After a year of tariffs, threats and talk of a 51st state, Europe arrives in Montreal this week, offering a seat at its table.
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Europe → arrive → table
The European Union is a serious partner, and Prime Minister Mark Carney is right to deepen the relationship.
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Carney → deepen → relationship
Still, how a partnership makes us feel about the last one is a poor guide to what we sign.
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we → make → what
In August, Carney walked away from talks in Washington, saying the U.S. had introduced, “in the last hours, efforts to restrict our ability to have other trade deals.”
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U.S. → walk → deals
A month later, he called those positions Canada’s “red lines” for “sovereignty” and “culture.”
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he → call → sovereignty
But a red line has an object; it protects a decision Canada will not hand to anyone.
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Canada → have → anyone
A line that bends for better manners was only ever a preference.
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that → bend → manners
This week’s question is whether Canada is giving Europe anything it told Washington was off the table.
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it → give → table
Mark Carney and EU leaders are moving forward with a new ‘alliance for the future’ to boost trade.
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Carney → move → trade
The Europeans have offered a few details.
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Europeans → offer → details
Mark Carney and EU leaders are moving forward with a new ‘alliance for the future’ to boost trade.
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Carney → move → trade
The Europeans have offered a few details.
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Europeans → offer → details
Europe is not asking Canada to clear its other trade deals in Brussels or to rewrite our cultural policy.
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Europe → ask → policy
The summit text has dropped the “associate member” label, and the prime minister says the name doesn’t matter.
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name → drop → label
Canadians are choosing our first Eurovision act, and nobody thinks a song contest makes us European.
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us → choose → act
European officials have complained about how Canada runs its cheese import quotas.
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Canada → complain → quotas
Washington has pressed the same point for five years.
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Washington → press → years
Parliament passed a law last year that bars trade commitments to enlarge supply-managed quotas or cut their over-quota tariffs.
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that → pass → tariffs
It is silent on who holds the permits to import cheese, the very thing both partners want changed.
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partners → hold → cheese
Give that to Europe and Washington will ask for the same.
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Washington → give → same
EU Commissioner Jozef Síkela told the European Parliament last week that a closer partnership would include co-ordinated economic-security policies.
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partnership → tell → policies
That means stopping goods rerouted through a partner to dodge duties and keeping sensitive technology from rivals.
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That → mean → rivals
Washington writes the same goals into its own “agreements on reciprocal trade”; its deal with Malaysia, for example, obliges Malaysia, once Washington asks, to copy American restrictions on third countries.
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Washington → write → countries
What separates the two: Washington’s version is triggered by American notice and enforced with tariffs.
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version → separate → tariffs
That trigger is Canada’s real red line, and Ottawa should say so plainly.
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Ottawa → say → ?
Canada will co-operate on economic security with any partner on the same terms (by agreement, reciprocally, sector by sector and with a way out) and never on another government’s say-so.
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Canada → co → so
Put that standard in writing and the European partnership becomes an asset at the American table.
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partnership → put → table
Leave it unstated, and the first question in next year’s review of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement writes itself: if you can co-ordinate with Europe, why not with us?
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you → leave → us
Canada and the EU are negotiating a digital trade agreement, and Ottawa wants Europe to recognize Canadian artificial intelligence standards.
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Europe → negotiate → standards
Europe has an AI law.
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Europe → have → law
Canada has a voluntary code.
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Canada → have → code
Recognition between a full rule book and an empty one ends with the empty side adopting the full one.
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side → end → one
Washington spent years pressing Canada to drop digital rules it disliked; swapping one rule-maker for another is a strange way to assert sovereignty.
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swapping → spend → sovereignty
None of this argues for staying home.
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None → argue → this
Europe offers capital for our minerals, buyers for our energy, a research program we already belong to and allies who share our view of the world.
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who → offer → world
Geography has not moved.
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Geography → move → ?
Over the past year, 68 per cent of our goods exports went to the United States, and Ottawa is negotiating with Washington on steel and autos in the same week it hosts European leaders.
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it → go → leaders
Whatever Canada agrees with one will be read by the other.
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agrees → agree → other
The Prime Minister told the European Parliament last month that he wants an alliance “strong enough so that no one can dictate our choices.”
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one → tell → choices
The way to prove it is to make the same choices no matter who is asking.
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who → prove → choices
…and 2 more, not listed.
The Aporia
