But Badenoch — who walked away from negotiations on a trade deal with Canada amid a row over food standards — told MPs late last month that she could “state explicitly that the talks have not broken down” and discussions on the rules of origin issue were “ongoing.”
Canadian officials subsequently pushed back, telling POLITICO in January “there has been no discussion separately on rules of origin.”
That claim was bolstered in a letter sent by Ottawa’s top diplomat in the U.K., Ralph Goodale, to the chair of the Commons business and trade committee, Labour MP Liam Byrne, which was published on Tuesday.
Goodale said there had been “neither negotiations nor technical discussions with respect to any of the outstanding issues.”
Byrne raised the issue in a point of order in the House of Commons on Wednesday.
“How do we get to the bottom of whether these trade talks are going on in the secretary of state’s mind or whether they’re happening in real life?” he asked.
