Whither Canada and the European Union?

Politics & Elections
81

I looked it up once, as research for a paper I was writing. He basically consumed oxygen for four years. That was about it.

The Kansas Territory was pursuing statehood, the Missouri Border Ruffians were threatening Kansan settlers, New England anti-slavery people were flooding into Kansas, John Brown was hacking people to death with swords, and …

Well, Pierce kept breathing. Then Buchanan made things worse.

Let’s get back to Canada and the European Union.

82

I apologize for the brief hijaak. “Trump sucks, and we’re a bit iffy on the rest of the country” is central to my thesis. My guesses as of now:

  1. We won’t switch to the Euro. Canada, for good or for ill, is a comdoll. We need to be able to set our own monetary polcy.
  2. The CBC, I think, reports that Canada will not pay any sort of dues or get any voting rights.
  3. There are, indeed, longshot suggestions about work visas for Canadians (I assume these would be reciprocal). I wouldn’t count on these for 10 years, but I wouldn’t bet against them, either. The CBC again. Speculative, but extremely likely over a 10 year time frame.
  4. I will bet this is mostly going to be standardization of regulations between the EU and Canada. Stuff that takes a team of experts 6 months, doesn’t make the news, and is profoundly boring unless your sales commission, company, or job depends on finding a new market for Canadian widgets. Then it’s probably super interesting.
  5. Shift toward European-supplied kit for our military. The submarines, and I’d be willing to place a small wager Canada gets Gripens rather than F35s. This is a bigger deal than it seems. The US is a large arms exporter. Canada will be switching to European or Canadian made kit to meet it’s NATO commitments. I recognize NATO != EU, but there’s some overlap there in Venn diagrams. Things like the new subs and the F35 debate are big news with big numbers attached; the smaller stuff is more interesting.

At some point, France, who referred to Quebec as “our Canadian cousins” will find out 1. about New Brunswick and 2. that we don’t really exactly speak French. That’s a future problem, though.

Those are my guesses; a combination of watching the news here and wild ass speculation.

83

Your “guesses” seem really very likely to me.