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@evan how can anyone agree or disagree when we don't know yet what a
membership will mean? I vote "maybe".
@TheresaReason one way might be to reason by analogy. We know what "membership" in the EU means. We know that "associate members" of a group, like a club, usually share some but not all of the privileges and responsibilities of full members. We also know that there are special relationships with non-members of the EU like the UK, Norway and Switzerland.
@TheresaReason Without an exact idea of which privileges and responsibilities would be part of this EU-Canada agreement, we can imagine ones we would want, how likely they are, and whether they would be worthwhile to work towards.
So, one could answer "Yes, but only if it included freedom of mobility in both directions" or "No, but a series of treaties for increased integration would be useful".
@TheresaReason I recognize that making decisions this way can be hard for people.
But especially for a low stakes situation like a Fediverse poll, I think there's enough information for people to come to some conclusions.
If you don't, that's OK! You can skip the poll.
@evan @Beltliner403 sounds positive, but … I don't trust Carney for a second.
Who know what he'll want to give away, to make this happen?
@evan No but we don't actually know what that means. So I'm willing to be surprised.
But I mean... it's been 10 years and 10 EU states haven't ratified CETA. I'm not optimistic.
I'm generally cool with harmonizing with some regulations. Elevators and cars spring readily to mind. But I also have a hard time imagining we'll actually go very far down that road. Maybe? We'll see. EU regulations can also trend towards stupid sometimes.
@evan As a Canadian, I'm against it. The European Union does not tend to reflect my values and many of their states are trending towards fascism.
I think trade agreements would be healthy, but not joining a union on the other side of the Atlantic, with states that are a tiny fraction of the size of our provinces.
It's a massive power imbalance.
@evan Yes. It's very strong diplomatic support against all the "51st state" provocateurs.
@evan Canada borders on two EU countries, so why not?
@evan I think I should not vote in this poll because I am ignorant of the nuances involved. I'm interested to see the results.
![Chris [list of emoji]](https://nfts.freeradical.zone/accounts/avatars/109/127/168/397/951/576/original/e8a0b6da977923a8.jpeg "Chris [list of emoji]")
The US has become an unreliable trading partner, and this will continue to be the case long after orange man is buried. Canada needs functional trade relations; the EU is the best fit values-wise.
@evan Someone should probably define what an "associate member" is first.
If this is just a workaround to get CETA's nastier sides pushed through (copyright nonsense, bypassing courts in weird arbitration schemes), then the answer is a resounding no.
But with a vague term like "associate member" anything is possible. So who knows. Maybe it'll be something sensible.
@evan Yes but we should find out what that means before making any final decision.
@evan No, but like keep up the informal co-operation so that both sides need to continue to work on the relationship. I do think we could do with looking at harmonizing some standards. For example, elevators cost 3 times as much in North America because we force them to be bigger for good reasons but the overall effect of buildings forgoing elevators may be detrimental to those purposes and generic housing needs.
@evan I'm most interested in the EU as a free-trade partner, and Canada already has a free-trade agreement (provisionally) with the EU. There are of course other ways Canada and the EU could work together productively, but also ways in which Canada would give up sovereignty to little advantage (e.g., joining the customs union, or aligning with the Euro). We'd have to look at the details of what's proposed.
No, but.
@evan We already consider them our Nordic cousin on the other side of the pond.
/Swede
@evan As a member of neither, I feel like it's not my place to say. But if both parties want it, I can't see why not.