So, easier to sell stuff, easier to buy stuff, free to just travel to/from Canada/EU and work there with no extra paperwork, free to buy and sell service from Canada to EU and vice versa.
No Euro, no vote in EU, no ECJ, no payments into each others budget.
Tighter integration than UK, not as tight as Norway/Switzerland/Iceland.
Common defense was already agreed anyhow.
I can tell you this enjoys broad support in the EU public. Although, no joke, a lot of peoples first reaction is: "They need to compete in Eurovision first. Otherwise they should wait for Australia to join first."
> no payments into each others budget.
Not going to happen!
To enable free movement of goods and services the EU insists that the goods and services are produced in an identical regulatory environment.
Even when the regimes are basically identical - eg the UK - then the EU doesn't permit it without budgetary contributions.
This trade matter is likely going to require a new type of agreement that has some special privileges not extended in any other case for both parties.
All depends on what an associate member is of course.
Because you simply wouldn't be offered the option of just deescalating your full membership to an associate membership. If you want to leave, you leave fully, and then in time we can discuss what happens next. Also, obviously an associate membership shouldn't feel more desirable than full integration if you're eligible to both. Indeed from the UK's perspective it would be exactly the opposite to what they wanted: free labor and movement but no representation.
Almost like many of the EU states were misled into their current situations.
"Being misled" is obviously nonsense that deserves no further comment.
Which many people inside the EU would observe seems completely consistent with EU behaviour.
Edit to add: "Being misled" would refer to the way the EU was sold to many participants in earlier decades as an economic union, and not an all encompassing political one, with it simply ratcheting that way. Whenever objections occurred referenda would simply be repeated until the populations complied. It's far from the exercise in democracy that proponents promote. (This is distinct from saying it is _all bad_).
Mostly, like, the right to have, say, your own standards on chemical safety, tho. That is generally not something that most people would _want_; it basically just means you lose your job because import/export becomes, if not impossible, at least bureaucratically expensive enough that people will just buy from elsewhere.
Human cooperation does not mean misleading your compatriots into deals that you then ratchet up ever further until it becomes completely intolerable.
There are reasons that in the long run flexibility wins.
Presumably by "half of the EU" you mean (sometimes) euro-sceptic states like Hungary or Poland? Well, these are not in EU because some illuminati/lizard people tricked them into joining and now won't allow them to leave, like some of their politicians would like you to believe, but because they enjoy billions of subsidies per year.
This was even a joke in the UK at the time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVYqB0uTKlE
This wasn’t intentional of the people who started the cogs turning, it was meant to be an empty gesture to get elected, no one expected it to actually pass.
The Brits have a habit of only telling you the precise truth when they think you think they're joking.
Of course the set of countries and level of integration depends on whom you ask
I am of the view the UK should never have joined as a full member, and it would have been better to establish the two speed membership way back then, allowing France and Germany particularly to engage in further integration without mutual interference involving the UK.
It was a deliberate choice by his successors to pursue a hard Brexit. A softer Brexit was always possible and likely would have been more acceptable to the EU, as it would have had less financial impact and disruption to trade.
The referendum was triggered by a failed negotiation between Cameron and the EU in the first place.
It has pissed off the EU (understandably), pissed off his own supporters, and pissed off his enemies.
The outcome of the negotiations may have affected the course of the Leave and Remain campaigns, but it was not the trigger for the referendum itself.
People don't exactly feel they agreed to the Boriswave either, and now when I am back visiting the UK it's noticeably the most racist it's ever been, by a very significant distance.
I'm in Canada now and Canada has the same dynamics going on.
It was neither. They wanted freedom of movement that was only one way. In fact they didn't know what they wanted because they were sold a bill of goods when it came to Brexit.
One part of the answer is that some are more open to out of EU immigration than others. A while ago that was Germany who got 1 million plus of refugees and economic immigrants from Syria , Afghanistan and other non European countries.
Now it seems that Spain is that willing to take immigrants and of course also provide them citizenship after 3-5 years. So you may end up with a disproportionate amount of immigrants that come from Europe but are not really European in terms of looks and behaviour. I really fail to see how EU will continue unless far right wins all over Europe and a common restrictive immigration policy is agreed.
Yeah… well, then the fun really begins doesn’t it.
But you know that the EU has this basically leftish centrist ideology of equality mixed in with the neoliberal profit-motive of the soft right. That it’s overt rationalism is politically neutralising rather than centrist, that is to say extreme positions either side do not flourish and are ridiculed as irrational, shouted down, and discarded even if they represent the views of several million people across the bloc. That continued ignorance and attempt at rationalising by a minority of career politicians in the face of an increasingly irrational and polarised base is feeding the right and pushing it into more extreme positions, because at least the right will represent and say what the EU refuses to.
Especially if it was a reciprocal right.
People were poor, wages had hardly grown after years of austerity following the 2008 crash. A huge campaign pointed the finger squarely at the EU: they are taking our money, they are the reason you’re poor, you would be richer without them.
People believed them.
One of the effects of Brexit is that EU popular solidarity has noticeably improved while the UK has gone in the opposite direction. That says a lot about Brexit.
That's a bit of a stretch
Cameron was trying to reduce the scope of EU integration with the UK (esp freedom of movement), with the threat he didn't want to use of a referendum, the EU said no (as the other commenter explained partly to disincentivize others, but also because they thought he was bluffing and people would never vote to leave), so the referendum was held.
Restricting that is a tall ask, I wouldn't describe refusing that as being inflexible.
[1]: https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-histor... "Freedom of movement gives citizens the right to move and reside freely within the Union."
Yes. Just the demographics has substantially thinned their numbers by now though.
> would likely be a different 17 million crazies voting No again.
Highly unlikely - and turnout on the other side would be dramatically improved. Had the vote been held again the following day, it's likely that the result would have been different. If it were held today, it would be a landslide towards rejoining with the original terms.
People actually know what they're voting for, instead of falling for make-believe horseshit about how much money could go into the NHS (but didn't) on the side of a bus, with a heavy dose of Russian propaganda on Facebook.
The ones that are persistent are "I'm going to vote for anarchy because politics does no good for me", "I'm racist and don't understand that this doesn't get rid of people I really want to get rid of but really want it to so whatever" and "I'm xenophobic and haven't accepted that there isn't a British Empire anymore".
There may be fringe cases around specific regulations, but those were the main three. People were voting for whatever they wanted Brexit to be, most of which is pure fantasy, not what it actually is, which is a clusterfuck of badness, and zero benefit to anyone.
I say this as someone _who was a member of the Conservative Party at the time_, though the fact that the candidate in my constituency since 2010 was Jacob Rees Mogg meant I have voted against them in every election since then.
This is ignorance or just plain bad faith. MEPs are not the main democratic mechanism of the EU, it's the national governments. This is on purpose, so that both national democracy and sovereignty can be maintained.
This is the typical of EU misinformation spouted by people who have a problem with the EU. Of course people can dislike the EU all they want, but people who constantly rail against it, with little or no basis in fact, I'll never know. It's not about the EU, it's some sort of bitter obsession or ideological idiocy. Somehow the EU means much more to them than they claim, otherwise they wouldn't spend so much energy complaining about it.
It’s not misinformation - it’s a very basic fact about the democratic mechanism we had for electing who represents us in the EU parliament which makes and votes on our laws. The opacity of this process and the general lack of enfranchisement in it is a major flaw but one that the EU was content with, because a simulation of a democratic process is good enough, better even, because it avoids the scrutiny and can be defended by people like you. It’s a basic fact that people did get off their arses and vote to leave in greater numbers than even bothered to be enfranchised in the elections for MEPs. You don’t have to bleat about it or invoke ignorance or bad faith because all you show up is your own bad faith to a fairly basic fact.
And it remains that people had never been given the chance to vote on whether they wanted to be governed by the EUs mechanisms. It got decided for people by politicians that it was in their interests that a trading block rapidly evolve into a super-national government. It was decided by those politicians how it operates and politicians the ones with the control over its integration, and what kicked off my comments in this thread, that it has a president who speaks for the whole of Europe who only they choose. When put to the actual people for the first and only time, they decided they weren’t into it for myriad of individual reasons that can’t be usefully modelled. And now as we’ve seen endless times in these threads, the response from Europe hasn’t been to go back to the drawing board, there is a general tone of traitorship and casting it as entirely British issue caused basically by racists and idiots, when it happened within the EU and was also an EU issue. Nowhere else in the EU would 17 million people making a very clear decision be called a gang of fuckn idiots.
You are assigning too much responsibility to the EU here and none to the other actors responsible for Brexit. It borders on propaganda, but I do not want to assume ill intent.
And Cameron, didnt he say he would guide UK no matter the result and then resigned when Brexit won?
Now the UK has managed to ramp up the tension dramatically, but without some easy foreign political bogeyman to blame. It's not going to end well either, but it's not clear exactly what the endgame is. This is why the Greens, Reform and Restore are suddenly things.
Come off it. Neither the referendum nor the referendum result were inevitabilities.
"Negotiate" ... is that what you call it?
David Cameron (and team) were the most inept bunch of wankers this country has had the misfortune of being represented by in living memory (in terms of medium/long-term real impact).
We had better terms than anyone in the EU and we still fucked it up.
The UK renegotiation was a net loss for the EU, this Canada deal is a deal where both parties gain something.
Also, the Brexit referendum was a campaign promise of David Cameron that was going to trigger if his conservative party won the 2015 general election. Sure, the relationship between EU and UK had strained over the years, but trying to pin this on the inflexibility of the EU feels a bit misdirected.
That is iff the renegotiations with Brussels failed, which they did.
> The UK renegotiation was a net loss for the EU, this Canada deal is a deal where both parties gain something.
V. hard to see what Canada gets out of it. All the roadblocks to Canadian trade with the EU today (especially around resources) are internal to Canada and have nothing at all to do with EU status.
Presumably under the proposed thing Canada would largely adopt EU regulations. This would make trade (particularly for small businesses) _far_ easier. See the UK for how difficult this can become if you're not in alignment; it's survivable for huge companies (though even some of them had trouble; for instance Marks and Spencers' stores in Ireland literally went empty for a while because they were insufficiently prepared), but if you're a small business importing a bunch of components from Europe and making a thing which is largely sold to Europe, there's a _massive_ difference in bureaucratic overhead between being in and out.
Even many Norwegian SMEs don't see direct sales to Europe as worth the overhead, and Norway's in the EEA, as close to the EU as you can get without actually being in it.
Canadian provinces do not agree with each other about trade regulations. They will not surrender this to the federal government, and they certainly won't to the EU.
Canada isn't actually a single market itself.
No. The Conservative party promised an EU membership referendum by 2017 in its 2015 manifesto. That was not conditional on a failure of renegotiations. Nor, indeed, did David Cameron even concede that the renegotiations had failed, so that can’t possibly have been his stated reason for calling the referendum.
You can check the summary of the manifesto at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32302062, or page 30 (printed page number) of the original document at https://www.barnetconservatives.co.uk/sites/www.barnetconser....
Another clear indicator can be found in this article: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/10/david-camer.... Here, Cameron is directly quoted as saying:
> My policy is to hold a renegotiation and then a referendum. That is what we promised in the manifesto and then to abide by what the British public say.
So you can see that there was never any suggestion that the referendum would be called or not called depending on the outcome of the renegotiations.
Both of which Canada is ok with.
It’s what the newspapers report:
https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/canada-alliance-eu-carney-2...
US publications as a whole, and especially those on the right consistently miss the mark on Canadian coverage.
Doesn't seem to be true anymore, at least in every case. See the EU-Mercosur agreement for one recent exception to this, the goods we're now importing from South America don't have the same regulatory environment by far, to many of our local farmers.
B) If it did happen, the US would just say “give us the same deal or you get cut off” and Europe would capitulate immediately.
Technlogy? That would likely result in a US market crash the likes of which has never been seen before. Look at what percentage of the stock market is the magnificent 7. Now imagine what would happen to that if US tech giants were no longer allowed to sell their products/services in the EU. The market is fragile as it is with the AI bubble going on.
Trade? That cuts both ways, and the US economy and cost-of-living crisis doesn't give them lots of wriggle room.
Products? China will be all to happy to step into whatever market is thus competition-free, not to mention the impact this would have on US businesses.
If you've been around the ESC scene, you know there's a lot of embassy involvement (parties in embassies are a thing), the scene is catnip for those interested in politics, the politically active, and to some extent politicians. Eurovision is also one mechanism for discussions of economic development. Hosting the contest is usually an excuse for upgrades to public infrastructure.
And there's Eurovision Asia starting in November. South Korea is an Associate Member of the EBU, for example.
https://www.ebu.ch/news/2026/03/bangkok-to-host-first-ever-e...
This is a euphemism on par with attending parties in parts of the SFO AI community.
_Terrible_ naming.
But the concept has floated around for over a decade under several different project names - Asiavision, Our Sound, ABU Song Contest. Somehow "Eurovision Asia" is the one that got countries to sign on and participate. There's a stronger political statement in Asian countries participating in "Eurovision" than in "Our Sound". It surprises me, but 2026 has brought a lot of global cultural & political shifts.
The American version was "The American Song Contest", hosted by Snoop Dogg & Kelly Clarkson, with US states competing against each other. Most Americans don't even know it ever happened.
Russia has its own rival "Intervision Song Contest", which the US participates in. Something something global cultural shifts.
If it gets a free trade and freedom of movement system in place, I don't think anyone is going to object in Canada much. Unless they try to open up fisheries, which would get them a bunch of Maritime (and Quebec?) objections...
Fisheries are obviously not going to happen. They didn't happen with Iceland, they are not going to happen with Canada either.
>>No Euro, no vote in EU, no ECJ, no payments into each others budget.
This version of EU integration is more popular than EU itself in significant part of EU right now.
That we'd still have to comply with EU rules if we wanted to trade with them, but we wouldn't have any vote in those rules
The whole political course of Ukraine in the last ~20 years is mostly about teaming up with EU and NATO, isn't it?
Not, on the NATO front at least, the part between NATO bending to Russian demands not to extend Membership Action Plans to Ukraine and Georgia in 2008 (followed immediately by the Russian invasion of Georgia)—when Ukraine abandoned pursuit of NATO membership—and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, only after which did it resume pursuit of NATO membership.
The resumption is sometimes tied to the Revolution of Dignity preceding the Russian invasion, and even occasionally claimed to be a reason for the invasion, but the decision to abandon the neutrality position was well after and a response to the invasion rather than the other way around.
Does Canada's agricultural output follow EU's (quite strict) norms? Not sure if this falls under "legislative integration" but I'd say that it would be quite important to have settled. The same goes when it comes to Canada's work-related laws.
It'll just take time to reach an agreement both sides can accept and it's in some ways simpler than something like the EU-Mercosur agreement since one "side" is a unified country rather that been two trading bloc's negotiating.
It's fascinating watching the world re-align so quickly (by diplomatic/negotiation standards).
It might not be as strict anymore, as the EU-Mercosur Agreement seemingly ended up relaxing a bit on the strict norms and regulations. Many farmers were/are protesting this agreement exactly because the farmers in South America would compete against local farmers who are more strictly regulated.
So, seems we're a bit flexible on that front, when push comes to shove :)
Which output specifically? To take one example, the Dijon mustard coming out of France is mostly from Canadian mustard seeds:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dijon_mustard#2022_shortage_in...
I bought a box 37 years ago, a tiny little box, and I've been using it to season soups, almost weekly that whole time.
There can't be more than one guy that grows those seeds, for the entire planet! So my questions are, first who is this guy, and second is the in the EU?
Also, has anybody else noticed this?
And if you think buying his celery seed farm, don't. It's a very limiting market.
Working Time Directive may be more of a sticking point, though Canada doesn't seem _that_ far away from aligned with it anyway (big difference would be on paid time off, where Canada's way under the minimum).
The funny thing is that we got this, instead of tangible and needed deregulation within Canada. Another announcement, instead of actual shovels in the ground and making life better for Canadians.
There’s a meeting scheduled in Ottawa next month for the actual deal writing.
"Associate member" actually sounds like TIGHTER integration than Norway/Switzerland/Iceland, which are not members at all. Switzerland is not even in the EEA. It is a very bad term, actually as Canada cannot be an EU member (it isn't in Europe) and if they don't want or can't join the EEA then that leaves a Switzerland-like deal, which is purely bilateral.
I think the construct of geographical location should not be that big of an issue in these times. Plenty of EU countries have overseas properties.
But also, yes, Canada probably does not want to be a full member, at least in the near-term; they want some sort of alignment not amounting to full membership. I wouldn't be totally amazed if we look back on this as the start of the (long-suggested) two speed EU system.
However Article 49 of the European Union states: "Any European State which respects the values referred to in Article 2 and is committed to promoting them may apply to become a member of the Union".
So Middle Eastern and North African countries (and Canada) cannot apply in the first place.
I think Turkey is in the grey area that allows some wriggle room as it spans both Europe and Asia.
Canada very much is not “blustering” when it comes to Trump. A big majority of Canadians see sovereignty and less reliance on the US as a massive issue. Canada has embraced China in a way that was unthinkable 5 years ago in a deal intended to hedge against the US. The Canadian Conservative Party lost an election it was thought to have a guaranteed win from and has continued losing seats since then in large part due to their half hearted response to Trump.
Hence I think it is safe to say that this is a lot of bluster, or ar least hyperbole, considering what Canada and the EU might really want and the long and complicated treaty process to define and create an "associate member" status.
Canada has been making real moves, and doing it quietly. In the past year non-US exports have grown by a record 11%. New trade and defense deals have been signed with more than 20 countries.
Whatever is going on in Ottawa, bluster is not the word for it.
Among other things, they mentioned „recognition of professional qualifications“ in their speeches today, which is the first step in freedom of movement, so the direction is there.
Also, visa free is a third thing, which already exists for Canada/EU. Neither needs a visa to travel to the other.
Doesn't this mean that Canada is, in a certain degree, dependent of UK?
The monarchy is 99% ceremonial in Canada but it's important to note that the Canadian Crown isn't the UK Crown... Canada is not a dependent of the UK in anyway, simply the person that wears the Crowns is the same person.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Canada
>the Crown has had both a shared and a separate character: the sovereign's role as monarch of Canada has been distinct from their position as monarch of any other realm,[n 4][16][65][66][67] including the United Kingdom.[n 6][69][70][71][72] Only Canadian federal ministers of the Crown may advise the sovereign on any and all matters of the Canadian state,[n 7][70][73][74][75][76][77] of which the sovereign, when not in Canada, is kept abreast by weekly communications with the federal viceroy.[78] The monarchy thus ceased to be an exclusively British institution and, in Canada, became a Canadian,[40][79][80][81] or "domesticated",[82] establishment, though it is still often denoted as "British" in both legal and common language,[40] for reasons historical, political, and of convenience.
I'm sure that in that scenario Canada would quickly update their primogeniture laws to give Charlotte primacy over her younger brother, but at the moment the primogeniture laws of the two countries are different.
As an ex-Brit I was always pro-monarchy, enjoying the pageantry and historical continuity, although the current crop of royals don't have much going for them. Perhaps William will turn out OK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations
These countries choose voluntarily to hold ties with the UK, and each other, and some accept the UK's monarch as nominal head of state, but don't be mistaken; they are all fully independent countries. Some are republics, some are kingdoms with their own monarch. They value each other's friendship, shared values and heritage, but they're not beholden to the UK or each other.
Which country would you say has a closer relationship with the King of England?
A possibility.
https://www.reuters.com/business/australia-on-same-page-cana...
Maybe Canada could just join EFTA, that would be easier.
Sounds like it could be a solution for the UK as well, which begs the question: why wasn’t a similar proposal worked out with the uk?
Also, to be able to sell stuff, you gotta comply with the CE rules one way or another, there is no free card here.
About competition in Eurovision: absolutely, would love for them to participate, even if just as guest state :D
LMAO just googled it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_in_the_Eurovision_Song_...
The CE rules are relatively sane and followed commonly right? At least I see a lot of CE-stamped goods in Australia… so I always assumed that was the case.
There are expulsions and entry bans even under Schengen, but these are incredibly rare things to happen as the freedom of movement is considered to be a cornerstone of EU values.
The ECJ has consistently ruled that the freedom of movement is very broad.
I know this because it creates an interesting corner case where Swiss citizens don’t have quite the same broad freedom of movement since ECJ rulings don’t automatically apply to non-EU citizens. For example, an EU citizen can move to Greece for no reason at all and just sit on a beach. A Swiss citizen cannot, and has to find work in 3-6 months or leave.
Yes but there's a big difference between "only import electronics that aren't fire hazards" and "you have to pay custom & excise on anything you import".
What? First time I hear of this. Honestly, Eurovision doesn't really have anything to do with the EU. We all know the main sponsor is from a non-EU country whose participation is much more controversial than Canada anyway.
And the EU treaties refuse to define what „European“ means, so using „watches Eurovision“ as a rule of thumb is surprisingly workable as a definition of where the borders of „Europe“ end.
That is the whole point. If you want to understand more, this song is genuinely a good explanation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv6tgnx6jTQ
And I'm not even joking.
EU has such a bad name in these circles. As a EU citizen, I cherish these same regimes.
Also re: OP, yes if you want to sell stuff in the EU, you will need to adhere to the same rules as EU companies.
It's all bad faith from the US trying to run over any market they don't control so they can weaponize control over food supply of another nation later.
On the other hand, the US is the only country I've been to where I have purchased milk in a completely sealed plastic container, and it was rancid when I opened it. Upstate New York is proud of their local and organic produce, but they are selling rancid milk in stores like that's a normal thing. That was a shock as a visiting Australian.
The reality is that the US better if you have money (like white collar salary man level) and (much) worse if you are an odds-and-ends gig economy type worker (like an influencer).
From the vantage point of a ~75% income bracket home, moving to Europe is almost purely downsides (conventionally, some people give up everything for their dream to live in a cold dank cave), whereas being in a <50% income bracket home, Europe seems like a utopia.
I agree about social media distorting things. When I visited US, I was surprised that it's not GTA-like violence everywhere, haha. I feel silly sharing that. But, the biggest surprise was how friendly and warm strangers were. Memes didn't hint at that at all.
Some regulations would have to be normalized and agreed upon between the countries for trade open up. Can't have different quality standards and ways of evaluating and declaring them.
Are you defending PPWR? Not in spirit but actual implementation?
It will never get so-far as the judge because the EU has already admitted the law cant be followed and arent going to be taking people to court over it.
Regardless of the intent, it's an abject failure.
I also think GDPR is too strict for small businesses and non-profits and not strict enough to deal with big businesses that trade data.
Its would have been trivial for a big business, but it was not for small businesses.
Maybe just calibrated poorly. Small enough and IMO the only important rule is no sharing with others. That should always be strictly enforced. But why worry about how some small timer handles my personal data or if I can make various requests of him? The stakes are too small to matter.
Canadian provinces have a harder time trading with each other than countries in the EU, although thanks to the sales tax and package transit changes the EU is becoming competitive in this area.
Mostly just wouldn't really work because Ottawa would have to somehow represent the provinces to the EU and the provinces and Ottawa don't work together in a way that would be compatible, I don't think anyone in Canada would want to change how Ottawa works with them. We may also end up in the same position again as we have with the Americans, nobody but us likes our supply management system[1]. GDPR is also something I think Canadians would struggle to get behind, our PIPEDA framework is quite good and I think most folks approve of it (except Quebec, who have their own framework). Taking the Euro would be a problem, etc etc, I think I could probably build quite a big list. btw, I respect the EU regulation, and that Europeans quite like it, I was just saying I don't think it would be practical for us to re-work the whole country to accommodate them, that's all.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_and_poultry_supply_manag...
> [Canada would be] EU's first "associate member"
> …
> [Von der Leyen] did not give specific details on how any Canadian membership would work, but listed manufacturing, technology, AI, defence, energy, critical minerals and economic security as key areas for cooperation.
> …
> But "associate membership" of the EU does not currently exist and the process, if agreed, could take years.
>
Nobody knows; it’s all up for negotiation.
FWIW, a (¿the?) previous time this term was floated, it involved (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_re-accession_of_the_...):
“Also in September 2023, France and Germany proposed a restructuring of the membership of the EU to allow the UK to rejoin as an associate member, rather than a full member. Associate membership would include membership of the European single market but not the EU customs union, in exchange for participation in the European Court of Justice and making contributions to the EU budget.”
If Canada wanted to facilitate trade, I would imagine they would figure it out internally. So my guess is that this is just giving up some political autonomy for some unknown reason, maybe to stick it to the US?
The second biggest trade barriers between Canada provinces are liquor regulations. The second biggest trade barriers between American states are likely car emission laws.
Fairly comparable, IMO.
Doctors can move pretty much freely between 44 American states. Doctors can't do that in Canada, and here we need more specific kinds of doctors in rural populations and there is absolutely no reason to not have a harmonized licensing regime.
We also have non-uniform regulation on stuff like the manufacture of construction goods (for example door sizing) which can cause a big drag in trade. This might be harder to fix but it exists and is not comparable to the US market.
I.e. Opt in vs Opt out but more complicated.
Of course it's more complicated -- the US's inter-state commerce clause has been broadly interpreted by the courts.
Canadians are right to be skeptical that the next presidency will be significantly better than the current one. A serious amount of goodwill has been burned and I think the average view up north is that it's time to build a very solid backup plan.
Caligula's horse can't be elected solely because horses don't live past 35.
Here are some guiding principles of EU integration:
1. To have a say in EU rules generally requires being a full member. To some extent you can negotiate your entry into whatever level you desire but this has to be mutual agreement and can be difficult to change later without essentially threatening to leave;
2. Conditions generally need to be reciprocal. If you want freedom of movement in the EU then you have freedom of movement from other European states. This was a real sticking point in the Brexit negotiations and the EU doesn't play with reciprocal freedoms; and
3. Any sort of free trade with the EU will mean adopting EU regulations to be within the EU customs union. I don't see this flying with Canada because despite current trade hostilities with the US, the US is and will remain the primary trading partner of Canada. Adopting EU regulations might make US trade more difficult;
Also, the US might have legitimate cause to object. If Canada and US have free trade and Canada and the EU has free trade then that's opting the US into EU regulation essentially.
In some ways this is similar to the strained situation invented for Northern Ireland.
Obviously, Canada won't be joining Schengen or the Euro. Canada already has visa-free travel to the EU.
Canada still has a housing crisis and increased migration from the EU is likely a political non-starter even though those things aren't really related and literally nobody is going to tackle the true cause of the housing crisis (just like in every developed country). As an aside, the true cause is hoarding combined with tax advantages and a political goal of raising house prices.
In short, I don't know that this means anything because I don't think anything can substantively change with the Canada-EU relationship.
[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1qbq43v/european_in...
Eased travel and trade, but not full membership voting rights, etc. So basically, an extensive trade and economics agreement, with options to intensify relationships later on.
Good thing for both sides!
The only reason the trade is easy in EU (and with it non-EU partners) is these regulations. Countries that choose to stay outside but wanted access to our market (like Norway, Switzerland, etc.) - had to accept the regulations. So I highly doubt you'll get your wish.
> Signal, Windscribe, and NordVPN say they'll pull out of Canada before building surveillance infrastructure. The biggest threat to encrypted communications in a Western democracy since Australia's 2018 law.
https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/canada-bill-c22-lawful-...
> Australia passes world’s first law authorizing encryption backdoors
> The law authorizes police to compel companies to create a security vulnerability, often called a backdoor, that would give investigators access to an individual’s communication without that person’s knowledge. It marks a major milestone in the so-called “crypto wars” over the public’s ability to “go dark” via the powerful encryption available on commercial devices.
https://cyberscoop.com/australia-encryption-backdoors-law-pa...
First only as far as a law known to the state's citizens.
I was working on a compression and encryption idea late 80s, very early 90s albeit with too higher a price on compute power which I was hoping to improve -- fortunately I bumped into a bloke though attending a module to improve design who also worked for a company developing software which used encryption, primarily targeting a particular market overseas which would also see sales flow into other countries eventually. On telling him what I was working on he took the time to have a long chat as he lay out the difficulties he and the company he worked for had to deal with especially in regard to this country; as to be able to market the product there, the programs would need a back door ... from what I heard, I'd assume that all sold there at that time had a back door. It was a significant moment for it changed the path I was on, being apparently more or less pointless, I reluctantly moved on as it wasn't worth any more time to provide a free open source program that got around the sale aspect.
Funny thing is, myself online I couldn't give a rats if whomever in those 3 and 4 letter organisations around the world could see my emails, mailing lists etc.
Edit: clarity
You could make a good case that the EU is still trying to deal with issues from the 2004 expansion for example. Doesn't mean it was a bad idea, but it's not cost free
Benefits are more visible from the inside, and if you don't like it you can brexit.
Unfortunately no one can be forced out also.
Thank you for directing your hate at the specified target. /// Merci d'aiguiller votre haine à la cible sus mentionnée.
Many people (including Carney himself) are presenting this as a fundamental and recent pivot.
But the opening moves of this happened a long time ago. CETA was negotiated by Chrystia Freeland and the now-often-maligned Trudeau gov't.
(also Trudeau also had a honeymoon phase for the first two to three years of his term...)
Carney just eviscerated all environmental laws and climate change initiatives -- which were already pathetically weak -- and cons back in my home province of Alberta are still apoplectic about how persecuted they are. It's all team sport theatre. Dangerously close to US style dysfunction.
Translation: I don't care if it was Harper or Trudeau who "initiated" CETA.
Salut ! I wouldn't say the Americans are no longer our friends, but trust is definitely gone.
For the most part I am thankful that the EU regulates things strictly. As long as I am the consumer of what is regulated and not the maker. Because while the regulation is well meaning, it is not always effective or efficient. And sometimes it achieves absolutely no positive results.
And yet, I am generally for regulating a lot of things.
For instance the cookie-popup-horseshit is failed regulation that came about mainly because regulators were squeamish about real solutions that would have required constant judgement calls. Instead of posing an existential risk to companies that run roughshod over our privacy, they created impotent regulation that is a dual failure: it protects exactly nobody and it wastes everyone's time multiple times over.
Companies that do bad things should face existential risks. It is the only mechanism that works. Fines only work for small players. For large players it is surprisingly often a calculation where the numbers dictate you DO bad things because the downside risk is mostly quantifiable and financially acceptable.
Yes, sanctioning companies guilty of egregious violations of privacy would have been noisy, but it would have been the right thing to do. And it would have been cheaper and more effective than what we have today.
I guess it's the white version of saying Gringo.
Canada's economy is propped up by Alberta's energy production, which you my loose because they're so disgusted with the liberal politics.
Anyway, good luck with revitalizing the economy by trading with a bloc of countries in economic decline.
What do you mean by this?
The left things he's literally Orange Hitler, and the right is fractured between "hasn't done enough, mostly performative cruelty"/"MIGA"/"woah he's going to far, I just didn't want 'commiela'" types.
The one thing nearly everyone agrees on, however, is he is a disappointment. This much is evident from his absolutely underwater support in the polls, and how multiple states are likely to swing blue in the midterms.
In 2024, if the Dems just had a normal primary they would have won. But they consistently lied to people about what they were seeing with their own eyes (Biden's obvious lack of mental acuity), which people find really insulting, and then forced in a weak candidate.
To clarify, since this is the Internet and people make lots of assumptions: I voted against Trump three times, plus I voted against him in my state's open GOP primary, which he lost.
> "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."
Like, if the US had just elected ol' minihands once, that would be one thing. But it did it _twice_. Ultimately, even if he's comprehensively put back in his box, there is an issue of long-term trust.
At this point, Pandora's Box has been opened; it has been established that the US president can just act like a crazy dictator and... none of the mechanisms which are supposed to prevent that actually really function. Even if the US elects the most normal, sensible, rule-of-law-focused president imaginable in 2028, Canada will still have to look to 2032. I'm not sure that anything short of constitutional change would really restore trust, and the US is set up such that changing the constitution is virtually impossible.
We say as Europeans while interacting daily with USA engineers and other people here on HN - a site ran by Silicon Valley investors - while we usually talk about USA-made software. I personally do not hold every American accountable for the actions of their government.
At the same time, a lot of them voted in favor of foreign policies that I very strongly disagree with.
Both can be true at the same time, and the former doesn't make me forget the latter. Especially when their president continues to voice threats against the sovereignty of my country.
For what it’s worth, as an American, I agree with them. The USA is proving to be unreliable, if not outright malicious, to our long term allies.
I'm not saying there is no way that America and Canada can't repair the trade and diplomatic relations, just that Canadians shouldn't expect generosity and friendship.
Trust has been broken. The US has lost its shine and hard-earned reputation. Most of the trust was that a person like Trump would never have been elected in the first place.
Can't unelect Trump. The damage has been done, and is ongoing.