this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2025
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The idea of Canada joining the EU has got renewed attention after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened the country with high tariffs

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[–] tan00k 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (8 children)

We grant you the rank of EU member, but you are not in Europe.

Edit: For those of you taking this seriously, it's just a play on a stupid star wars meme

[–] [email protected] 5 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

There is precedent (Cyprus, as well as Turkey previously wanting to join).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

France and many EU counties have territory all around the globe. So technically EU is everywhere .

[–] [email protected] 3 points 22 hours ago

Right, but neither Cyprus, Turkey or Canada have territory in Europe.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 21 hours ago

What do you mean? We have a land border with Denmark.

If that's not good enough, maybe Sweden would be willing to part with one of their 267,570 islands. Or at least half of one... if we took the inside half, then Sweden wouldn't have to worry about losing any of the EEZ.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 day ago

We can pass a law saying Canada is part of Europe and Google, Apple, and Microsoft will change their maps.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 21 hours ago

Neither is Greenland.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago

Doesn't matter. The requirement is to be "a European country", not "a country in Europe". What "European" really means has been left deliberately ambiguous.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Eh, continents are entirely a socially-constructed category. I mean, how can Mexican America and South America be one continent when there's no land route between them, yet Europe and Asia can be two continents? The Americas are on different techtonic plates, which similarly is enough to earn India the designation of subcontinent. And where's the cut-off between big island and continent? Bigger than Greenland, and smaller than Australia is all we can say.

Anyway, what I'm saying is that with just a quick redefinition of the continents, which already don't make sense, Canada can be in Europe.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago

I would laugh myself to death.

[–] aeronmelon 54 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Canada and Mexico should form the American Union and immediately pincer the United States, economically and literally.

[–] scarabic 7 points 21 hours ago

Canada is the number 9 economy in the world and Mexico is number 15. This would be a significant body. They could add in Cuba and REALLY piss off the US.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago

Canada and mexico should form a union that's called Super America. And america isn't part of it.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They should call the new deal the MexiCana or something. Good for all 3 languages.

[–] badbytes 5 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Yes, English, Spanish, and whatever the Quebec speak.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Is it still a pincer is it's A-B-A-B? Don't forget Alaska.

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[–] alexc 15 points 1 day ago

This should totally happen. I struggle to think of anything that would be made worse by adopting European laws and customs.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 days ago (1 children)

National Post is a conservative newspaper owned by Americans.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

Yup. Which is why this only makes me want to Canada to be an EU member even more.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 days ago

Remember, folks, this newspaper is very biased due to its ownership.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago (3 children)

shouldnt eu then be called atlantic union or something

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago

Nah - Canada can Naxit since we have an extensive land border with Denmark. And nearly every Canadian could make the grueling cross Atlantic swim to France.

[–] AA5B 9 points 1 day ago

Maybe like North Atlantic Treaty ~~Organization~~ union

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[–] werefreeatlast 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Canada... Northwest Europe.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Is there anything in EU regulations that mandates technical standards that would be difficult to replace on a Canada-wide scale, such as 220V/50Hz mains electricity, RF spectrum, TV broadcasting formats and such? How much of a mess would it make to split these into “EU West” and “EU East”, and to balance that with there being a notional single market (“what do you mean the TV I bought in Toronto won’t work in Prague?”)

[–] Paragone 1 points 23 hours ago

Aviation, Shipping, Telecom, there's loads of regulations in the EU..

it isn't the existence of regulations in the EU that annoys me, as standards, when done right, massively-reduce the "tax" of needless-waste, & needless-harm, ..

.. rather, it is the standards being decided by things other than globally-elegant effectiveness & globally-elegant efficiency.

Politics has NO proper place in government, yet humankind has handed the world to be outright-RULED by the coalition between political-machiavellianism-of-parties & moneyarchy, using their friend legalism for leverage against Justice ( the fight between legalism & moral-law is millenia-old ), & now physical-force/bullets has sided with the extremists of all sides, to "help" the world resolve to their victory, too..

Sooo many dimensions of this stuff going-on, now..

Anti-strategy, all of that.

No matter: The Great Filter should finish doing its thing by the end of this century, & if anybody is left alive, then they will have grown-up, completely, as a population.

if, though..

.. sigh ..

_ /\ _

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 days ago (16 children)

Is this something that can happen? Like, realistically?

[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 days ago

If you've been paying attention over the last 2 weeks, literally anything can happen at any time. We live in the age of miracles and horrors.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Have you read the article?

TL;DR: I wouldn’t bet on it

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

A conservative US owned newspaper may have some bias.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

I see you haven’t read the article either, because otherwise you’d know that it doesn’t even answer the question directly, but instead goes to great lengths theorizing about every possible outcome, no matter how unlikely it is.

The TL;DR was my own opinion, but if you actually make it through this piece, I’m fairly sure you’ll agree.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

“I’m a little bit dismayed that this unrealistic debate about EU membership kind of distracts from the things that could really be done to intensify the relationship,” said Hurrelmann. “How could we try to speed up processes of regulatory alignment under CETA? How could we encourage European investment in Canada in areas such as critical raw materials?… Those, I think, are the kinds of debates for which there’s really a lot of potential. And the Canada-EU economic relationship can definitely become closer and can be intensified, and that would be beneficial for both sides, but not through Canada’s membership in the EU.”

Hmm. I'm not actually sure that's a problem. Even if we say we want to, the first steps are doing things like aligning regulations and setting up free movement, as this article goes into.

But yeah, even if we make EU Canada work it's a long way off.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Yeah I didn't get that part either. If we say we want to be part of the EU and in the end we only improve trade with the EU why is that worse then saying we only want to improve trade relations and only improve trade relations? Don't get why this guys would be "dismayed" unless he doesn't really want more trade with the EU.

[–] Matriks404 6 points 1 day ago

Transatlantic Union go!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Well, we'd have to redraw a bunch of maps, so at least it'd one up the dumb Gulf of Mexico distraction.

This seems pretty silly. There are tons of intermediary states Canada could reach without the weird torturing of geography. As the linked piece acknowledges way at the bottom, incidentally.

[–] NABDad 20 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Imagine if the United States of America had a state that wasn't part of America. It would be completely crazy! How could it ever make sense?

I mean, picture it: some place, say somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, maybe some independent Polynesian country, just gets made into a state. We wouldn't be the United States of America anymore!

;-)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

The European Union is just a name, a label, I don't think it would too much of a drama to change the name for something more inclusive, even if we do not change the name, who cares anyway? There are already some overseas territories in South America that technically are part of the EU like someone else pointed.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

I don't see this. Greenland is right next to it so it would just be a westward extension. Australia would be wierd but canada fits right in.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

Why would we? The european Union already has existing territory in Latein america, so a north American Country joining aint ruled Out.

*technically, thanks to France, we already have a Union, where the sun never sets. If it we're Not for the fact, that those other territories are Not recognized as being an integral territory by France , therefore Not being within EU jurisdiction. I guess, If a certain orange would try to coerce France into selling those territories, this opinion of france would change fast 😉

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