On Canada and the EU | The Guardian

Excerpt from article (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/16/von-der-leyen-mark-carney-canada-eu-first-associate-member):

Roland Paris, the director of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa and a foreign affairs adviser to the former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, said the term “associate member” has taken too much focus and “doesn’t really matter” in the long term.

“My hunch is that von der Leyen was hoping to rally supporters of much closer cooperation with Canada by using that label. In the end, what I expect is that we’re going to see a collection of agreements rather than membership in any institutional sense,” he said.

Carney’s decision to formalise close ties with Europe however prompted outrage from Conservatives at home.

Pierre Poilievre, the Tory leader, posted on social media that he feared Canadians “struggling to pay their rent” would have to pay more taxes “to fund the European Union’s heavy bureaucracy”.

“The welder from Welland didn’t elect a Eurocrat to regulate our steel. The farmer from Saskatchewan and the fisher from the Atlantic provinces didn’t choose a Brussels food regulator who has never seen our prairies or our coasts,” he wrote. “We will NEVER be the 51st American state. And we will NEVER be the 28th state of the European Union.”

Another, Jamil Jivani, posted that Conservatives “will NEVER support Mark Carney’s Liberal plan to have Canada join the hopelessly run, over-regulated, and self-destructive EU”.

Paris said no Canadian leaders “would be interested in formal EU membership if it involves subordinating Canadian law and regulatory structures” to Europe.

“I don’t think that’s on the table right now. There has long been a bipartisan push in Canada to deepen trade connections between Canada and Europe,” he said. “We’re now seeing now is a logical extension of those trade discussions into other areas.”