Canada’s Corrupt Liberal Government

Mark Carney is back in the news as the ubiquitous champion of the old, rules-based international order.

Building on a speech he made in Davos earlier this year to the effect that “middle” powers should huddle together for warmth in an era dominated by superpower rivalry, he sought this week to further cosy up to the EU as an alternative to increasingly hostile relations with Trump’s America.

It’s fair to say that the Canadian prime minister’s speech to the European parliament was more important for its political signalling than its real-world economic significance. Ever since Trump made Canada the butt end of his war on international trade, Carney has ridden a wave of offended Canadian patriotism.

Europe was so much on Mark Carney’s mind early this week that he was talking about it during his inaugural Canada Investment Summit in Toronto.

Canada will seek a “unique security and economic alliance” with the European Union (EU), Carney told the international delegates at the Toronto summit, a historic gathering the Canadian prime minister expects will yield some $1 trillion in investment in Canada over the next few years.

No I don’t.

The problem with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s coy courtship of the European Union is that it leaves Canadians bewildered as to the nature of the relationship.

In his speech to the European Parliament Thursday, Carney showered the EU and its officials with praise, pledged strategic cooperation, called for closer ties and predicted an “alliance for the future.”

No one appears to know precisely what it would mean for Canada to become an “associate member” of the European Union. The status does not exist in EU treaties, and its legal, regulatory and commercial implications remain undefined.

That uncertainty should invite caution, but not cynicism. A renewed alliance with Europe could diversify Canadian exports, attract food-processing investment and reduce our overwhelming dependence on the United States. But success will depend on whether Canada secures reciprocal market access or simply agrees to follow more European rules. That could be a problem.

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.

There are, as Lenin apparently did not say, decades when nothing happens, and weeks when decades happen. This was one of those weeks: a remarkable series of policy and diplomatic moves that give unmistakable form to what until lately had been mostly rhetorical flourish. The Carney doctrine remains only partly visible, and may only be partly developed, but there’s no denying any more that there is a doctrine.

Eww … this is like reading one of Coyne’s wet dreams.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Mark Carney stood before the European Parliament and said that he welcomed the “ambition” to bring Canada in as an “associate member.” He framed it as a sovereignty-reinforcing move, but seeing how many strings and risks come with EU membership — and how little he’s told the public about his plan — it sounds like a slim prospect.

Mark Carney received a rapturous reception in the European parliament when he gave his speech on Thursday welcoming a proposal for Canada to become the EU’s first-ever associate member.

Politicians queued to shake his hand and take selfies. One described the speech as a historic moment. “Europe has extended a hand, and Canada has taken it,” said the German Green MEP Terry Reintke, who borrowed a Canadian ice hockey shirt for the occasion.