I think there's an advantage to going first rather than lagging and being second. The U.S. is further ahead than Canada in working on a bilateral agreement with Japan, and I think any additional pressure we can apply to push them along towards ratification would be an effective strategy. Delaying and watching from the outside while the U.S. and Japan have their own bilateral agreement, I think would be a worst-case scenario. We certainly need to work collectively with other countries to get this deal done in as timely a manner as possible.
On April 20th, 2016. See this statement in context.