None, and in fact there is European UHC, which like so many “not truly EU” things is actually wider than the EU and a separate treaty. From the PoV of the users it works as “you can go to the doctor anywhere in Europe without needing to get medical travel insurance” and from the PoV of the multiple UHC systems it’s an insurance exchange.
Sounds like a good way for Canada to reignite a dying Quebec sovereignist movement; asking for an “anglo-sphere” (USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand free travel) union would simply guarantee the death of Canada as we know it.
If anyone is interested in the simplified details of gun laws/ownership in Canada: Explain like I’m Five Episode 7: guns in Canada
Basically, firearm ownership is not a Right here, but a well-regulated privilege. One of the reasons you see all these crazy stories in the US (dog shoots owner, son pulls gun on mother, AR-15 parade at city hall, etc.) is because of American gun rights and the mentality of entitlement it feeds.
No firearm Right in Canada = No mentality of entitlement = Sensible firearm ownership/usage.
Political union is crazy, but it simply would not happen. Canadians are intensely patriotic, and their patriotism is to a large extent defined by not being American.
Confederation was basically “lets be a country to prevent American expansion north and our eventual annexation”. I suppose nothing is impossible, but the path from-here-to-there puts Canada’s dismemberment, dissolution, and eventual absorption on the table.
And this time it wouldn’t be from “American aggression,” but from our own internal disagreements and apathy towards political cohesion.
Not everyone feels that way. When the feds set up the gun registry, there was massive non-compliance with the law. There are a lot of people in Canada who take gun rights very seriously. You’re right that we don’t have a second amendment, and so gun regulations are an entirely political matter, but that’s a different argument.
Canada is full of guns. We don’t have nearly as many handguns per capita, because handgun regulations in Canada are fairly onerous, but long guns are everywhere, including the kinds of guns that people want to ban in the U.S. as ‘assault weapons’. My local Cabelas has a huge gun section, filled with military-style rifles and lots of handguns.
Actually, one of the problems with getting a handgun here is that you have to join a gun range, and all the gun ranges in the city are full to capacity and not taking on new members. Their prices have also gone through the roof due to demand, so owning a handgun is getting very expansive.
Not totally relevant, but apparently it’s not quite universal- some Romanian citizens, despite being EU citizens, aren’t entitled to join the scheme, though I couldn’t quite find out why… Gallic shrug
That’s what I was thinking as well; between NAFTA and the relatively free border access we already have (even post 9/11), just what would this proposed union provide us?
Well, the model here is the EU, which goes far beyond anything that presently exists under NAFTA or its successor. Right now it’s really just relatively easy visa-free border crossing between the US and Canada and specific duty exemptions based on product type or dollar amount. A closer economic union might involve eliminating or reducing barriers to cross-border employment, eliminating tariffs altogether for most things, and perhaps unifying broadcast licensing rights, among other things.
Judging by how the EU is doing, let’s not try to emulate them.
Borders are important. Not walls, but semi-permeable barriers that allow us to control what and who cross them. This is important to the stability of the complex global economy, for pandemic protection, and to allow people to carve out a spaces of high trust so that people can function and work together without everything being bureaucratized. It’s also important for the stabiity of a social safety net, retirement programs, etc.
A world without borders is a world in chaos. Borders help us control the excesses and limit damage when bad ideas take hold.
While there’s a certain amount of truth to that, let’s also remember that even if you don’t like the EU, there are other examples of similar principles, like when relatively independent states with different regional interests forged closer ties for the common good and gave the thing a name, the United States of America, which seems to have done fairly well. The devil is in the details in these things. I don’t think anyone is proposing the elimination of the US-Canada border. I certainly never would.
I absolutely think Canada must retain its cultural and political autonomy, but I think as a broad general principle one finds that economic unions that eliminate tariffs and bureaucratic red tape, when drawn up under fair terms, can often be mutually beneficial to all parties. The question I’ll always have for trade protectionists is who they think they’re protecting. The answer often turns out to be self-serving vested interests, inefficient industries, and others that don’t deserve protecting.
The EU has the above in abundance. Of course they also still have borders.
In fact, a lot of our ability to work together without bureaucratization is based on the relaxation of internal borders; the points where that fails are those where countries do come up with some kind of bureaucratic barrier to internal movement.
You make some good points. I think Britain & Hungary’s situation are due to the rise of right-wing politics & immigration worries, which is what I’m arguing against. I think NAFTA has left alot of tariffs in place, when there should be essentially none or almost none.
In any event, countries like Canada & yes, even Mexico, should be our friends in many areas. Guys like Trump make that much harder than it needs to be.
I don’t see how this could ever happen, considering that the US government has declared that Canada is a national security risk to the United States.
Not only that, aren’t they currently trying to change gun laws such that, if you can conceal carry in your state, you can in every state, regardless of THEIR conceal carry law.
That, right there, would be a major/insurmountable obstacle, in my opinion.
This would be an obstacle to not having border inspections, but free movement of people doesn’t depend on that. I suppose this isn’t the greatest example right now, but there is free movement of labor between the UK and France, while there are still passport and customs inspections in both directions.
We already get Americans coming to Canada with guns and getting upset when they’re told the 2nd Amendment ends at the border.
Would just get worse if we were in some sort of free movement of people arrangement.
Getting back to the OP: no, it will not happen because of the huge population imbalance.
No one country in the EU dominates in terms of population. The largest member is Germany, with about 15% of the total EI population. In that dynamic, no one country dominates and there can be different alignments of member states on different issues.
Here, the US has 10 times the Canadian population. There is no way the US would agree to exact equality, and there is no way Canada would agree to a decision-making system based on population.