Canada joining Europe?

Written By: canadeu
Date: 2004-08-06 14:49:00
<a href="/article/104939563-canada-joining-europe">Article Link</a>

For reference, I\'m Canadian and live in the UK....

Ok- I\'m probably going to get a torrent of hatemail here - but I\'m going to ask you anyway:

After thinking about this I really actually think that Canada would be far better off joining the EU than getting closer to the USA. Should we consider joining?

We have lots in common on cultural / politcal fronts, they represent a huge source of investment potential, plus they\'re a huge marketplace for us. That ocean between us is just one huge highway for our goods/services.

What do you all think?

Free trade in goods, services and investment is definitely helpful for Canada so it makes sense to do both, work out agreements with the European Union and the United States. Regardless of the agreements however, the majority of our trade will always be with the US because transportation costs are much cheaper and it is easier to communicate with the Americans with respect to language and time zones.

Joining the E.U. would be a bigger threat to our sovereignty than NAFTA. Giving up our money sovereignty would be the end of Canada as we know it, so NO.

Aside from the fact that we are NOT Europeans.

Oh yeah, if the U.S. managed to join the E.U.m than fascism would have a new kind of transparency.

NAFTA & the EU are totally different agreements... more to come in a couple weeks... hehe

---
"George Bush has declared the war on terrorism to be the cause of his generation. The cause of Canadian sovereignty will be ours." - John Godfrey, MP for Don Va

Agree, Canada does not need to join the EU. Also, the EU would be wise to refuse any attempt by America (however faint a possibility it is now) to join. Washington would only try to run it all themselves!

---
Dave Ruston

I agree that Canada does not need to join the EU ... and should not join it, even if possible. But we certainly should have pursued closer economic ties with them when we first flirted with the idea 35 years ago; we wouldn't be so strapped to the US hip as we are now.

Paul Harris

...because the EU member countries have suffered so much from giving up monetary control? I don't buy that using the Euro would be a problem. I think it would be beneficial, since we would then have a much better trade position against our closest and biggest trade partner, but most of the trade would still go there (it costs too much to ship things across the ocean when you can sell them down south.) I would much rather see us in a trade agreement with a large group of countries rather than with one or 2.

I think Canada joining the EU is a great idea. Here's why:

The EU would be a serious counterweight to the elephant to the south we've joined ourselves too. Through the whole 1990s and beyond our social programs have been harmonized with the US. If we were also part of the EU, and didn't like how the US was negotiating we could increase our reliance on the EU. If the EU was giving us problems, we could get closer to the US. The EU's more progressive stance on social programs would be good ally against the neo-cons in our own midst and the Republicans to the south.

You might argue its dangerous to join another free trade zone. But Canada is totally committed to free trade--not even the NDP talks about abrograting NAFTA any more. We need to get the best deal possible inside these global free trade deals.

Joining the EU might be easier than you think. Our Queen still lives in England--doesn't that make us subjects of an EU monarch? Plus, we're still members of the Commonwealth--again part of the old European world order, the British Empire.

---
If you don't like these ideas, I've got others. --Marshall McLuhan

Canada has ties to the EU via the Commonwealth and the Francophonie and have been to the benefit of all without the cost of sovereignty. Our ties to the US via NAFTA and FTA and soon NAFTA plus undermines and will eventually remove our control of our nations industries, resources and abilities to make laws for the benefit of Canadian citizens. Our trade relations with the US is abusive at best. That being said we need partners to keep us in one piece and joining with the EU has been discussed at length. It would be favorable if we were to join a trade block more on par with our economy like Australia, but we would not reject a life raft being thrown our way by the EU either. There would only be two reservations to the EU as I see it.
1) NAFTA has a great advantage to the power elite in this country and they will resist any change to that especially a trade deal with the EU that would supersede or even trigger the abrogation of NAFTA.
2) The EU would overpower Canada and we would be trading the devil for the witch. Given our track record at the trade negotiation table I have little faith of team Canada making a equable deal in our long term interests.

If we could overcome those two challenges and get the public behind the idea that we must seek a solution outside of our current trade deals we might have a future.

There are any number of people who who adopt US greenback in Canada. And trade across 3000 miles of ocean isn't appreciably more costly than trade across a thousand miles of dryland. And Europeans will pay a reasonabel price for our resources. As it stands right now, we are just a "holding area" for the US, to be cranked up when they perceive a shortage in come commodity. In short the US is playing us like a cheap fiddle.

---
RickW

An equal voice. I think sovereignty is more than just free trade economics. It incorporates the notion that we have the independent authority to decide our own future, what's best for all of us, and we're free to exercise those rights fully. Sovereignty is only meaningful if it allows us to remain true to ourselves - and by this I mean being true to the unique Canadian culture that differentiates us from other nations. Sovereignty must go hand in hand with safeguarding our culture, or it's utterly worthless. If we maintain our sovereignty outside of Europe, but in the process our unique viewpoints/culture is lost through 'harmonization' with the US - then we might as well not have had it. Our unique Canadian world view is definitely not respected by the USA. What happens when we disagree with them? Recent border control issues, anyone? How can we justify building a future where our sovereignty is intact, but exercising it is curbed so as to avoid US penalties? US economic bullying will ultimately compromise us totally - it puts our core values at risk, and without those our sovereignty is meaningless. The EU however is a union built with cultural maintenance in mind. On that basis alone EU membership is interesting. In Europe, Canada is thought of very highly amongst the Europeans and I believe we would be given a voice. It is a place that might appreciate our collective worldview rather than try and stamp it out. Existing EU member countries have not 'lost their identity' as far as I've been able to tell on my travels - and neither would we. And it would be harder for the USA to bully us, even if we negotiated poorly in Europe. Give me freedom of movement across two continents! EU membership comes with additional benefits at the individual level too - in terms of freedom of movement. Europeans could live and work in Canada (many of them would like to) and we could live and work there (many of us would like that chance). Thus some tangible benefits would be made available to every Canadian through membership, not just those Canadians with business interests who'd benefit from free trade. Freedom of movement may not seem like such a big deal today, but it certainly could be in the future as the USA leads the world into a new era of paranoia.

Why do we need to join anyone? It sounds like "if you are not with me, you are against me". Is Canada not a beacon in the world?

Trading blocks look to me like a reason to justify yet an other bureaucracy and further remove the People that should be trading in the first place. Small is beautiful.

Gaulois - you took the words right out of my mouth.

Roy

Gaulois, I love the way you think sometimes.......personally I don't think the E.U. was designed for anyone except business...the citizens sure don't seem to like giving up their currencies. Only 40% voted in the E.U. elections, and most of those people voted for parties that opposed the E.U. in the first place.