A whole lot of Trump's psychology has always been "it's your fault I hurt you" for the longest time — it's a very clear undercurrent in how he treated his first wife.
> So if Canada tries to make friends with anyone other than the US, it's a hostile act?
I don't think anyone really says it's an hostile act but both countries, Canada and the US will have to decide what it means for their ongoing relationship.
Canada is free to get closer to Europe and the US is free to be displeased about it.
Maybe it works out well for Canada or maybe it doesn't.
> Makes it all the more obvious that USA is Canada's abusive partner
Why anthropomorphize geopolitics?
This is just just a big fish throwing its weight around like all big fishes do. Russia does it with its neighbors, China does it as well and India and Europe are not shy about it either.
It's just the name of the game and its been happening since the dawn of time.
Some states use force, others bribe or cajole but in the end they all try to influence their neighbors in a way that suits their interests especially if these neighbors are smaller in terms of population/economy/military etc...
The fact that so many people are shocked by such news these days is because everyone drank the cool aid of the End of History and forgot that spheres of influence still exists and that the rule of law was nothing more than gentleman's agreement that could be thrown out of the window at a moment's notice without second thoughts.
> I don't think anyone really says it's an hostile act
Trump does. His inner circle does. His supporters do.
> Canada and the US will have to decide what it means for their ongoing relationship.
Sounds like an abusive husband's version of "think of what this will do to the children."
> Why anthropomorphize geopolitics?
Because some people need to have complex issues explained to them in ways that are simple to understand. Particularly when it comes to issues involving Trump politics, the people who desperately need to understand these issues are those who also seem to need the issues explained to them like they are a fourth-grader.
USA has always been very aggressive about territory and hostile to Europe in the Americas. The Canada vs UK vs EU relationship seems more interesting to me.
Research the "Monroe doctrine"... by which I mean, don't just look up a one paragraph summary, spend a bit of time with it. A few pages of text at least. Ideally in a modern formulation you should encounter the term "World Island" without having directly searched for it and how the modern iteration of the Monroe doctrine is a reaction to that in a way that the original didn't have to contend with.
I'm not doing advocacy here, I'm giving pointers on how to come to a deeper understanding of what is going on.
It is also important to understand that the EU is directly attacking this doctrine with this proposal. You are free to agree with the EU. Again, I'm just giving something to guide people to a deeper understanding of what is going on beyond the surface level playground politics of it all. There's more going on than that.
(Personally I would say I "disagree" with the Monroe doctrine but the sort of national/international structure I would actually want is not even remotely on the table, so... my opinion is thereby of even less import than a random other opinion drawn from "the masses" for choosing "E, none of the above" when that was not given as an option in the first place.)
This is a direct stab at the US imperialist faction — not MAGA, who want the US to break up with the EU.
I genuinely don’t understand this move through the lens of realpolitik: they’re mad at Trump, so they’re going to offend CFR et al who are aligned on Fortress America and neo-empire by threatening to take a critical vassal for the EU?
Okay — but you just turned being mad at MAGA into the MIC deep state viewing you as an enemy and therefore further military alliance with any EU member unviable. All because the EU couldn’t stomach four years of crass taunts from a TV conman.
TLDR; The dollar is the global currency of record, the US became the richest country in the world, and Stalin didn't get Europe and Japan. The massive export market and global security was the payoff.
The trade deficit and debt is in USD it's a line in the ledger that is somewhat fine and sustainable as long as the world stays on the USD as the currency of record. Countries for now are happy to keep storing their reserves in US bonds - Canada holds 600-700 billion in US debt. Japan over a trillion.
Research the "Treaty of Tordesillas"... by which I mean, don't just look up a one paragraph summary, spend a bit of time with it. A few papal bulls at least. Ideally in a modern formulation you should encounter the term "Requerimiento" without having directly searched for it, and how the modern iteration of the line-of-demarcation doctrine is a reaction to that in a way the 1494 version didn't have to contend with.
I'm not doing advocacy here, I'm giving pointers on how to come to a deeper understanding of what is going on.
It is also important to understand that the United States is directly attacking this doctrine by just sitting there. You are free to agree with the United States. Again, I'm just giving something to guide people to a deeper understanding of what is going on beyond the surface level playground politics of it all. There's more going on than that.
If you're trying to sarcastically imply something, I'm not sure what it is. That is also a necessary key to understanding a certain era of history. Not the current one, though.
Don’t forget granting partial control of that other strait to the Houthis a few days ago.
Closer to home: there have been a record number of firefighter fatalities this year. It is partially climate change, and partially redirecting national guard troops to harass folks in DC and pick up litter.
According to this morning’s news, he’s also micromanaging of firefighting efforts to make them less effective, more expensive, more dangerous, and to maximize future fire risk.
Basically he’s dictated head on attacks to fire fronts, and complete suppression. All experts and firefighters agree it is better to contain the borders of the fires instead, and only fight fires on the interior if it makes ecological sense or protects buildings, lives, etc. (After all, the burn on the interior is necessary for forest health, and also removes fuel.)
Then there’s the NASA thing, where he didn’t want to pay $10M for building maintenance, so instead put $10B of active missions at risk, and threw out > $100M of specialized equipment (or auctioned it off at tenths of pennies on the dollar; probably to US adversaries).
“divert attention” away from a political economic issue that actually impacts hundreds of millions of peoples’ lives and livelihoods toward… a drama about rich pedophiles?
The Prime Minister can’t seem to get his story straight about the “associate membership,” “unique alliance,” or whatever else he is negotiating with the EU.
Conservatives are clear: we support the decades-old free trade & NATO defence alliance with Europe.
But no EU taxes, no EU laws, and no EU open-border immigration policies should be imposed on Canadians.
Canada must be independent and sovereign. Period.
This is the same PP that grasped defeat in the face of victory, and is continually losing support, relegating himself to the same position of the Reform party that it was in the 90's. The same Polly that lost his riding last election, and had to have one handed to him on a silver spoon. I would take his opinion with a grain of salt.
What, €500 for a return flight? That’s millions of people with no money and no job able to fly to Canada and look for one - putting your hands on €500 isn’t impossible for anyone. The flights are so cheap as to be almost irrelevant for anyone motivated to go there. Plus Canadian wages are much higher, including tips. Getting a hospitality job in Canada pays about €500 a week in untaxed tips if you’re working hard anywhere half-decent. Or at least canadian wages are currently much higher - low skilled labour migrating there from the EU will push wages down and down, same as it always does.
Classic Conservative move of building a strawman and arguing against it. None of these deals would involve taxes, EU "laws" (whatever that means) or border agreements. He's using the boogeyman of "ew brown people" to scare his base.
Apparently, even Canadian conservatives are happy to grovel at the feet of the Burger Reich and their supreme leader.
> None of these deals would involve taxes, EU "laws" (whatever that means) or border agreements.
It's a bit rich to say this when nothing yet is known.
If Carney or the EU did not want the oppositions to start speculating regarding what it entails, maybe they should have talked about exactly what an associate membership means and what of sort of things could be expected from such a move.
Maybe they are wrong or maybe you are and maybe it will involve EU taxes and EU regulations or maybe since you are absolutely certain of what it entails you have some sort of insider information that nobody else has?
Until such a time as everyone knows and understand what a possible associate membership means for the EU and Canada, then nothing should be considered off the table and it is justified to ask questions and get some clarifications on all of this.
He's not wrong. I have a suspicion this EU idea is a way to backdoor immigration increases - something the Trudeau government was very keen on but was scaled back by Carney. Largely because immigration has become a hot-button issue in Canada and was partly responsible for Polilievre's popularity last election. Joining a treaty where another governing body would set the criteria for immigration and Canada just has to accept it due to freedom of movement within the EU is one way to route around the whole thing politically and make it much harder to change in the future.
If this is the motivation, it's a grossly undemocratic move.
I don't get how folks who hyperventilate about Trump being a threat to democracy can look at stuff like this and cheer.
> I don't get how folks who hyperventilate about Trump being a threat to democracy can look at stuff like this and cheer.
It really stretches my imagination to the limit to see how your suspicion carries this move all the way to being comparable to what Trump has been doing.
It doesn't matter what the truth of the matter is. What Dear Leader says is used as a scare tactic and marching orders for the underlings to believe and repeat. If you live/interact with conservative people long enough you see the pattern. There's absolute trust in what their leadership says, but skepticism for any criticism of those same talking points.
So all this tweet is doing is seeding doubt, and distrust among the electorate. It doesn't have to be true, but if the goal is to maintain control it looks like this. The Canadian Conservatives are still extremely pro-USA but have learned to keep their opinions close to the chest because they're currently politically unpoular.
Trips to Canada have always left a bad taste in my mouth, but they've always been to Ontario, Quebec. I've been wondering if I'd like the people in Alberta better.
It's something many Canadians don't want to accept, but too much of their tourist facing industry is setup to exploit and frankly con Americans.
I recall on my first trip here ending up in hospital, being mistaken for an American and shown one price list, only for my insurance company to get on the phone and promptly a new price list appeared and a lot of "We're sorry we thought you were American" from the staff.
And prior to the mobile web dealing with Ontario hotels was like haggling in a Turkish bazaar with an obnoxious layer of passive aggression on top.
> I recall on my first trip here ending up in hospital, being mistaken for an American and shown one price list, only for my insurance company to get on the phone and promptly a new price list appeared and a lot of "We're sorry we thought you were American" from the staff.
Where were you actually from? Some countries do have reciprocal deals on this sort of thing, and if you're from a country which does have a reciprocal deal, you might very much legitimately get a different price than if you're from a country which doesn't.
Quebec is also about to have a provincial election where separatism, and everyone's relationship to it, is the main argument.
Many people on both sides of the Atlantic wrongly think Quebec is more compatible with Europe than the rest of Canada because they speak French, but almost the exact things Quebec separatists care most about are the things the EU wouldn't let them control.
Since the days of USENET there's always been a significant cluster of that kind of views in the tech sphere. Tech does not magically make people more liberal, it's just that going to university sometimes does.
Carney has a majority in Parliament, he can do this pretty much unilaterally if he wants. And a straw poll at the after-beer from band last night had everybody enthusiastic about the prospect.
As for the secession referendum, it's currently polling at 20-30% and it's not a real referendum, its a referendum to hold a referendum.
I think you'll find most Albertans would welcome international trade diversity, and if anything is theatre, it's the referendum. "Secessionists" are a significant minority, and even most of those don't actually want to secede, they just don't like the national government. "Send a message to Ottawa" is the motto.
I mean, they are getting everything the want with the Fed gov building pipelines and other infra to aid them. The east/west from years back was the company didn't want to budge on the route through Quebec and decided to walk, Keystone was the US cancelling. Trudeau got the pipeline to the west coast done and it's doing a million barrels a day almost now. Plus others to east and Churchill look like they are in the works. Only so many welders
Sort of. The referendum is unpopular and is non-binding, actually a question about whether to have a referendum. Its widely seen as a political maneuver by AB to extract pipeline concessions.
Giving Alberta a market where they can sell LNG might get them on board, but this would also require a bunch of new infrastructure (pipelines? ports?) that I suspect the Canadian government will not want built.
It would be lovely to get Europe off of Russian energy imports.
One of the major problems of Canada is it's essentially a line of provinces east-west. It means you cannot simply route around a province with unreasonable demands, everyone must be placated, and the resource region of Alberta is seriously landlocked.
This has bred an economy of rent seekers and real estate at the expense of almost everything else. There are reasons that the best and brightest of Canada enthusiastically leave en masse to the place that Canadians claim to detest most of all, which leads to a sort of self loathing complex with the ones that stay; they are utterly mystified by the idea that anyone with any skills/talent whatsoever would want to move to Canada, it's truly mind boggling. (This is why I prefer Quebec - it's got enough people in it that really like Quebec a lot).
The real political theatre is coming from Alberta. Secession can't be achieved unilaterally under Canadian constitutional law. A clear majority on a clear referendum question would create an obligation to negotiate.
More critically, the Numbered Treaties (6, 7, and 8, and to a lesser extent 4 and 10) make the entire idea, for all practical purposes, a legal dead end. These are nation-to-nation covenants with the Crown and not with the province.
To leave with its borders intact, Alberta would have to negotiate constitutional amendments with Ottawa and the other provinces, while securing affected First Nations’ consent to any transfer or replacement of their treaty relationships with Canada in a situation where Alberta has almost no leverage.
Alberta's existence as a province was predicated upon those Treaties existing in the first place. It and Saskatchewan were part of the NW Territories until like 1905.
> A clear majority on a clear referendum question would create an obligation to negotiate.
To be further clear: it would create an obligation on the Alberta government to negotiate. A provincial referendum creates no such obligation on the Canadian government.
Can the blue states of USA become associate members too? He has declared that the blue states are the "enemy from within" and may launch the military against us soon.
According to the FT, Von der Leyen didn't really get the OK from member states before coming up with this. Let's see what happens in practice, the trade agreement from 2017 hasn't even been ratified yet.
Yeah, I don’t understand why people have a problem with this. I think it should basically always be true between peer nations that there is free movement and trade.
There are a lot of jingoists around who want to use that character trait to amass power/wealth, or to find an excuse for things in their life they don't like. Sometimes, their grievances might even be legitimate.
Apparently EU and Canada did well with the branding as this is entirely new concept that no one knows what it means but gives you warm and fuzzy feelings inside, isn't it?
Anyway, I would love it if Canada joins the free movement zone and Schengen eventually however despite not knowing what is this "associate member" thing is sounds like a stretch. Imagine though, how cool would be to travel to between America and Europe without your passport, like a domestic flight.
I'm really not fan of the trend to devide this rick in space into zones where you need a reason and permission based on that reason to travel. Can't be happier that there's a progress towards making the world a friendlier place.
Without commenting on the EU, particularly, I would be concerned if I were a Canadian about Carney's commitment to globalism when the degenerate cases have become so common.
It's a weird two-front war where people tend to answer the social question and ignore the economic one, but the economic question has not done any favors to the EU or the US for that matter
Your argument is that some vague hypothetical bad thing could happen to Canada if they diversified their trade partners, so they should just accept economic terrorism from DC and not attempt to support the parts of their economy that already rely on imports/exports?
As a Canadian, I find this unbelievably good news. Canada, the EU, and other middle powers need to unite. Stronger together, while preserving what makes each country unique.
They are currently targeting civilian populations there by weaponizing access to necessities. They have intentionally created multiple humanitarian crises, then rerouted food and energy imports through Florida companies for private benefit.
This is a long way of asking: Can the US west coast become an associate EU member too? Here in California, the Sierra Nevada and deserts of the southwest are already 99% of the wall we’d need to protect our border from maga zealots.
> This is a long way of asking: Can the US west coast become an associate EU member too? Here in California, the Sierra Nevada and deserts of the southwest are already 99% of the wall we’d need to protect our border from maga zealots.
From someone on the opposite side of the political aisle, you have my support!
While I would welcome Canada as an associate EU member, one must be aware of the possibility that this is political theater in order to sell more Ukraine support to the Canadian public. Canada proposes to join EU funding for the Ukraine war, so both the EU and Canada follow literally Pete Hegseth's instructions from 2025 for burden sharing in NATO and finance the US proxy war:
I don’t think you understand that the EU and Canada both have deep vested interests in protecting Ukrainian sovereignty. Canada shares a large Arctic border with Russia, and is geopolitically motivated to prevent Russian expansionism. The EU is motivated to defend its eastern flank, and impose cost on a Russia that may just eye the Baltic states next.
My understanding is that an EU member state has to physically be in Europe unless they are an “extension” of a state already in the EU. I get that it’s supposed to be an “associate” state but I’m fascinated by what kind of legal hoops they’re going to jump through to make this happen.
They did make an exception for Cypress, so I suppose there’s some kind of precedent.
Vimmy Ridge memorial is also forever given for the use of Canada by France after WW1, it is administered by Parks Canada. So we technically control land in Europe.
Hey, so what do y'all think it felt like back in the 30s to watch the world split between a handful of really aggressive countries and everyone else? Specifically, what do y'all think it felt like to be a non-aggressive person living in one of the handful of really aggressive countries?
The news cycle was a lot slower, and there’s a chance you wouldn’t be literate enough to read newspapers. I suspect you’d probably just carry on per usual.
Is this some kind of astroturf campaign? It's like the 4th time this topic sourcing a BBC article has appeared on the first page in about as many days and the comments on it are all the same drab, short and repetitive expressions of support. This really doesn't seem like the kind of material that normally interests HN users.
154 comments
[ 0.26 ms ] story [ 24.8 ms ] threadSo if Canada tries to make friends with anyone other than the US, it's a hostile act?
Makes it all the more obvious that USA is Canada's abusive partner, that they should have broken up with a long time ago.
A whole lot of Trump's psychology has always been "it's your fault I hurt you" for the longest time — it's a very clear undercurrent in how he treated his first wife.
He's an abuser. And now so is the USA.
Canada is bound to look for new trade opportunities in the face of that.
You make a deal with Trump, it's always worse than what you had previously.
Then, no mater what you do, he breaks the deal 3 months later with some kind of implied military threat if you complain.
I don't think anyone really says it's an hostile act but both countries, Canada and the US will have to decide what it means for their ongoing relationship.
Canada is free to get closer to Europe and the US is free to be displeased about it.
Maybe it works out well for Canada or maybe it doesn't.
> Makes it all the more obvious that USA is Canada's abusive partner
Why anthropomorphize geopolitics?
This is just just a big fish throwing its weight around like all big fishes do. Russia does it with its neighbors, China does it as well and India and Europe are not shy about it either.
It's just the name of the game and its been happening since the dawn of time.
Some states use force, others bribe or cajole but in the end they all try to influence their neighbors in a way that suits their interests especially if these neighbors are smaller in terms of population/economy/military etc...
The fact that so many people are shocked by such news these days is because everyone drank the cool aid of the End of History and forgot that spheres of influence still exists and that the rule of law was nothing more than gentleman's agreement that could be thrown out of the window at a moment's notice without second thoughts.
Trump does. His inner circle does. His supporters do.
> Canada and the US will have to decide what it means for their ongoing relationship.
Sounds like an abusive husband's version of "think of what this will do to the children."
> Why anthropomorphize geopolitics?
Because some people need to have complex issues explained to them in ways that are simple to understand. Particularly when it comes to issues involving Trump politics, the people who desperately need to understand these issues are those who also seem to need the issues explained to them like they are a fourth-grader.
Hence, the replies you have been seeing.
If your ex starts dating your best friend directly after breakup, would you consider it a hostile act?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_crisis
[2] https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-nato-policy-def...
[3] https://www.cadtm.org/Trump-Europe-and-the-international-neo...
[4] https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/31/europe/trump-lashes-out-europ...
"breakup" is doing a huge amount of counterfactual sanewashing here.
I'm not doing advocacy here, I'm giving pointers on how to come to a deeper understanding of what is going on.
It is also important to understand that the EU is directly attacking this doctrine with this proposal. You are free to agree with the EU. Again, I'm just giving something to guide people to a deeper understanding of what is going on beyond the surface level playground politics of it all. There's more going on than that.
(Personally I would say I "disagree" with the Monroe doctrine but the sort of national/international structure I would actually want is not even remotely on the table, so... my opinion is thereby of even less import than a random other opinion drawn from "the masses" for choosing "E, none of the above" when that was not given as an option in the first place.)
I genuinely don’t understand this move through the lens of realpolitik: they’re mad at Trump, so they’re going to offend CFR et al who are aligned on Fortress America and neo-empire by threatening to take a critical vassal for the EU?
Okay — but you just turned being mad at MAGA into the MIC deep state viewing you as an enemy and therefore further military alliance with any EU member unviable. All because the EU couldn’t stomach four years of crass taunts from a TV conman.
Total MAGA victory.
The trade deficit and debt is in USD it's a line in the ledger that is somewhat fine and sustainable as long as the world stays on the USD as the currency of record. Countries for now are happy to keep storing their reserves in US bonds - Canada holds 600-700 billion in US debt. Japan over a trillion.
I'm not doing advocacy here, I'm giving pointers on how to come to a deeper understanding of what is going on.
It is also important to understand that the United States is directly attacking this doctrine by just sitting there. You are free to agree with the United States. Again, I'm just giving something to guide people to a deeper understanding of what is going on beyond the surface level playground politics of it all. There's more going on than that.
He somehow thinks that he's going to make the US more respected by constantly jabbing at his allies
There's a lawsuit [1] on the way related to the Epstein files so this Canada-EU topic gives Trump the perfect opportunity to divert the attention.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/09/lawsuit-trump-do...
Closer to home: there have been a record number of firefighter fatalities this year. It is partially climate change, and partially redirecting national guard troops to harass folks in DC and pick up litter.
According to this morning’s news, he’s also micromanaging of firefighting efforts to make them less effective, more expensive, more dangerous, and to maximize future fire risk.
Basically he’s dictated head on attacks to fire fronts, and complete suppression. All experts and firefighters agree it is better to contain the borders of the fires instead, and only fight fires on the interior if it makes ecological sense or protects buildings, lives, etc. (After all, the burn on the interior is necessary for forest health, and also removes fuel.)
Then there’s the NASA thing, where he didn’t want to pay $10M for building maintenance, so instead put $10B of active missions at risk, and threw out > $100M of specialized equipment (or auctioned it off at tenths of pennies on the dollar; probably to US adversaries).
Not sure what's meant by that... People won't start swimming over the atlantic ocean. And flights to Canada aren't really cheap, by any means.
Apparently, even Canadian conservatives are happy to grovel at the feet of the Burger Reich and their supreme leader.
It's a bit rich to say this when nothing yet is known.
If Carney or the EU did not want the oppositions to start speculating regarding what it entails, maybe they should have talked about exactly what an associate membership means and what of sort of things could be expected from such a move.
Maybe they are wrong or maybe you are and maybe it will involve EU taxes and EU regulations or maybe since you are absolutely certain of what it entails you have some sort of insider information that nobody else has?
Until such a time as everyone knows and understand what a possible associate membership means for the EU and Canada, then nothing should be considered off the table and it is justified to ask questions and get some clarifications on all of this.
If this is the motivation, it's a grossly undemocratic move.
I don't get how folks who hyperventilate about Trump being a threat to democracy can look at stuff like this and cheer.
It really stretches my imagination to the limit to see how your suspicion carries this move all the way to being comparable to what Trump has been doing.
It doesn't matter what the truth of the matter is. What Dear Leader says is used as a scare tactic and marching orders for the underlings to believe and repeat. If you live/interact with conservative people long enough you see the pattern. There's absolute trust in what their leadership says, but skepticism for any criticism of those same talking points.
So all this tweet is doing is seeding doubt, and distrust among the electorate. It doesn't have to be true, but if the goal is to maintain control it looks like this. The Canadian Conservatives are still extremely pro-USA but have learned to keep their opinions close to the chest because they're currently politically unpoular.
what's that?
The chances of Canada getting everyone to go along with this are close to zero. (As are the chances of Alberta actually seceding).
It's just political theater
Do you think the referendum in question is not a political theater?
I don't know much, but it stands to me that the EU association is magnitudes more serious.
Alberta selling oil to USA is, by itself, like 20% of Canada's entire GDP.
And 70% of all other exports go to USA too. So yeah it is mostly just theater because there's a loud mouth idiot in the White house.
They're doing some lip-service and just hoping it will blow over when Trump is gone.
I recall on my first trip here ending up in hospital, being mistaken for an American and shown one price list, only for my insurance company to get on the phone and promptly a new price list appeared and a lot of "We're sorry we thought you were American" from the staff.
And prior to the mobile web dealing with Ontario hotels was like haggling in a Turkish bazaar with an obnoxious layer of passive aggression on top.
Where were you actually from? Some countries do have reciprocal deals on this sort of thing, and if you're from a country which does have a reciprocal deal, you might very much legitimately get a different price than if you're from a country which doesn't.
Many people on both sides of the Atlantic wrongly think Quebec is more compatible with Europe than the rest of Canada because they speak French, but almost the exact things Quebec separatists care most about are the things the EU wouldn't let them control.
As for the secession referendum, it's currently polling at 20-30% and it's not a real referendum, its a referendum to hold a referendum.
I mean, they are getting everything the want with the Fed gov building pipelines and other infra to aid them. The east/west from years back was the company didn't want to budge on the route through Quebec and decided to walk, Keystone was the US cancelling. Trudeau got the pipeline to the west coast done and it's doing a million barrels a day almost now. Plus others to east and Churchill look like they are in the works. Only so many welders
It would be lovely to get Europe off of Russian energy imports.
This has bred an economy of rent seekers and real estate at the expense of almost everything else. There are reasons that the best and brightest of Canada enthusiastically leave en masse to the place that Canadians claim to detest most of all, which leads to a sort of self loathing complex with the ones that stay; they are utterly mystified by the idea that anyone with any skills/talent whatsoever would want to move to Canada, it's truly mind boggling. (This is why I prefer Quebec - it's got enough people in it that really like Quebec a lot).
More critically, the Numbered Treaties (6, 7, and 8, and to a lesser extent 4 and 10) make the entire idea, for all practical purposes, a legal dead end. These are nation-to-nation covenants with the Crown and not with the province.
To leave with its borders intact, Alberta would have to negotiate constitutional amendments with Ottawa and the other provinces, while securing affected First Nations’ consent to any transfer or replacement of their treaty relationships with Canada in a situation where Alberta has almost no leverage.
Good luck.
To be further clear: it would create an obligation on the Alberta government to negotiate. A provincial referendum creates no such obligation on the Canadian government.
They are a democracy, they don't have to get "everyone to go along with this" they just have to get the majority to go along with it.
https://www.npr.org/2025/09/30/nx-s1-5557232/hegseth-general...
Some want to be ensured Canada's sovereignty isn't changed. As this as of right now is a news headline I get their point of view for now.
Anyway, I would love it if Canada joins the free movement zone and Schengen eventually however despite not knowing what is this "associate member" thing is sounds like a stretch. Imagine though, how cool would be to travel to between America and Europe without your passport, like a domestic flight.
I'm really not fan of the trend to devide this rick in space into zones where you need a reason and permission based on that reason to travel. Can't be happier that there's a progress towards making the world a friendlier place.
It's a weird two-front war where people tend to answer the social question and ignore the economic one, but the economic question has not done any favors to the EU or the US for that matter
That is a strange take.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/17/trump-marco-...
They are currently targeting civilian populations there by weaponizing access to necessities. They have intentionally created multiple humanitarian crises, then rerouted food and energy imports through Florida companies for private benefit.
This is a long way of asking: Can the US west coast become an associate EU member too? Here in California, the Sierra Nevada and deserts of the southwest are already 99% of the wall we’d need to protect our border from maga zealots.
From someone on the opposite side of the political aisle, you have my support!
No need to send everyone back southbound or to the middle-east when we could have been sending them northbound instead!
Oh Canada, won't you please reconsider? We're giving you our doctors and engineers! They're just on welfare temporarily, I promise!
https://www.ft.com/content/9cd8cc79-e98a-449f-a903-609b034a5...
So both the EU and Canada are compliant US vassals despite the talk.
They did make an exception for Cypress, so I suppose there’s some kind of precedent.
well, not for much longer lol
That's entirely what I'm afraid of