I don’t think that will work. We can’t have centralized decisions being made for Canada in Brussels and through consensus with a bunch of countries who we don’t even share a continent with. That being said, we exist because of mother France and father Britain (who unceremoniously left the family). So we will ALWAYS be aligned with Europe.
liberal counterweight to autocratic hegemony
Nobody is expecting the European Commission.
I’m Canadian. Sign me up! I remember as a lad in the 1960’s that commercials on TV compared Canada to the nordic countries, not america. That’s right around the start of “capitalization” when “business administration” students were pushed out of colleges in huge numbers and everything slowly went to hell.
I like the idea, although our provinces would have to give up quite a bit of their sovereignty which would be a hard sell politically. We have more trade barriers between our provinces than the EU has.
We’re a good sized market, but not so big that the EU would be willing to put up with 10 exceptions to their rules.
Although I’d welcome the idea, there is an important caveat : Canada is a financial sovereign now but would have to give that up. All countries in euroland use a foreign currency called “the euro”. We have a central bank but no central government. Members are expected to finance themselves on the private market. Where as today Canadian government can buy any local goods and services it wants as long as they’re priced in canadian dollars. EU is great but needs to fix its design faults before we can expand again
I also like it that their King Charles III has no say in it while some other parts of the commonwealth left EU in recent history.
EU here, yes pls. I’ve never been there but I’ve always loved the idea of Canada. Hospitality, human rights, healthcare, … all values we should hold high and unite over.
As Canada isn’t in Europe, some renaming has to happen… perhaps Freedom Union?
That term has been thoroughly tainted.
Only in one certain country, so it works.
A union of nation states that value freedom.
United States of Freedom?
French Guyana isn’t in Europe either and nobody cares, so there’s precedent.
Yes, and both French Guyana and Canada have the same economic power. And so have the Caribbean overseas territories of France and the Netherlands.
Your point being?
How about Canada becomes an EU
colonyoverseas territory instead of a full member?
Canadian here. Interesting points. I feel most Canadians would be cautiously open to the idea. How do EU regular people feel?
Generally warm and soft
German here - come on over! We need new english speakers since we lost the brits lol
We speak French and Indigenous languages too.
Most of Europe does just fine with English speaking on their own, and some would argue better than the Brits.
Just don’t let the French hear the Quebecois, they’ll veto straightaway.
Hey, we’re willing, nay desperate, to come back. Well, most of us, just not the sodding politicians!
Canadians need to up their standards and stop setting on being American-lite.
I have been in Canada for over 20 years and little by little I have realized most of what I like from Canada is what we inherited/copied from Europe and everything I hate came from the dumpster fire below.
As always, the devil is in the details, but in general I would welcome any stronger alliance with the EU
According to the article, Canada is above the average EU member on property rights protection, judicial independence, regulatory coherence, trade openness, and social security systems, low corruption, regulatory clarity, and overall investment climate, higher education quality, corporate research and development spending, patent registrations, and the diffusion of advanced technologies —from broadband infrastructure to digital services. The next line: In short, Canada already behaves like a de facto member of the club in all but name.
Our food, climate and vehicle standards need to be upgraded though.
Sounds manageable. 🤷
Paper is different than reality
As a European, i am happy that my country is in the European Union, would be bad otherwise for various reasons;
yeah, they sometimes do bad decisions, but overall it’s great-- chat control is the biggest shit but we should reject it as much as we canI love the idea.
I think a lot of Europeans would be against the idea tbh.
Canadian here, yes please
As a Brit who emigrated to Canada, I’d be delighted if this is how I finally get my EU citizenship back.
EU here. Hell yes!
Article is too long…
It’d be a little weird as Canada is not in Europe but other than that it’d be a perfect fit. Much better fit than Turkey or even Hungary…
Could rename it to the Earth Union and keep the acronym
Euro-Arctic Union?
Earth United has a better ring to it.
Atlantic Union?
AU is taken, mate. But I reckon Australia would be bloody on board too.
Yeah but then we’d need to change the name again
Easy. Atlantic Sea Society!
Cyprus is in Asia, and is a member of the EU and was allowed because it was “politically and culturally European”. It could be argued that Canada would qualify under those same circumstances.
We even have something that Cyprus doesn’t, and land border with an EU country (Denmark), and a sea border with an EU country (France).
And while we were independent of the UK from a governmental point of view, we were still a dominion of the UK until 1982, which means we even have historical precedence in the EU as an overseas territory, though never in an official way.
Neither is the South American continent but part of it is in the EU too.
Australia as well please, love to join the grand EU project. Anything that brings people closer together in a fractured world is a good thing.
This would be wonderful!
After reading the article, I am still not sure whether that’s a good idea because such an expansion likely comes with additional conflicts. Wouldn’t mind a EU & Friends though. In general Canada has been very stable, reasonable and constructive in the last years.
There actually is an “EU & Friends” called the EEA. Would be pretty nice to have our Canadian Friends here.
I’m going to play Devil’s Advocate here: I’m against this because many European projects are incompatible with Canada. In some parts, Canada’s infrastructure is as bad as the USA’s. Look at public transport, for example. Everything is car centric, and if you’re not rich enough to own a car, you’re basically excluded from public life, I don’t mean this in an elitist type of way. Even Germany has significantly better public transport than Canada. Many of the other networking projects such as TEN-T or ETCS do not make sense as it is quite literally separated from the EU. Common standards are only useful when everyone agrees to use them. But as Canada would be the only EU state on the North American continent, they would be the only ones using it. Enhanced political cooperation and trade is always a positive thing, but the EU is more than just FTAs and other diplomatic pleasantries. IMHO.
There might be some goals/milestones required for joining and doing something about things like this could be one.
Everything is car centric, and if you’re not rich enough to own a car, you’re basically excluded from public life
Amsterdam changed.
Seriously, visiting North America is “we’ve tried adding a [car] lane to the highway and can’t figure out why nobody is cycling or taking transit.”
Transportation networks indeed make little sense when there’s an ocean in between. Too bad the USA can’t play nicely with others.
Common standards would be a challenge, in some areas -can’t do electrical because 50hz vs 60hz and deep integration with USA grid. The NEMA plugs are a bit of a nightmare. But for vehicle safety and emissions it would be a step forward; more countries adopted the EU than US standards there.
It’s actually changing here too, at least in cities. Bike lanes being added, streets being repurposed back to foot and bike traffic. Improved public transit.
I don’t even think the electrical changes would be hard because of US integration, it would be hard because of so much of it. We could switch. Most houses already have a 240 circuit needed for things like car chargers, dryers and ovens. You could easily retrofit a house. But the grid feeding that house would need to be rebuilt from the ground (pun intended) up.
Edit: re electricity: We apparently did this in the early 50s once already. We were on a 25hz system, and power technicians went to every single house and retrofitted them to go from 25 to 60hz. Wild. I just learned that.
many European projects are incompatible with Canada.
That can change, it’s just matter of will.
