New polling suggests a majority of Canadians think Canada ought to explore joining the European Union at a fraught time for geopolitical relations.
A survey of 4,000 people conducted by Spark Advocacy’s polling arm in March found that one in four respondents thought it would be a good idea for Canada to formally join the economic and political bloc of European nations.
A further 58 per cent indicated it was a proposal worth exploring further, while the remainder felt it was a bad idea.
Spark’s chief strategy officer Bruce Anderson says the survey suggests Canadians are increasingly open to finding ways to buck Canada’s reliance on the United States after more than a year of tariffs under U.S. President Donald Trump’s second administration.
France’s foreign minister last month openly floated the idea of Canada joining the EU, while Prime Minister Mark Carney has said he’s looking to deepen trade and security ties with the continent but not as a formal member of the bloc.
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I’m with the 58% who think it’s worth exploring. But we need a lot of time and much deeper ties before we’d jump into eu membership.
I’d love to see us adopt EU standards, to reduce our reliance on the US standards which are increasingly prone to corruption and anti-science manipulations. If a car can be sold in Germany or a drug can be sold in France let’s immediately allow those here too. If a person gets a medical degree in Spain, they can work at a hospital here with just some minimal localization.
It may also be worth exploring pegging the CAD to the euro, again for stability and commerce reasons. This also has significant risks and downsides but it also could insulate us from American chaos somewhat.
There are likely areas in defence where we could cooperate with the EU, with the health of nato being questionable at best.
After all that, let’s talk.
Yeah, it’s very easy to be “open” to the idea. I’m interested myself, but I know next to nothing about what the effects of that sort of integration would be.