Trade, resources and digital ‘cooperation’ sound harmless – until you look at the fine print
I’m trying to spend a few weeks back in Canada for some peace and quiet from the usual European drama. Just my luck that Queen Ursula would follow me here, circus and all.
She hadn’t even landed in Montreal for the EU-Canada Summit, and already everyone around me was saying that Canada’s “associate membership” had been canceled. They’d heard that countries like France and Germany objected to the idea, even as Von der Leyen was saddling up her broom for a trip across the Atlantic.
Someone even asked me if that meant that we’re now kicked out of Eurovision. I had to explain that the title never existed in the first place. EU treaties refer only to association agreements. It’s just the usual sort of branding that von der Leyen, the unelected EU chief executive, likes to roll out, much like her endless riffs about unity, as though dissent weren’t an actual virtue in a functioning democracy.
Or like the way she talks a good game about sticking it to Russia while simultaneously celebrating the €977 million spent this winter alone on gas purchases for Ukraine – much of which comes from Russia via Hungary and Slovakia. The EU writes cheques to Kiev. Kiev pays Hungary and Slovakia, who then pay Moscow.
Those middlemen exist mainly so that Queen Ursula can maintain a certain public image while engaging in more practical considerations behind the scenes, albeit at considerably greater expense to the European taxpayer.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney got a taste of the spectacle when Ursula’s marketing campaign became the focus of the event. He was forced to acknowledge that he honestly didn’t give a damn what they called this new cooperation, so long as it was good for Canadians. Meanwhile, other EU leaders, like German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, had started referring to it instead as an “alliance for the future.”
But von der Leyen had already landed in Canada and continued promoting the “associate membership” label, smiling as Carney, sitting beside her, subsequently echoed the term.
Of course, all that the mental midgets are going to take away from this whole event is the intrigue over whether or not Canada is joining the EU. Spoiler alert: it isn’t. And never will. It’s not even legally possible. But this idiotic intrigue is distracting from the details of what lurks underneath, which could amount to a whole lot of iron-fisting through velvet gloves.
Turns out someone had already leaked a draft statement on these future relations to Politico, dated September 22, 2026. Cut out the diplomatic fluff and here’s what you’re left with.
Both sides are clearly looking for new markets as they diversify trade away from the US. Great. But it seems rather stupid for the EU to be begging Canada for its natural resources – gas, metals and minerals – while simultaneously slapping on carbon tariffs that get downloaded onto European citizens and companies. What’s the point of trying to bring prices down by increasing supply if you’re just going to top up the cost anyway.
You jokers also killed off your own nuclear industries, only to realize (a bit late) that perhaps it was preferable to having to resort to coal, before subsequently reviving it as the future of clean energy. So maybe you’re not exactly the best people to be doing commie-style central planning.
Technology is already advancing in favor of the environment, with those improvements increasingly built into the conditions for funding and financing. Just let it breathe already. Not every industry needs a Brussels bureaucrat hovering over it.
Perhaps the most troubling part is the Orwellian digital cooperation section of the agreement, which aims to “advance cooperation on artificial intelligence security and sovereignty, trusted data flows and digital governance and to align emerging AI and digital regulatory frameworks through associated country status for Canada.”
Does this mean Canadians get to have Queen Ursula block their bank accounts now, too, since we’ll all be connected and harmonized inside one giant digital panopticon? It’s hardly reassuring that Carney’s government has just appealed the federal court decision condemning his predecessor Justin Trudeau’s government for unconstitutionally invoking the Emergencies Act, which allowed it to block the bank accounts of Covid-era anti-mandate Freedom Convoy participants without a court order – all for the crime of honking too loudly. Nor is it reassuring that Canada and the EU have already signed an agreement on digital “trust services” involving things like government-controlled digital identity wallets.
One honk too many, one wrong opinion on some social media platform linked to the online ID system that they’re all ushering in – ostensibly under the pretext of adults needing to prove that they aren’t children requiring protection from online pedos – and there goes your whole life with the flip of a switch. It’s not like Queen Ursula’s European Commission isn’t already doing that with sanctions and asset freezes, in the absence of due process, for those whose views it qualifies as “propaganda.”
And if this is what they mean by an alliance for the future, then Canadians – the average citizens of this country – need full and open debate over the fine print before anyone signs us up.
