For a while, the Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union, which provisionally entered into force on 21 September 2017, seemed to be the preferred post-Brexit default option for the United Kingdom, at least in the eyes of the prime minister, Boris Johnson, who on 3 February 2020 declared, “We want a comprehensive free trade agreement, similar to Canada’s.”1 But the initial suggestion of aiming for an ambitious “CETA+” soon lost steam and the Conservative government started instead to talk about a more basic CETA-like agreement that would allow the UK to escape key EU regulations and to align with the EU's regulatory regime at the lowest level possible. And then, when negotiations between the EU and the UK officially started, the UK turned even further away from the CETA template by stressing the goal of regulatory independence.

From an analytical perspective, the idea that the CETA could be a model for the UK seemed a little far-fetched from the outset, for three reasons. First, the UK's economy (2019 gross domestic product (GDP) = $2,910 billion), is much larger than Canada's economy (2019 GDP = $1,730 billion) and, usually, size counts when it comes to the scope of trade agreements. Second, the UK is much more relevant, in terms of exports and imports, to EU economies than it is to Canada. This observation holds particularly for financial services, where, as will be seen below, the CETA does not even go beyond existing World Trade Organization (WTO) practices. Third, the gravity model shows that distance is critical in regard to trade volumes. The CETA is an agreement between faraway entities and can't be easily used as a model for neighbouring economies.

However, analytical considerations often do not square with political considerations, and so CETA might yet become an option for the UK–EU negotiators if the Johnson government's “hard Brexit” option does not materialize. But given that, as matters currently stand, the transition period ends on 31 December 2020, it would be an illusion to expect that a CETA-style agreement could be negotiated in the few months left before then, especially given that the Covid-19 pandemic has interrupted and badly delayed talks between the parties.