Jamie Sarkonak: Don’t trust Carney to tell us what EU ‘associate membership’ means

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On Thursday, Prime Minister Mark Carney stood before the European Parliament and said that he welcomed the “ambition” to bring Canada in as an “associate member.” He framed it as a sovereignty-reinforcing move, but seeing how many strings and risks come with EU membership — and how little he’s told the public about his plan — it sounds like a slim prospect.

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Because “associate member” isn’t a real type of EU membership, we’re stuck gleaning what it entails from Carney’s speech. “Seamless digital trade and non-agricultural goods and a wide range of services,” were mentioned, along with closer ties between our financial systems, more communications infrastructure and closer collaboration on AI rules. Even gas exports made the list.

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Carney spoke of “deepening people-to-people ties,” giving the example of young people living, working, and studying wherever they want within the hypothetical union. On the studying front, he also suggested membership in Erasmus+, the EU’s multi-billion scholarship program.

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The overall relationship between the two entities should be one of “deep co-operation,” he said. Woven throughout the speech was a nice motif about oak trees grown in Canada from acorns collected at Vimy Ridge, as well as their descendant saplings which were planted several years ago on the former battleground. It was speechwriting done well, and it tapped into exactly what elder voters love.

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If you step out of the shoes of a person completely tuned out of politics though, it all starts to look drab.

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For starters, it’s hard to trust the content of the speech given the contradictions emitted by the speaker in the days before. Remember that it was from American media that Canadians first heard of Carney’s push for EU “associate membership.” Then, the prime minister denied it.

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“We’re not looking to become a member of the European Union,” Carney told a reporter at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday. “What we are looking and will begin discussion for is a unique alliance with the European Union, between Canada and the European Union.” CTV also reported that day that a senior government source said that Canada wasn’t seeking EU membership “in any capacity.”

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Well, “associate membership” is EU membership in some capacity. We just don’t know what.

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More problems: During his speech, Carney praised the existing trade deal with the continent — Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) — as “one of the world’s most successful trade agreements.” But this treaty isn’t even in full force because 10 EU member states haven’t ratified it since it was signed in 2016.

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The French Senate actually rejected CETA in 2024, and the other holdouts are Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Poland and Slovenia. For all the nice metaphors about trees and World Wars, we have yet to complete the decade-old trade deal due to disagreements on rules about the climate, GMOs, cattle raising and so on.

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As for Carney’s vision of associate membership, it’s important to account for the unsaid drawbacks when evaluating whether it’s actually in our interests. Banding together to push back against the big, bad AI companies might sound appealing to those who are unsettled by new technology, but Europe has already fallen behind on AI in part due to tighter regulation. And if you’re already annoyed at the cookie pop-ups that are thrust into your face whenever you open a website, you should beware of what more could happen to our internet with greater collaboration. Expect an even greater effort to stamp out online anonymity for security reasons.