If Canada Wants a Plan B for Trade, Europe Could Be the Answer | The Walrus
If Canada Wants a Plan B for Trade, Europe Could Be the Answer | The Walrus
It’s time for us to play the field
AMID US president Donald Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Sigmar Gabriel, former German vice chancellor and foreign minister, made a curious suggestion in an interview with German media outlet The Pioneer: invite Canada into the European Union. Soon after, Guy Verhofstadt, former prime minister of Belgium, addressed Canada on X to say that “[t]here is no reason why EU membership should be off the table.” The thought of this North Atlantic alliance excited some Canadians and Europeans—one YouTube video even theorized how “CANEU” (read: canoe) would be a “global superpower.”
To learn more about what the possibilities are for Canada and the EU, I spoke with Mark Camilleri, president and CEO of the Canada EU Trade and Investment Association—CEUTIA—based in Brussels.
"In terms of trade, what similarities do Canada and the EU share?"
There’s a lot of complementarities when you go across sectors. Take mining, for example. Canada has an abundance of natural resources that the EU doesn’t have, but Europe creates and makes a lot of industrial equipment that helps extract those resources. Europe has a certain need for these resources as part of their own economic security.
If you take a look at the fertilizer that Canada produces, Europe needs it to support their agricultural sector. Another example is nuclear energy. Nuclear is going through a renaissance at the moment, and Canada can basically cover the full supply chain from mining uranium to building nuclear reactors.
Trade with Europe, and take doctors and scientists from the USA. This is an opportunity for Canada.
Buy some gripens from Sweden and Nukes from the UK.
Edit fixed mistake.
Gripen is the Swedish one, France's jet is the Rafale
But I mean either way it's a fast jet made in Europe
Canada joining the EU would be great, assuming we don’t end up with lil pp in the next election.
Can you imagine him bargaining with the EU? Ugh.
It’s way more likely that he’d roll out the welcome mat for the states instead
Maybe that's what the EU is waiting for? The EU loves Trudeau and he does well as a diplomat. I think it's one of his stronger points.
If Trudeau has no exit date, we'd probably be closer to getting invited in. But who knows if Canada is going to be stupid like the USA? If we end up with PP, then do we really deserve to be in the EU? Probably not at this time.
Trudeau's exit date is supposedly when the LPC elects a new leader. The election is supposedly going to be called once Parliament gets back.
Canada shares a common land border with Denmark.
They could be welcomed into the EU in a heartbeat.They could be welcomed into the EU in a heartbeat.
Assuming they completely changed their food and product regulations and adapted everything from agricultural and animal husbandry to building codes to match the EU overnight.
Otherwise it's more of a decades long process.
Even CETA is still not ratified because Canadian ranchers and farmers still insist on using growth hormones and have trouble dealing with European GMO tracking and labelling.
Yet as a Canadian I will welcome agricultural rules harmonization with EU. Give a five year frame to reach 70 % and 10 years to reach above 95 %. Present the thing to Canadian as a matter of sovereignty while reminding our farmers that the current buy Canadian frenzy is a net positive for them if they see it under the “opportunity” light.
Invite Canada as an “observer” at the EU table for as long as these discussions are successful, it will mess with Trump gang.
Those ranchers and farmers might change their tune pretty quick if their ability to sell product hinges on it.
Canada should nationalize the railroads.
Nationalize all mines, and mining.
We should build a nation car, a basic 4-cycliner car with AWD capabilities, plug-in-hybrd, regenerative braking, easy to repair with parts always available. Make all the software code and hardware schematics free. Have it as one of our military vehicles for basic transport, make it so that all cab companies have to use it, all Uber drivers, delivery drivers, that's the only car municipalities get to buy for staff, only car Provinces get to buy for staff.
can we nationalize our internet service providers while we're at it
See, now there's an actual good idea. That shit's like the road system.
You have to pay the current shareholders for it all, though, unless you think Canada can go it totally alone and hated.
We should build a nation car, a basic 4-cycliner car with AWD capabilities, plug-in-hybrd, regenerative braking, easy to repair with parts always available
That last one is pretty difficult to square with the rest.
Have it as one of our military vehicles for basic transport, make it so that all cab companies have to use it, all Uber drivers, delivery drivers, that’s the only car municipalities get to buy for staff, only car Provinces get to buy for staff.
Is it wheelchair accessible too? If so, how much weight and cost does that add? One could keep going.
This is why economics by political proclamation either turns into 700-page documents or fails dramatically.
Problem with the vehicle is that certain government departments need something other than a sedan.
What problem(s) does this nationalization and the 'people's car' solve?
Too much of the economy is based around the auto industry, too many social and environmental issues are based around everything structured around cars.
i. Governments throw lots of money toward the car industry, tax cuts for the factories, subsidized wages for the workers.
ii. Owing a car is now becoming more expensive, and you need a new one every 15 years as they don't last long. iii.Car speeds and horse power have now crept up to crazy levels. Beyond any reason of what people need. iv. Car companies are not focused on what people want, safety, instead they keep putting more horse power into cars. v. Massive environmental costs in terms of pollution and sprawl. vi. Oil companies are killing the planet and causing wars.Almost everything when we talk of the 'real' economy, we mean car factories and oil wells.
Economic resilience, removes foreign control from our key resource companies, creates jobs in country to remove American jobs we'll be losing enmasse
Interprovince and EU trade is awesome, but the key for Canada is to diversify internal investment and trade away from "US National Security" control, that gives US authority to declare who Canada's enemies are. China investment in Canada, perhaps with processing /manufacturing facilities in addition to resource extraction would be a big economic boom. Chinese and Russian trade is better than excluding them.
The big danger from US extortion is destroying Canada's auto sector. Canada has extremely high subsidies for that sector, that should be looked at if our foreign owned domestic industry starts/threatens to back away from Canada as a result of US extortion. Importing EVs from China can enhance Canadian standards of living, but some assembly work, or just importing motors and batteries can make Canadian made vehicles competitive in US even with tariffs, and affordable in Canada.
Cowering together in the "abused wives club" of Europe and Ukraine is not the best strategy when normalized relations with countries that can stand up to the US is necessary to fend of war from US.
Why the fuck do I keep seeing people suggest China and russia as trading partners? We would be switching from so so to fucking terrible.
As it is china has fippa against us. Why would we want to trade more with Russia, a hostile country.
Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, India (even with recent events), 95% of Europe, or any African country.
We don't need Chinese EVs.
Fuck sakes, we don't want to switch from one shithole trading partner to 2 terrible trading partners.
Limiting options over hatred, harms your/our prosperity. We need to wake up against US declaring war on us, and stop hating countries they've told us to hate. Independence, pursuing all options, is path to get US to beg for our friendship. Just waiting until the US gets bored abusing us, is poor strategy, and one that leads to massive concessions and extra servitude.
We don’t need Chinese EVs.
Can make cheap/good EVs in Canada with Chinese components. Threat is destruction of auto industry here.