulatory framework.

Temporary movement of business persons

• Explore avenues to enhance transparency and facilitate the temporary movement of business persons in support of bilateral trade in goods, the supply of services, and the conduct of investment activities, while ensuring the integrity of the domestic labour market is maintained.

Telecommunications

• Fosters a competitive telecommunications marketplace through transparent and effective regulations.

Other areas

Digital trade

• Facilitates trade opportunities through the use of the internet, addresses potential barriers to digital trade and builds consumer and business trust and confidence online.

Government procurement

• Incorporates procedural rules for Government Procurement based on existing international standards that ensures procurements are conducted in a fair, open, and transparent manner.

Intellectual property

• Supports efficient, predictable, and transparent intellectual property (IP) systems, for the administration, protection, and enforcement of IP rights, as well as cooperation in areas of mutual interest, such as IP education and awareness.

Competition policy

• Includes competition policy and consumer protection commitments to ensure that the benefits of trade liberalization are not offset by anti-competitive, misleading or deceptive business activities.

State-owned enterprises and designated monopolies

• Ensures that large commercial state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and designated monopolies operate in accordance with market principles, while recognizing the role of SOEs in the public domain.

Transparency and anti-corruption

• Facilitates a transparent and predictable environment for trade and investment by including provisions aimed at promoting transparency and reducing corruption.

Regulatory cooperation and good regulatory practices

• Supports the development of predictable and evidence-based regulations by encouraging widely accepted good regulatory practices in Canada and India.

Trade and sustainable development elements

• Includes environment and labour provisions to level the playing field for Canadian businesses and ensure that Parties protect the environment and internationally recognized labour rights.
• Seeks to ensure the benefits of trade are widely shared and includes provisions on trade and women’s economic empowerment, trade and Indigenous Peoples, and small and medium-sized enterprises.

Administrative

Dispute settlement

• Provides for fair, transparent, efficient and effective means of resolving disputes relating to the Agreement that arise between the Parties, including consultations and compulsory and binding dispute settlement.

Institutional and general exceptions

• Includes provisions relating to the implementation and ongoing functionality of the agreement, including the creation of an institutional body to oversee implementation and general exceptions.
• Includes exceptions to ensure that the parties retain the right to regulate in the public interest, including for a party’s essential security interest and/or other public welfare reasons.