'Easy' UK-Canada trade deal should be secured by end of year: Trudeau

[November 11, 2020] LONDON (Reuters) - Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Wednesday a trade agreement with Britain should be secured by the end of the year, although there was an issue that Britain might not have "bandwidth" to move forward with talks.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at a news conference held to discuss the country's coronavirus disease (COVID-19) response in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. November 6, 2020. REUTERS/Patrick Doyle

"I think we're ready to have it done before January 1. One of the challenges is bandwidth," he told an online conference hosted by the Financial Times.

"The UK hasn't had to negotiate trade deals in the past few decades so there is an issue of not really having the bandwidth within government to move forward on this.

"Canada is a really easy one - we're there for it, we'd like to do it, so I'm very hopeful that it's going to get done, but that is really up to the UK government."

(Reporting by Estelle Shirbon and Michael Holden; editing by Stephen Addison)

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