Canada would win some and lose some if it joined the EU

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Cameron McNeill is a speechwriter based in Brussels.

When people in Brussels learn I hail from Canada, the conversation has in recent months followed two predictable paths.

The first is a request to opine on the differences in winter weather. Canada, I tell them, is indeed much colder. Belgium, on the other hand, is much greyer.

The second begins with a knowing wink. “When,” they would like to know, “is Canada joining the European Union?”

My answer has always been “never,” though it would be helpful in my struggle against a Belgian immigration system that has broken stronger men than me.

Yet last month, Finnish President Alexander Stubb suggested to Mark Carney that he should give it some thought. France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said that Canada may “at some point” extend Europe’s border across the Atlantic. A majority of Canadians, recent polling found, support the idea of exploring EU membership.

Of course, Mark Carney has said that Canada has no interest in EU membership.

But while I have spent years telling politicians not to answer a hypothetical question, I have no such constraints today. So what would it look like if Canada joined the EU?

Majority of Canadians open to joining EU, new poll suggests

As someone who has now spent more than two years living, working, travelling, and eating in Europe, I have – I freely admit – become a EuroSnob. Work generally begins at 9 a.m. and usually ends at 5 p.m. Thirty days of vacation is common; an hour lunch break is a given; and people drink on terraces year-round. I wish more Canadians could experience functional rail travel and the Wednesday market on the square at the end of my street.

But Canadians’ interest in Europe is mirrored by Europeans’ interest in Canada – a country many (correctly) consider the greatest in the world.

The freedom of movement that comes with EU membership would see hundreds of thousands of Europeans flocking across the ocean – and the collapse of Canada’s health care system and housing market.

Economically and politically, EU membership would be a similarly mixed bag.

The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, more commonly known as CETA, has already removed 98 per cent of tariffs between Canada and Europe, with the remaining 2 per cent largely made up of politically contentious agricultural and dairy products. EU membership would cause riotous protests from farmers on both sides of the Atlantic.

However, the EU is the largest integrated economy in the world, binding together allies, acquaintances, and former adversaries into an €18-trillion single market. Goods move freely and unencumbered by tariffs, and the people of Sweden, Slovakia, and Bulgaria have ready and affordable access to the French cheese, Irish butter, and Italian wines that are disproportionately expensive in Canada.

Adding the world’s 10th-largest economy to the EU single market would create a transatlantic economic behemoth. Canada’s natural blessing of energy and critical minerals are already met with longing eyes in European capitals. Greater integration for Canadian companies across Europe’s industrial base could similarly be a boost for Canada’s auto, aerospace, and defence sectors, while joint Canadian-European efforts on the regulation of AI and social media could, perhaps, force America’s tech oligarchs to think twice before aligning entirely with the whims of the White House.

There is, however, no such thing as a free lunch.

For brevity, we must skip past the question of how to divert the 70 per cent of Canadian exports which currently travel south of the border.

More concretely, Canada would become subservient to the EU’s own trade deals and tariff policies. NAFTA and the CPTPP – our agreement with Pacific nations – would be no more.

Canada would also become a top-five contributor to the EU’s common budget. That would mean billions of dollars each year flowing to people and projects in southern, central and eastern Europe, most of which your average Canadian voter would never encounter. See also: reasons for Brexit.

Every country in the EU, from nuclear-armed France to tiny Cyprus, gets a seat at the table and absolute veto power.

Canada would have sway, undoubtedly. But only so much sway. EU membership would loosen Washington’s grip on Canada’s economic future, but Berlin and Paris would help to pick up the slack.

As the Carney government works to deepen our ties with Europe, there is plenty of low-hanging fruit. Defence industrial integration is already underway. A commitment to jointly combat economic coercion, be it Chinese or American, would be a powerful step toward the Prime Minister’s Davos vision of more resilient middle powers. We should vastly increase the number of student exchanges and help open more young Canadians’ eyes to life beyond our shores.

But while the world has forced me to pause before I say it, my answer to the knowing wink remains “never.”

For now.