Half of Canadians favour joining EU | Hacker News Reader

Half of Canadians favour joining EU

westernstandard.news

34 pointsdoener34 comments

Link to the poll itself, which has other data and insights: https://abacusdata.ca/what-canadians-think-about-canada-join...

For those unfamiliar with it, Western Standard sits in a similar factuality and bias position as Fox https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/western-standard-bias/

I remember in high school learning about the development of Nation-states, and reflecting that the idea that the concept of being "American", as belonging to a nation-state, was something I never had to even considered being "invented".

On a similar vein, I was shocked when I learned in school that Germany only truly became a Nation-state country in 1871! Of course German culture and peoples date back far longer, but still to think that "Germany the Nation" that would fight WWI & WWII only started a few decades prior to WWI!

I'm bringing this up, because most people living in the West have lived through a remarkably stable period of geopolitics. There's a world order most of us have in our minds that more-or-less has existed since WWII.

However, independent of your political disposition, I think we'll soon be living through a period where the world again changes in dramatic ways. In ways that may one day become completely taken for granted, but for the time being are going to be major challenges to people's understanding of the world.

Sort of. The Rhine-based Holy Roman Empire controlled the germanic lands from the early middle ages until Napoleon. The 1871 empire was a partial revival after a lapse of a few decades. <insert lots of handwaving>

And in-between there was the German Confederation and the hope of the sadly unrealised Frankfurt Constitution.

When I see polls showing how the US and other countries are divided, I question why is the idea of keeping the country as one still a rule.

I think if individual Canadians were asked what the specific benefits and responsibilities of joining the EU would be, they[1] wouldn’t have an answer.

A poll like this shows ideological leanings, but Canadians simply aren’t well informed about what participation in the EU entails

Edit: [1] the vast majority of Canadians* Most Canadians I know barely follow Canadian politics, and know even less about how the EU functions

It’s also likely unnecessary for us to join the EU.

Unless the US becomes totally and competently belligerent towards us, we don’t need to join the EU. This would only make sense in very extreme circumstances (knock on wood).

I would worry more about our incompetent belligerence. The EU is not a defense pact like NATO. It's a free trade and movement zone. It couldn't help you if the US actually attacked you, but it can provide a market for your goods if the US shuts down the border.

We're not going to invade. That's just the loud-stupid stuff so that people miss the quiet-stupid stuff. Your economy is in bigger jeopardy than your territory, but that's sufficient to seek alternate arrangements.

As I understand it, we would get:

- defensive alliance that includes a nuclear power, France

- free trade with Europe to replace some of our lost US trade

1) Don't you already have that? 2) Don't you already have a trade deal with the EU?

You'd reduce your ability to control borders and immigration levels + have to adopt the EU regulatory burden

Yes, but at the price of our independence.

I love Europe, but I would not in anyway be okay with EU politicians from other countries imposing laws on us. I like that we can govern ourselves.

Agreed but would be nice to have a backstop in case of invasion from either the North or South. I guess Nato is already supposed to do that though.

Furthermore, I was wrong about trade: we already have free trade agreements with all the rest of the rich world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_trade_agreements_of_Canad...

Maybe we just need an expansion of East-West infrastructure so as to shift some of that easy default US trade elsewhere.

>defensive alliance that includes a nuclear power, France

Isn't the king of Canada the same person as the king of the UK, which is also a nuclear power with nuclear weapons? What extra is France bringing to the mix?

This is such a shallow comment. EU is in fact defenseless (at least til the next 5 years), and terrified of US leaving the Europe. It can’t hold back Russia, a country far smaller than EU in population and GDP.

Canada could have trade agreements with other countries. Being part of EU is not in Canada’s interest. It could operate like Switzerland, maybe.

How in the world can the EU "not hold back Russia"?

After the past few years, do you believe that if Russia invaded the EU, it would win?

I’m not sure if I follow. It’s been 3 years and Ukraine, with the support of US and EU, has lost significant territory. If US withdraws, EU/Ukraine will clearly be in a very bad situation.

EU currently doesn’t have proper air defense, military and army. It will take at least 5 years to build the required capabilities.

The US + EU is fighting by proxy (less efficient than direct), in a limited fashion, and very reluctantly at that.

Even that's been enough to extend Putin's "three day" war into three years with colossal losses on both sides, and a completely unsustainable situation in Russia.

If Russians set foot on EU soil, the game changes much for the worse for Russia.

You are spreading nonsense. Russia and Europe have a rich history of invading each other. This isn't even the first time Crimea has been captured and re-taken.

Poland alone could probably manage it, and I'm fairly sure the UK would join also. Simple comparison of military forces will give you your answer.

Joining the EU wouldn’t just be a way to make us less reliant on the US, it would also have us switch our currency, revamp our immigration system and allow foreign representatives of other EU nations to impose laws on us.

While I’m not in favour of becoming the 51st state, I’m also not in favour of becoming EU’s 28th state either.

Joining the Euro is optional, several countries have not. Joining Schengen is optional, several countries have not. I'll grant you the laws part but if you read them you might find you like them.

Edit: You perhaps meant free-movement of people from other EU states, which is true, but generally considered a mutual-benefit.

It would make more sense for Canada to have a free trade agreement like the EFTA, than joining the European Union. There's the CETA already, but it's still provisional after over seven years.

>allow foreign representatives of other EU nations to impose laws on us.

This is, of course, wrong. EU doesn't function like that at all.

~48.3% of the US would probably be happy to join the EU.

That's unlikely given the internal strife inside that 48.3% (i.e. the "democratic" voters). The EU as a whole encompasses not only groups which are aligned with the current "democratic" party but also several groups which are more in line with the current Republican party line. Joining the EU would dilute the "democratic" vote and increase the power of those whom they consider to be "enemies of democracy".

I hope the "democratic" party burns down to ashes and that a new Democratic party will arise from those ashes, one which does not need to be put between quotes and which deserves the capital D. The same has happened with the Republican party which currently stands more united and stronger than they've been in a long time. While this may be good for them it is not good for the USA to have one of the two parties be in disarray for an extended period, the system is built around having the two main parties hold each other in check. The current "democratic" party has shown it does not have the capability to put up any believable sort of opposition against the Republicans which runs the risk of those Republicans getting delusions of grandeur. They need to be kept in check just like the "democratic" party needed to be - and was as a result of the last elections - kept in check.

So, Democrats, pick up your pitchforks and torches and burn the whole thing down so that something better may arise, preferably before 2028. Trump did the same to the Republican party, now it is your turn. Ditch the identity politics, get rid of the looney lefties, listen to your (potential) voters - and by that I do not mean only those with funny coloured hair in the humanities departments but especially those out in the boonies, those who never went to college - and please stop the absurd reductio-ad-Hitlerum and demonisation of anyone who dares to voice an opinion outside of what is tolerated in the hallowed halls of Harvard, Yale and Princeton.

ah, mister no politic rule * is at it again, this time telling the left to become more like the lunatic right in order to win the elections

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43122960

Yes, what's good for the goose is good for the gander after all or - in Dutch - 'Gelijke monniken, gelijke kappen'.

Say, mr. complain-about people calling for comment equity (everybody can play this game), I'd be interested to hear whether you agree or disagree with what I wrote, both here as well as the previous times you complained. Instead of going ad-hominem the discourse here would be improved by trying to get to the core problem, that what lies behind the smouldering fires in western politics. That core problem is the intense polarisation which pits the 'good' side against the 'bad' one - where 'good' and 'bad' depend on which side you're on - instead of the realisation that we're mostly on 'our' side and might want to settle these petty disputes so we stand a chance of first of all standing at all instead of lying down and second standing our ground here in 'the West'.

if you want to reframe the debate from good vs. bad to west vs. invaders, you might have first to recognize that the current US administration is compromised by Russia, if not completely owned

and who more than Russia wants to abolish identity politics?

Russia, Russia, Russia - sure.

Let's see where the current negotiations around the ceasefire in Ukraine lead to.

What do you think will be the outcome and, maybe even more important, what do you hope will be the outcome? I'll give you mine: I hope the talks lead to a ceasefire which will lead to an end to the conflict. I think Russia will keep control over the Krim peninsula and the Donbass region. I can more or less support the former given that the population of that area seems to largely support it and the area used to be part of Russia until Khrushchev added it to Ukraine in the 50's, I am less enthusiastic about the latter but I do not see how the conflict can be resolved at this moment without this compromise. One solution would be to have a referendum in the area but it will be hard if not impossible for such a referendum to take place without it being influenced by either parties in the conflict. I also suspect that the outcome of such a referendum would be a very close call even without undue influence given that this region was also (next to the Krim peninsula) the least enthusiastic when a referendum was held to decide whether Ukraine should declare independency from the Soviet Union [1].

Here's some background to chew on while you consider your answer:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/realpolitik

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/2017-0...

https://politicaldictionary.com/words/realpolitik/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Ukrainian_independence_re...

so you demonstrated that you personally are not as compromised as the administration, congrats i guess?

I notice that you did not answer my question on where you stand on these subjects. Please do so instead of posting yet another snarky comment, it would be interesting to know and improve the discourse on this site.

> I'd be interested to hear whether you agree or disagree with what I wrote

Well I disagree, which is why i snarked that you were "telling the left to become more like the lunatic right in order to win the elections".

If you want more depth to it: please let the Democrats solve their issues by themselves, the way we let you dissolve the GOP into Единая Россия

> Well I disagree

With what exactly? In the course of our 'discussion' - which consisted of me attempting to discuss while having ad-hominems and snark thrown at me by you - a few questions arose, namely:

> you were "telling the left to become more like the lunatic right in order to win the elections".

Well, no, that is not what I said as will be understood by anyone who does not let his emotions take over when confronted with someone with a dissenting voice. Here's what I said:

Read this again and you'll notice I do not call for the "democratic" party to become more like the lunatic right - you seem to have been triggered by my use of the term looney lefties here - but instead call for the party to stop focusing on their extreme fringe so they can function as effective opposition to the currently fairly united Republican party. They don't need to become more like the Republicans in policy but in appeal to the electorate and they'll only accomplish that by moving their public focus (which is different from their internal focus, another problem they need to solve) away from the divisive identity politics and fringe interests. They need to get over [their] preening and [their] moral superiority [1] as James Carville pointed out not that long ago, climb down that rickety ivory tower they built themselves and start focusing on reality, stop larping revolutionaries. That way they might stop bleeding people towards the Republican party - notice that a sizeable fraction of the current top in that party used to be "democrats" (including the orange man himself) while the "democratic" party pulled in Liz Cheney and her ilk - and start gaining mass appeal. While that term might sound "dirty" to the academic fringe with diverse hair colours it is essential to keep the other side in check and that is what I am calling for.

Now to my other question: What do you think will be the outcome and, maybe even more important, what do you hope will be the outcome with regard to the negotiations around the war in Ukraine. You did not answer this question either but gave a snarky comment about me not being 'as compromised as the administration'. I'm still interested in hearing your take on this, do you think it is time for Realpolitik or should this proxy war continue? If the former, how? If the latter, why?

[1] https://www.dailywire.com/news/james-carville-has-dating-adv...

Yeah, no.

When I was younger, I thought, "wouldn't it be nice if Canada could join the EU?" (this was when the UK was part of the EU)

It would mean: (1) I could live work in the EU indefinitely, and there are a ton of great cities to live in like Lisbon, Amsterdam and Barcelona; (2) I could take all the high-speed rail I wanted, and travel every weekend. (3) I wouldn't have to worry about healthcare, education or any basic needs. I would have 4-6 weeks of vacation every year. (4) mostly, it meant I could be "European" = refined, liberal, worldly, speaking many languages.

It was very much a young person's dream.

But I've traveled all of Western Europe over the course of 20 years, and I realized while the above was true in some sense, there were some essential trade-offs. If you wanted to work on leading edge stuff, the EU was not the place (I worked for a German company, one of the largest in the world and the marketing made it look very cool and advanced, but peel off the layers and I found a culture that was very conservative and risk-averse). Europe is also not friendly to immigrants -- unlike North America -- which meant I had to give up the diversity of food and cultures from other parts of the world in favor of only European diversity. Also, the pay is relatively low in Europe. Which is ok since all the expensive parts of life like healthcare and education are covered, but you have to be realistic about whether that is the life you want.

The European economy (outside of pockets like the Nordics and the Netherlands) is also less dynamic than most of the emerging world and North America. It's the sort of a slower, more mature economy that has had a good run over the last few decades, but is starting to show strains under a more competitive ecosystem.

As an older young person, I no longer believe Europe is the place to be if you want to be part of a dynamic economy.

As a Canadian who just wants to work a bit (not too much) and enjoy life, joining the EU makes sense. But if that's the reason motivating most people, it's a bit of a perverse incentive -- it's not going to lead to growth.

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