Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday indicated Canada would not bend on key demands at talks this week with the United States to update the North American Free Trade Agreement.
"There are a number of things we absolutely must see in a renegotiated NAFTA," he told reporters in British Columbia.
Officials for both sides are scheduled to meet in Washington on Wednesday in a bid to settle some major differences.
Trudeau said on Tuesday, "There are a number of things we absolutely must see in a renegotiated NAFTA," and reiterated he would not sign a bad deal.
U.S. President Trump says the 1994 pact - which underpins $1.2 trillion in annual trade - caused hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs to leave the United States.
The Trump administration, eager for an agreement to be signed soon, wants to scrap a dispute-resolution mechanism that Trudeau says is crucial.
Trump notified Congress that he intended to sign the agreement by the end of November and officials said the text would be published by around Oct. 1.
But Canadian officials, who note increasing political pressure on Trump from U.S. business and labour circles to keep NAFTA as a trilateral arrangement, said they were in no hurry.
"We're not saying we don't want to move swiftly to try and get a deal. But I think certainly we were always intending to take as long as it was going to take," said a government source, who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the situation.
