A huge country, rich in minerals It is scarcely populated as Canada would be perfect for joining a small Europe, with limited natural resources and overpopulated. The possibility of the weekly The Economist first has the possibility. The “megaphone” of liberalism has articulated the concept by claiming that the Canadians are already European “ad honorem”: for over 50 percent they have emigrated from the old continent, have a parliamentary system and restrictive laws on weapons, pay high taxes because they believe in a market mitigated by welfare, they think that global warming is a concrete phenomenon and oppose the expanimionism of Vladimir Putin. Even France, always contrary to expand the union, would welcome a bilingual Canada and which contains the Francophone Quebec. Ottawa, struggling with a dramatic demographic decline, in return, could fish by a qualified work tank and access the single market at better conditions compared to the already reduced duties of the Ceta commercial treaty. Apparently, a deal. Fantapolitics? Perhaps, but the debate in the Canadian media opened just as the outgoing prime minister, Justin Trudeau, met in Brussels with Ursula von der Leyen.
Polls in hand, the newspaper Toronto Today He discovered that 46 percent of the Canadians would vote for Europe while, according to a survey by the Leger research institute, just 13 percent would be for the country as 51th American state. In this “crazy desire” for the continent beyond Atlantic, the paradoxes are wasted: the favorables rise to 60 percent among the liberals which, to avoid Trumpism, are ready to join a Europe that, for 20 years, has still turned to the right. In turn, the intemperances of The Donald brought the party of the current Premier back into play, in the rise in the intentions of voting after months of predominance of the conservatives. And Mark Carney, probable future driving of the liberals, ex-government of Bank of Canada during the 2008 recession and Bank of England at the time of Brexit, is a globalist technocrat with deep ties with Europe. In the universe imagined by Trump there is a place for an isolated America which, attacking Canada and Europe with the duties, risks bringing its historic allies closer to China, able to use the multilateralism of Brics members such as hegemonic lever. In the same vision there is also a place for the growing frost between Ottawa, historically aligned with the countries of the so -called Anglosphere, and London, due to the mutism of the Labor government of Keir Starmer, reluctant to express solidarity with the Canadians so as not to hit the US president. Also for this, 54 percent of the against the entrance to the EU could thin, especially if the growing crack between Canada and the United States does not reciprocate.
In the meantime, “feasibility studies” go crazy in newspapers and TVs. The Maastricht Treaty limits the adhesion to continental states, but without giving a univocal definition. In the eighties, Morocco was said no, but since 2023 the “bicontinental” Georgia has the candidate status. Canada borders Greenland, who planted the EU in 1985 after acquiring autonomy from Denmark, in turn a member of the Union. The point is, as Dimitrios Armyroulis, researcher at the University Libre de Brussels, claims, who “what constitutes a European country is left to the political decision -making process”. To enter the Union, Canada will have to prove that it is a democracy that respects human rights and protects minorities. In the past Brussels has censored the treatment of indigenous populations and racial profiling in police activities, themes on which Trudeau spent a lot, to the point of damaging the international reputation of the country.
In any case, the node of alignment to the EU provisions remains: A list with 35 items to demonstrate that he has a working and competitive market economy. Canada risks insufficiency on antitrust for telecommunications, banks and commercial aviation, but also on CO2 emissions, due to the bituminous sands from which oil is extracted (it should be remembered that it has become the fourth oil producer in the world, with 5.5 million barrels extracted per day), and on customs barriers, which still exist among the various provinces of the country. A problem solved would be the currency, with the parking lot in the “Purgatory” of the Eurozone until the parameters provided for inflation, fluctuation of the gearbox and deficit/public debt. We are talking about a very long process, as Turkey knows well that has been doing an anteroom since 1987, but that Europe would have an interest in accelerating to access the critical minerals of Canada, copper and uranium included. The sum of the GDP of the two geographical entities would be more than 22 thousand billion dollars, behind America but in front of China. A bath of realism is imposed by the Ceta commercial treaty which, in the absence of unanimous ratification, is applied in a transient and incomplete way: European breeders and farmers do not want to measure themselves with Canadian companies, on average larger, while the authenticity of the products of the old continent is not sufficiently protected and worry the differences in food safety. Many have converted, like the writer, to the biological courgettes of Guatemala and the grapes of Peru in a Cupio dissolves that the economist Michael von Massow, of the University of Guelph, describes as follows: “It is not a question of buying Canadian, which is a good thing, as well as not to buy American”.
Here the town made the wines of the Napa Valley disappear from the shelves and the Kentucky bourbon, Canceled thousands of holidays in Florida and Arizona and unscrupulously disdained the subscriptions to Netflix. The most important contraindication, however, lies in the probability of further deterioration of relations with the States. The whistles of the Canadians to cover the American anthem in the pre-match for hockey or basketball meetings are a disconnected note compared to the past, when instead they intoned it if the audio system of the stadium did not work. Like entry into Europe, even the removal from Washington may take years and billions of dollars of investments. The infrastructures for the transport of oil and the GNL, for example, are ready for the Pacific, but not towards the Atlantic, for the resistance of Quebec when these in its territory. EU adhesion would cause deep American concerns on safety and sovereignty of borders, especially among those who see Brussels in competition. The idea of entering as an 28th union member or the 51st Star-and-and-stiff state can be a negotiating bluff. Or a tiring reality. There will be an answer soon.
