Federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer flew to London this week on a mission, paid for by his party, to lay the foundation for a post-Brexit free-trade deal with the United Kingdom. Or so he says.

Given that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with his British counterpart, Theresa May, in the fall and did that very thing, this is a bit rich. It’s not like the government has been negligent on the file.

This looks more like one of those times when a Canadian party leader ventures onto foreign soil solely for partisan benefit. That was the suspicion when Mr. Trudeau spent a week in India recently, a trip that produced little other than photos of the PM and his family in front of local landmarks.

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Now Mr. Scheer gets his moment under a foreign sun, shaking hands with British officials and ostensibly laying the groundwork for a trade deal that is already in the offing, on behalf of a country that didn’t elect him to power.

Maybe while he’s there he could also repatriate the Constitution.