Well, I agree that CIRA should put a direct link to the registrar's website where the domain can be renewed. But I don't agree that it should be a completely custom template for each registrar, allowing it to become a bunch of marketing baloney. The "valuation" link is beyond what CIRA should be allowing.
IMHO, if CIRA is sending the email, it shouldn't look like anything but an official CIRA notice, that is completely consistent across all registrars. Nothing prevents the registrar from already sending their own messages, in fact, they may have access to many additional email addresses (one for the account and others for whois contacts). So in theory, if there's any chance that the registrant wants to renew the domain, they already have all of the tools to do so.
So CIRA's email shouldn't be any more than fulfilling their official duty of a final notification, with a few courtesy bits of info, that CIRA should require from every registrar. Those bits of info should be concisely listed together in a box, separating it from CIRA's content, and should include the following:
1. the Registrar's renewal link, pre-populated with the domain name.
2. the Registrar's support phone #
3. the Registrar's support email address
4. I'm okay with a small registrar branded logo, as long as it is listed in the box with the rest of this info, and not elsewhere.
And I say it should be required because it should be consistent, and if CIRA think's its s a good practice for the sake of the Registrant, then its a good practice for all Registrars, therefore it should be consistent and required.
So while the idea is sound, there's no need to do a test with one registrar, especially one that could easily pay off CIRA employees for preferential treatment. CIRA has to choose to do business in a way that looks completely unbiased and transparent and on behalf of the REGISTRANT and not anyone else. If you need to test, you have your own test registrars for that. This isn't rocket science or brain surgery, its a bit of text and a link. Just mandate the collection of the data from each registrar and then implement it. This way it will look like CIRA implemented this for the good of the Registrant, and not for the benefit of CIRA and/or a deep pocketed Registrar as another marketing opportunity.