Carney just sat in Strasbourg and smiled while von der Leyen offered Canada “associate membership” in the EU. That’s not a compliment, that’s a junior-partner badge.
Canada’s largest customer, largest investor, and only serious security partner sits on the other side of the longest undefended border in the World. Carney’s answer to tariffs and supposed threats of annexation? He wanders into a room of European "commissioners" and start talking about a common prosperity and economic security space with a bloc that can’t even ratify its own trade deal with Canada after nine years.
What could go wrong? Start with geography. Ottawa is not going to ship oil, cars, potash, or lumber across the Atlantic cheaper than it can send them south. The EU will still want Canadian resources. It will also want Canadian farms, digital rules, climate targets, and industrial policy to look more like Brussels. Associate members don’t get a veto.
Then look at the partner. Europe is aging, energy-constrained, and drowning in process. It lectures the world on values while struggling to grow, defend itself, or keep factories open. Binding Canada tighter to that model while the United States remains the market that actually pays the bills is not diversification.
Carney spent his career in central banks and the Davos circuits. He is now treating North American reality as an inconvenience and European approval as strategy. Canadians were not asked. Parliament was not the venue. The announcement happened in a speech in France.
The US relationship is messy. Yes.
But joining the EU is not the solution.
Dear
@MarkJCarney we want to bring the relationship with Canada to the highest level possible.
I would like to work with you on opening the door for Canada to being the first associate member of the EU.
And create a common prosperity and economic security space.