The American president has invited Canada to become his country’s “51st state,” an idea that has infuriated most of Canada’s 40 million citizens.
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Hence this suggestion: Why not expand the EU to include Canada? Is that so far-fetched an idea? In any case, Canadians have actually considered the question themselves. In February 2025, a survey conducted by Abacus Data on a sample of 1,500 people found that 44% of those polled supported the idea, compared to 34% who opposed it. Better the 28th EU country than the 51st US state!
One might object: Canada is not European, as required for EU membership by Article 49 of the EU Treaty. But what does “European” actually mean? The word cannot be understood in a strictly geographic sense, or Cyprus, closer to Asia, would not be part of the EU. So the term must be understood in a cultural sense.
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As [Canadian Prime Minister Mark] Carney said in Paris, in March: Thanks to its French and British roots, Canada is “the most European of non-European countries.” He speaks from experience, having served as governor of the Bank of England (a post that is assigned based on merit, not nationality). Culturally and ideologically, Canada is close to European democracies: It shares the same belief in the welfare state, the same commitment to multilateralism and the same rejection of the death penalty or uncontrolled firearms.
Moreover, Canada is a Commonwealth monarchy that shares a king with the United Kingdom.
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Even short of a formal application, it would be wiser for Ottawa to strengthen its ties with European democracies rather than with the Chinese regime. The temptation is there: Just before heading to Davos, Carney signed an agreement with Beijing to lower tariffs on electric vehicles imported from China.
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Cant join the Eurozone if we want to keep all of our free trade deals with every other G7 nation (minus the US), and massive number of trade deals with other countries, so we would need some sort of excemption there. Kinda depends if the EU goes for some sort of tiered model in the future.
Could balance out in other ways but its hard to say.
Got my vote!
I do like the idea in theory, but I think Europe, Canada and other like minded countries form a new global community and exclude bad actors. We become one “country” with separate economic/cultural zones. We can all keep our histories but let’s move into a true global society. The EU is effectively built to combat the US hegimony on world economic power, let’s keep that ball rolling and start leading the charge instead of appeasing the warmongers.
rather than with the Chinese regime
This is when to stop reading.
There are two sentences after that phrase and I read both of them.