Three small Pacific nations — Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore — quietly built a framework in 2020 to govern something traditional trade law has never fully grasped: commerce that moves as data rather than goods. Canada, a country with much to gain and a relevant trade history in the Pacific, has signalled interest in joining but has not acted with urgency. In the long arc of how nations shape the rules that govern their economies, the difference between arriving early and arriving late is often the difference between authorship and inheritance.
Canada must accelerate DEPA membership to shape digital trade rules
Get in early, shape the rules, or inherit them.
Mark
So this is about Canada joining a trade agreement. Why does it matter that we do it soon rather than later?
Mimi
Because the agreement is still being shaped. Right now, the rules for how data moves across borders, how countries handle algorithmic bias, how intellectual property gets protected in a digital economy—all of that is still being negotiated. If Canada joins now, we help write those rules. If we join in five years, we inherit them.
Luke
But how much actual power does Canada have in DEPA? It's a club of three small economies plus whoever joins. The real leverage is still with the US, EU, and China, right?
Mimi
That's exactly the point. Those three have been dominating the conversation so far. DEPA is a way for smaller countries to build a coalition and have a voice before those powers lock in their preferred frameworks.
Mark
And Canada already has most of these provisions in other trade deals?
Mimi
Yes. The CPTPP—Canada's Pacific trade agreement—already has digital chapters that align with much of what DEPA proposes. So joining isn't a huge regulatory lift for Canada.
Luke
Then what's the actual cost of waiting? If the provisions are similar to what we've already agreed to, why is timing so urgent?
Mimi
Because DEPA is designed to become a template for larger agreements, possibly even at the WTO level. The countries that shape it early will have influence over those larger frameworks. Canada learned this lesson with the CPTPP—we joined late, after the key terms were already settled.
Mark
So this is really about positioning for the next decade of global trade rules?
Mimi
Exactly. The digital economy is where commerce is heading. The rules being written now will govern trillions of dollars. Canada either helps write them or lives by them.
Luke
Fair enough. But the source material doesn't say what Canada's actual negotiating position would be, or whether we'd have any real leverage once we're in. That's a gap worth naming.
Mimi
True. The case for joining is strong on principle—get in early, shape the rules, avoid being locked out. But the practical question of what Canada would actually push for, and whether we'd win it, that's not addressed here.
The Pulse
- The Digital Economy Partnership Agreement is no longer a quiet experiment — China has applied, other nations are lining up, and what began as a conversation among three mid-sized economies is rapidly becoming the blueprint for global digital trade governance.
- Canada flagged its interest in joining more than a year ago, but the file has stalled while the window for meaningful influence quietly narrows.
- The stakes are concrete: trillions of dollars in e-commerce flow annually through systems whose deeper rules — who captures data wealth, who polices algorithmic harm — remain dangerously unsettled.
- Canada's existing Pacific trade commitments already align with much of DEPA's framework, meaning membership would demand adaptation, not reinvention — the barrier is political will, not policy distance.
- DEPA is designed to grow into something larger, potentially a WTO-level digital trade template, and the nations that shape its early architecture will carry outsized influence into that future.
Three small Pacific nations — Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore — quietly built a framework in 2020 to govern something traditional trade law has never fully grasped: commerce that moves as data rather than goods. Canada, a country with much to gain and a relevant trade history in the Pacific, has signalled interest in joining but has not acted with urgency. In the long arc of how nations shape the rules that govern their economies, the difference between arriving early and arriving late is often the difference between authorship and inheritance.
In 2020, Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore launched the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement — a trade framework built not around physical goods moving through ports, but around data moving through networks. It was a quiet beginning. Two years later, it is becoming something much larger, and Canada, which signalled interest in joining over a year ago, has yet to move.
The agreement takes on three distinct challenges: smoothing the mechanics of cross-border digital commerce, creating principled pathways for data flows, and building trust frameworks to address algorithmic bias, privacy, intellectual property, and the novel risks of an economy built on intangibles. These are not theoretical concerns — global e-commerce already moves trillions of dollars annually through systems whose foundational legal architecture was sketched in the 1990s and whose deeper governance questions remain unresolved.
What makes DEPA's origins significant is precisely who launched it. Not Washington, Brussels, or Beijing — but three mid-sized economies that recognized an opportunity to shape global rules before the major powers could consolidate their preferred frameworks. Those same three nations were instrumental in building the CPTPP, a Pacific trade agreement Canada eventually joined — but only after the most consequential terms had been set without Canadian input. That history carries a warning.
Canada's position is, in fact, unusually well-suited for membership. Much of DEPA's framework already mirrors the digital chapters Canada accepted under the CPTPP, meaning accession would require commitment rather than transformation. The real argument is about timing: joining while rules are still being written, rather than inheriting them once they are settled.
The deeper reason for urgency is that DEPA is explicitly designed to expand — potentially into a WTO-level digital trade framework. The countries that shaped its early architecture will carry disproportionate influence into that larger conversation. Canada's consultations began in early 2021. They have not accelerated. There is no formal deadline, but the window between writing the rules and living by them does not stay open indefinitely.
Three small Pacific economies—Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore—launched something two years ago that is only now beginning to register on the international stage. The Digital Economy Partnership Agreement, born in 2020, was designed to tackle a problem that traditional trade deals have barely begun to address: how to govern commerce that happens entirely in data, across borders, through platforms, without the physical goods that customs officials once inspected at ports.
Canada noticed. More than a year ago, the country signalled interest in joining. But the file has stalled. Meanwhile, the world is moving. Countries are lining up to enter. Even China has applied. What was once a quiet conversation among three mid-sized trading nations is becoming a template that could reshape how the global economy regulates itself—and Canada risks arriving late to a negotiation that will determine the rules for decades.
The agreement addresses three concrete challenges. First, it aims to smooth the mechanics of digital trade itself—the seamless movement of transactions, services, and commerce across digital networks. Second, it creates pathways for data to flow across borders in ways that respect both commercial need and national security. Third, and most contentiously, it builds frameworks for trust: how to handle algorithmic bias, privacy violations, intellectual property theft, competition concerns, and the dozen other novel risks that emerge when commerce becomes invisible and instantaneous.
These are not abstract problems. The global e-commerce system already moves trillions of dollars annually. The technical architecture—domain names, electronic signatures, the legal scaffolding—was largely settled in the 1990s. What remains unsettled is far harder: who gets to capture the wealth generated by data, and who sets the rules for an economy built on intangibles rather than things. Until now, that conversation has been dominated by the largest players: the United States, the European Union, China. Smaller countries have had almost no voice in framing the rules that will govern their own digital futures.
This is where DEPA's origins matter. It was not launched by Washington or Brussels or Beijing. It came from three countries with modest economies that saw an opportunity to build a coalition before the major powers locked in their preferred frameworks. The three founders also happened to be instrumental in creating what became the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership—the CPTPP—which Canada eventually joined, though only after the most consequential terms had already been negotiated without Canadian input. That experience carries a lesson.
Canada's position is unusually advantageous. Many of DEPA's provisions already align with the digital chapters in the CPTPP, the trade agreement Canada is already party to. Joining would not require wholesale policy shifts or domestic regulatory overhauls. It would mean committing to standards Canada has essentially already accepted. The real advantage is timing: getting in now, while the membership is still forming and the rules are still being written, rather than arriving later as a supplicant to terms already settled by others.
But there is a second layer to this. DEPA itself may be only the beginning. The agreement is explicitly designed with expansion in mind—it is meant to grow, to absorb new members, and eventually to serve as a template for something larger, possibly even a digital trade framework within the World Trade Organization itself. If that happens, the countries that shaped DEPA's early architecture will have outsized influence on the global rules. Those who join late will inherit them.
Canada's consultations on membership began in early 2021. They have not accelerated. The argument for speed is not about missing a deadline—there is no formal deadline. It is about the difference between helping to write the rules and having to live by them. The window for the former is closing.
Notable Quotes
What starts small can quickly become global and hugely influential.— Robert Fay and Dan Ciuriak, Centre for International Governance Innovation
Want the full story?
Read the original at The London Free Press ↗
Economy & Finance