Author: Blazingcatfur

Plans for Canada to join the European Union as an “associate member” have been dismissed as meaningless by diplomats in Brussels.

Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, told Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, she wanted to open the door to the unprecedented, and as yet undefined, associate membership in a flagship speech in Strasbourg.

But the offer seemed to wrong-foot Mr Carney, who attended Ms Von der Leyen’s state of the union address.

It is generally accepted that Mark Carney rode an unexpected wave of Canadian nationalism into office, and in many ways his government is still riding it, cresting each time the American president issues another ill-considered public statement.

Yet few weeks have illustrated the basic incoherence of this nationalist project like this one. On Monday and Tuesday, the government hosted the Canada Investment Summit in Toronto, where it proclaimed a new era of economic growth across the country, trumpeting the commitment of hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign investment across major Canadian industries. It thus signalled an ambitious program of nation-building, spurred by a shared sense of being under threat from an aggrandizing neighbour.

Imagine a back-to-school September of the future — one in which Canada is an official associate member of the European Union.

Parents aren’t driving their university students back to campus, but to the airport. The kids are catching flights to the Netherlands or Spain or France for a year of study under Europe’s Erasmus Plus exchange program.

At those institutes of higher learning, scientists and researchers are collaborating with their Canadian counterparts on technologies to benefit people and businesses on both sides of the Atlantic with Horizon Europe research funding.