Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland has promised a “rigorous” Trans-Pacific Partnership consultation, and so far there’s plenty of evidence she and other ministers responsible for the file have been doing just that — meeting and hearing from, it would seem, just about every dissenting voice they can.

What those meetings and feedback are all leading to, however, is still unclear.

In a Wednesday teleconference from Nairobi, Kenya, where Freeland was attending a WTO ministerial, she reminded reporters that the Liberals only got to see the full text of the TPP agreement the day after cabinet was sworn in, on November 4, and that the French translation only became available earlier this month for Canadians to see.

“Right now, we are very much in listening mode,” Freeland said. “I actually met today with some of our Canadian farm groups here in Nairobi. We talked about the WTO but we also talked about the TPP. We are meeting with affected stakeholders…that includes the agricultural sector, it includes the auto sector, it includes intellectual property. And I maybe will just conclude by saying it includes labour. Actually labour hadn’t been consulted prior to last week when we had a very productive meeting with Canada’s leading unions,” she said.

Thank you to Jerry Dias @UniforTheUnion for organizing thoughtful discussion on #TPP‘s impact on auto – Min Freeland pic.twitter.com/jrEMRIDKea — Canada Trade (@CanadaTrade) December 11, 2015

Freeland said the consultation is a whole-of-government approach.

“Minister MacAulay has been working very hard on agricultural stakeholder consultations, sometimes with me, sometimes separately. Minister Nadveep Bains, our minister of innovation, industry and science, has been working very closely with me on the automotive sector consultations. Minister MaryAnn Mihychuk, our minister of labour, economic development and employment, has been working with me with the unions. So this is a very serious discussion with Canadians, in particular with stakeholders, and we are listening to them.”

Though Freeland has signalled the Liberals are prepared to sign the agreement when it comes time for TPP partners to do so, likely in February, she’s also clarified that that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll ratify it. A February signing, for that reason, wouldn’t have to have any impact on the length of the consultation period.

Freeland didn’t give additional details on Wednesday, and Global Affairs Canada has yet to respond to a Tuesday request for more information.

The Global Affairs Canada website provides an email address and invites comments from the public on TPP, but doesn’t give a deadline or say what it plans to do with them.

One possibility would be for the Liberals to do something similar to what the European Commission did for their public consultation on investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) in their ongoing trade negotiations with the U.S.

That consultation lasted between March 27 and July 13, 2014, attracted 150,000 responses, and resulted in a report summarizing the findings last January.

The majority of the responses (120,000) were reportedly generated by eight very critical non-governmental organizations. It’s easy enough to see how something similar could happen in Canada and provide fuel to opponents of an agreement many expect the Liberals will ultimately ratify.

For now, the consultation appears to have no timeline or discernible structure.