The trial for visa-free transit for Chinese citizens is only if you go on a non-stop flight from Canada to PEK, PVG, TPE, HKG or MNL on the approved carriers which I believe are AC, CX, CA, PR and CI. CAN is also on the list but I'm not sure why because none of those carriers operate non-stop service to CAN from Canada.

To answer your question, yes you need a transit visa. The only way I could see around it would be to fly from Canada to PEK first then transit to TYO from there, but that'd be pretty inconvenient.