Jacques Attali, former adviser to French president François Mitterrand, wrote about the behind-the-scenes work the "sherpas" do for their principals in his three-volume "Verbatim", which has been translated into English.

Carney and his diplomats have been having high-level talks along these lines with a bunch of EU member states for the last few months at least. That's atypical even. WSJ quoted French diplomats as essentially saying, "this is moving very quickly all of a sudden".

Carney and von der Leyen haven't really talked about what this would mean but it seems safe to assume that they (plus leaders of the major EU member states) have been talking about it, at least in broad strokes.

Strangely, I've heard this a lot, yet everyone describing it lays out their goals, and what they think it should be.

And talks of working towards those goals.

Nothing is mysterious here, it's just a new thing. We'll work it out, and once we do, we'll go from there.

As Buckeroo Bonsai said,

"No matter where you go, there you are!"

Canada has a sea border with France.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pierre_and_Miquelon

Not the same, but the Canary Islands are part of Spain, and are clearly in the African continent, geographically speaking.

In any case, I believe the EU can accommodate Canada or other like-wise counties. One of the goals for the EU is to unify smaller sovereign regions to have a greater power and be able to sit on the table having leverage with the bigger states layers. Growing by anexing Canada would increase that power.

All laws are made up. An associate member, not a full member, can be whatever we want it to be.

All of the things like free trade and free movement could presumably be negotiated separately, they’re just creating an omnibus deal and slapping a fancy label on it.

Vimmy Ridge memorial is also forever given for the use of Canada by France after WW1, it is administered by Parks Canada. So we technically control land in Europe.

It would be funny if the solution is for Greenland/Denmark to annex Canada as a workaround on paper.

*Cyprus

Not really, as long as it’s majority white nation and shares European culture, they are fine with it

Apparently EU and Canada did well with the branding as this is entirely new concept that no one knows what it means but gives you warm and fuzzy feelings inside, isn't it?

Anyway, I would love it if Canada joins the free movement zone and Schengen eventually however despite not knowing what is this "associate member" thing is sounds like a stretch. Imagine though, how cool would be to travel to between America and Europe without your passport, like a domestic flight.

I'm really not fan of the trend to devide this rock in space into zones where you need a reason and permission based on that reason to travel. Can't be happier that there's a progress towards making the world a friendlier place.

Yeah, I don’t understand why people have a problem with this. I think it should basically always be true between peer nations that there is free movement and trade.

Schengen isn't necessary for freedom of movement, FWIW

I'd love if my EU passport allowed me work and living rights in Canada

Also EU can exposer some of their asylum seekers to Canada as well

I do not believe that once the ink dries on what the EU is willing to concede that the people in Canada would agree in a referendum.

This reeks of being custom made to enrage one person in particular and give leeway for negotiations.

Except Switzerland and EEA exist?

The UK could absolutely pursue some form of association with the EU if it so desired, it doesn't need to be in the EU for increased cooperation. The problem is that the UK people overseeing brexit wanted very much to cherry-pick only what was advantageous for the UK only and cede on nothing that the bloc desired.

As for Canada, we will have to wait and see. Is it a Switzerland style deal (an endless torrent of asterisks)? Is it something similar to EEA but lighter? Something that is more focused on trade and mutual defense and less on freedom of movement and financial ties?

Probably the main advantage of the EU is that it is much stronger at negotiating these sorts of agreements than any of its individual countries would have been.

It is a deal, both sides bring something to the table and try to negotiate what comes from that.

As a non-Canadian, I find this a very good news also. You said it well. What I didn't expect was that things could move at this lightning pace. Well done, EU & Canada!

Are there any tangible economic benefits here? Or is it just a label?

Curious if you would like to share more.

Unfortunately, the Constitution (Article 1 Section 10) forbids states from entering into alliances and treaties with other countries, or with one another, without the explicit permission of Congress.

There are no blue states that would want to join the EU. The big ones would rather go independent. EU doesn't offer much

Carney has extremely strong support amongst the general public in Canada which hasn't been the case for the Canadian PM over the past 20+ years.

158 Canadian soldiers died defending the United States at the US's request after 9/11. Canadian fighter jets helped to patrol the skies in the US at the US's request after 9/11.

The insults coming from the US Secretary of Defence and President are not unnoticed. They are logged and remembered.

Agreed, and the possibility of visa free travel to the EU, plus the removal of live/work barriers is appealing. The USA really comes off as the spurned ex that calls you drunk in the middle of the night.

Research the "Monroe doctrine"... by which I mean, don't just look up a one paragraph summary, spend a bit of time with it. A few pages of text at least. Ideally in a modern formulation you should encounter the term "World Island" without having directly searched for it and how the modern iteration of the Monroe doctrine is a reaction to that in a way that the original didn't have to contend with.

I'm not doing advocacy here, I'm giving pointers on how to come to a deeper understanding of what is going on.

It is also important to understand that the EU is directly attacking this doctrine with this proposal. You are free to agree with the EU. Again, I'm just giving something to guide people to a deeper understanding of what is going on beyond the surface level playground politics of it all. There's more going on than that.

(Personally I would say I "disagree" with the Monroe doctrine but the sort of national/international structure I would actually want is not even remotely on the table, so... my opinion is thereby of even less import than a random other opinion drawn from "the masses" for choosing "E, none of the above" when that was not given as an option in the first place.)

> So if Canada tries to make friends with anyone other than the US, it's a hostile act?

I believe the terms in human relationships are coercive control and social isolation.

Pretty much exactly this.

A whole lot of Trump's psychology has always been "it's your fault I hurt you" for the longest time — it's a very clear undercurrent in how he treated his first wife.

He's an abuser. And now so is the USA.

Sometimes the winning move is to not play at all. He's finding out what happens when people stop playing his game.

As I said it in another post, what does Trump expect? His negotiations are all stick and no carrot.

Canada is bound to look for new trade opportunities in the face of that.

You make a deal with Trump, it's always worse than what you had previously.

Then, no mater what you do, he breaks the deal 3 months later with some kind of implied military threat if you complain.

All the comparisons with personal relationships here are silly. This isn't a marital split. This someone who thinks they're the only customer saying they don't want to buy something and the vendor saying fair enough, I'll sell it to someone else.

USA has always been very aggressive about territory and hostile to Europe in the Americas. The Canada vs UK vs EU relationship seems more interesting to me.

It's pretty much the exact same playbook that Russia used against Ukraine.

Trump lacks the introspection to realise that he's the bully at the playground that everyone is distancing themselves from.

He somehow thinks that he's going to make the US more respected by constantly jabbing at his allies

See Putin on Ukraine. Very much the same idea; "country near us having its own foreign policy is an attack on us!!!"

Trump has already been threatening Canada and EU at various times already. Why should they assume a) this will be any different b) he'll stop if they do what he wants?

> So if Canada tries to make friends with anyone other than the US, it's a hostile act?

I don't think anyone really says it's an hostile act but both countries, Canada and the US will have to decide what it means for their ongoing relationship.

Canada is free to get closer to Europe and the US is free to be displeased about it.

Maybe it works out well for Canada or maybe it doesn't.

> Makes it all the more obvious that USA is Canada's abusive partner

Why anthropomorphize geopolitics?

This is just just a big fish throwing its weight around like all big fishes do. Russia does it with its neighbors, China does it as well and India and Europe are not shy about it either.

It's just the name of the game and its been happening since the dawn of time.

Some states use force, others bribe or cajole but in the end they all try to influence their neighbors in a way that suits their interests especially if these neighbors are smaller in terms of population/economy/military etc...

The fact that so many people are shocked by such news these days is because everyone drank the cool aid of the End of History and forgot that spheres of influence still exists and that the rule of law was nothing more than gentleman's agreement that could be thrown out of the window at a moment's notice without second thoughts.

I try not to take anything Trump say too seriously, but we have to remember that the USians chose him... twice.

"No Russian leader could stand idly by in the face of steps toward NATO membership for Ukraine. That would be a hostile act toward Russia"

https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraines-future-in-nato-prec...

edit since I guess the timestamp isn't visible to everyone: Jul 12, 2023, 5:56 PM GMT+2

> So if Canada tries to make friends with anyone other than the US, it's a hostile act?

If your ex starts dating your best friend directly after breakup, would you consider it a hostile act?

Canada has needed more workers but is suffering from a lack of affordable($675000 average when the average family makes <$110000) housing like many places with other costs rising too. The number of housing starts has never recovered from the huge downturn around 2010.

You might be right, but I honestly think that this is a situation where competition helps both sides to pull themselves up.

It will definitely depend by work market, eg it's well known in France video game worker move to Quebec already.

98% of CETA has been ratified. The last 2% is the hard part, but the 98% covers a lot of goods...

> EU is notoriously fractured and divided in the best of times, especially around membership.

Eh, we're less divided than people who think so realize, we're more divided than people who think we're united realize. Not really an issue on that particular case.

> Importantly, many EU countries have not ratified CETA

Like a lot of deals, including a big part of dicussion in the Canada/US talk, CETA's issues are about food.

But the thing is, unlike a lot of deal like Mercosur, CA/EU is very vast even excluding food, for BOTH sides of the talk. So I'm pretty sure we can figure things out.

The news cycle was a lot slower, and there’s a chance you wouldn’t be literate enough to read newspapers. I suspect you’d probably just carry on per usual.

Don’t forget granting partial control of that other strait to the Houthis a few days ago.

Closer to home: there have been a record number of firefighter fatalities this year. It is partially climate change, and partially redirecting national guard troops to harass folks in DC and pick up litter.

According to this morning’s news, he’s also micromanaging of firefighting efforts to make them less effective, more expensive, more dangerous, and to maximize future fire risk.

Basically he’s dictated head on attacks to fire fronts, and complete suppression. All experts and firefighters agree it is better to contain the borders of the fires instead, and only fight fires on the interior if it makes ecological sense or protects buildings, lives, etc. (After all, the burn on the interior is necessary for forest health, and also removes fuel.)

Then there’s the NASA thing, where he didn’t want to pay $10M for building maintenance, so instead put $10B of active missions at risk, and threw out > $100M of specialized equipment (or auctioned it off at tenths of pennies on the dollar; probably to US adversaries).

“divert attention” away from a political economic issue that actually impacts hundreds of millions of peoples’ lives and livelihoods toward… a drama about rich pedophiles?

The US is always going to be a large powerful and influential country, Geography and natural resources and a high education base ensure that.

What it won't be is as influential as it was for a long time, if ever.

The damage isn't a "Next President" problem, it's already a generational problem.

The international rules/trade based order was predicated on both sides agreeing that those were the rules, when one side unilaterally decides to tear it up and then demand the same advantages they had before they tore it up, the other has to respond, We can't ignore it and hope the problem goes away.

They chose to open Pandora's box on this one, the rest of us are just figuring out what that looks like going forwards.

I have a litmus test for democrats. If they pass, it could dig out in a decade or two. If not, it is probably game over:

Do you support pursuing criminal charges for current members of the executive branch and their counterparts in private industry? Do you support pursuing maximum sentences, including asset seizure and the death penalty? Do you support suspending or otherwise not honoring presidential pardons? Will you cooperate with ICCC warrants?

If you think my litmus test is too harsh, consider the fact that the Bush family made its fortune by illegally selling to the Nazis, was caught literally organizing a military coup in the US, and was instrumental in ripping out a perfectly good national passenger train network.

In response they got a slap on the wrist and used their illegal gains to control the white house. Twice.

> What's the best estimate for US to recover from non-stop levels of stupid?

I think it'll get much worse before we can even hope it gets a tiny bit better. Politics are fucked, education is fucked, petrol is fucked, the stock market is extra fucked, morales are fucked, etc.

So if you mean "when do we start winning like in the 80s", it's probably never, too many things are breaking down or on the verge of breaking down, things with way too much momentum to fix by simply getting the other side of the political spectrum in control for 4 years. Not even talking about China planning for the next 100 years when Trump can't even determine if he'll shit his pants in the next 15 minutes

I don’t think you understand that the EU and Canada both have deep vested interests in protecting Ukrainian sovereignty. Canada shares a large Arctic border with Russia, and is geopolitically motivated to prevent Russian expansionism. The EU is motivated to defend its eastern flank, and impose cost on a Russia that may just eye the Baltic states next.

It certainly has the ambition to expand its power base and reduce its oversight.

This is not even remotely related in any way to Gaia-X. The only connection is your marketing blitz label, which can be anything that involves public communications, really.

I read it less as support for the actual thing, and more that folks support something they think the current US administration won’t like.

Well, Finland's gonna insist on getting Celebrini in the trade.

> This is a long way of asking: Can the US west coast become an associate EU member too? Here in California, the Sierra Nevada and deserts of the southwest are already 99% of the wall we’d need to protect our border from maga zealots.

From someone on the opposite side of the political aisle, you have my support!

This is the same PP that grasped defeat in the face of victory, and is continually losing support, relegating himself to the same position of the Reform party that it was in the 90's. The same Polly that lost his riding last election, and had to have one handed to him on a silver spoon. I would take his opinion with a grain of salt.

It sounds like they need to read what an associate membership is before they complain about it then

This is what most people in canada think of PP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ysqevg-jbAA

Schengen and EU isn’t the same.

Seems like he's attacking a bunch of strawmen.

> EU open-border immigration policies should be imposed on Canadians

Not sure what's meant by that... People won't start swimming over the atlantic ocean. And flights to Canada aren't really cheap, by any means.

Classic Conservative move of building a strawman and arguing against it. None of these deals would involve taxes, EU "laws" (whatever that means) or border agreements. He's using the boogeyman of "ew brown people" to scare his base.

Apparently, even Canadian conservatives are happy to grovel at the feet of the Burger Reich and their supreme leader.

> EU open-border immigration policies

what's that?

He's not wrong. I have a suspicion this EU idea is a way to backdoor immigration increases - something the Trudeau government was very keen on but was scaled back by Carney. Largely because immigration has become a hot-button issue in Canada and was partly responsible for Polilievre's popularity last election. Joining a treaty where another governing body would set the criteria for immigration and Canada just has to accept it due to freedom of movement within the EU is one way to route around the whole thing politically and make it much harder to change in the future.

If this is the motivation, it's a grossly undemocratic move.

I don't get how folks who hyperventilate about Trump being a threat to democracy can look at stuff like this and cheer.

This guy isn't serious and should have resigned a long time ago. Zero credibility.

I assume there are a lot of Canadians and Europeans (myself included) on HN, who like some positive news for a change.

This seems like US centric view. It’s big news, and highly relevant to tech workers across Canada and Europe.

Right, we are only interested in anything AI

When you write longer comments you just get flagged down to -4 unless they’re blindly positive.

Maybe the US Admin is deeply unpopular, and people are happy to discuss all the ways in which it is wrong and shortsighted?

I think you'll find most Albertans would welcome international trade diversity, and if anything is theatre, it's the referendum. "Secessionists" are a significant minority, and even most of those don't actually want to secede, they just don't like the national government. "Send a message to Ottawa" is the motto.

Carney has a majority in Parliament, he can do this pretty much unilaterally if he wants. And a straw poll at the after-beer from band last night had everybody enthusiastic about the prospect.

As for the secession referendum, it's currently polling at 20-30% and it's not a real referendum, its a referendum to hold a referendum.

Quebec is also about to have a provincial election where separatism, and everyone's relationship to it, is the main argument.

Many people on both sides of the Atlantic wrongly think Quebec is more compatible with Europe than the rest of Canada because they speak French, but almost the exact things Quebec separatists care most about are the things the EU wouldn't let them control.

Its interesting to see just how MAGA-ajacent the comments are on hacker news. You would think most people in tech were more liberal.

The actual referendum question will be

> should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?

So it's a referendum on whether or not to start the process towards possibly, maybe, holding a referendum in the future.

https://www.elections.ab.ca/elections/referendum/

> The chances of Canada getting everyone to go along with this are close to zero.

They are a democracy, they don't have to get "everyone to go along with this" they just have to get the majority to go along with it.

The real political theatre is coming from Alberta. Secession can't be achieved unilaterally under Canadian constitutional law. A clear majority on a clear referendum question would create an obligation to negotiate.

More critically, the Numbered Treaties (6, 7, and 8, and to a lesser extent 4 and 10) make the entire idea, for all practical purposes, a legal dead end. These are nation-to-nation covenants with the Crown and not with the province.

To leave with its borders intact, Alberta would have to negotiate constitutional amendments with Ottawa and the other provinces, while securing affected First Nations’ consent to any transfer or replacement of their treaty relationships with Canada in a situation where Alberta has almost no leverage.

Good luck.

Giving Alberta a market where they can sell LNG might get them on board, but this would also require a bunch of new infrastructure (pipelines? ports?) that I suspect the Canadian government will not want built.

It would be lovely to get Europe off of Russian energy imports.

Sort of. The referendum is unpopular and is non-binding, actually a question about whether to have a referendum. Its widely seen as a political maneuver by AB to extract pipeline concessions.

> It's just political theater

Do you think the referendum in question is not a political theater?

I don't know much, but it stands to me that the EU association is magnitudes more serious.

The EU "theater" in wonderfully bureaucratic

> where all of Canada's "energy security" is located

Alberta selling oil to USA is, by itself, like 20% of Canada's entire GDP.

And 70% of all other exports go to USA too. So yeah it is mostly just theater because there's a loud mouth idiot in the White house.

They're doing some lip-service and just hoping it will blow over when Trump is gone.

Trips to Canada have always left a bad taste in my mouth, but they've always been to Ontario, Quebec. I've been wondering if I'd like the people in Alberta better.

don't forget high life expectancy!

what does that mean? People should never have friends because some people are jerks?

Self-isolation (whether a nation or a person) is not a good solution to hypothetical bad actors. Society is built on cooperation and trust

Can you share some of these degenerate cases?

Can you share some of these degenerate cases?

> It's a weird two-front war

Who are the adversaries?

You call it globalism, when it is in practice having good trade relations.

And the opposite case is also a quick way to degenerate cases: if Canada devalued cooperation, what is the argument for provinces to not do the same? And thus it would only fuel Quebec and Alberta separatism.

You already see it with Brexit which is clearly opening further "us-vs-them" outlooks in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Your argument is that some vague hypothetical bad thing could happen to Canada if they diversified their trade partners, so they should just accept economic terrorism from DC and not attempt to support the parts of their economy that already rely on imports/exports?

That is a strange take.