this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2026
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[โ€“] Quilotoa@lemmy.ca 52 points 3 months ago (7 children)

Canadian here. Interesting points. I feel most Canadians would be cautiously open to the idea. How do EU regular people feel?

[โ€“] RandomLegend@lemmy.dbzer0.com 67 points 3 months ago (3 children)

German here - come on over! We need new english speakers since we lost the brits lol

[โ€“] CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 28 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Most of Europe does just fine with English speaking on their own, and some would argue better than the Brits.

Just donโ€™t let the French hear the Quebecois, theyโ€™ll veto straightaway.

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[โ€“] ReCursing@feddit.uk 20 points 3 months ago

Hey, we're willing, nay desperate, to come back. Well, most of us, just not the sodding politicians!

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[โ€“] Sunshine@piefed.ca 31 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Canadians need to up their standards and stop setting on being American-lite.

[โ€“] Jhex@lemmy.world 31 points 3 months ago

I have been in Canada for over 20 years and little by little I have realized most of what I like from Canada is what we inherited/copied from Europe and everything I hate came from the dumpster fire below.

As always, the devil is in the details, but in general I would welcome any stronger alliance with the EU

[โ€“] Quilotoa@lemmy.ca 12 points 3 months ago (2 children)

According to the article, Canada is above the average EU member on property rights protection, judicial independence, regulatory coherence, trade openness, and social security systems, low corruption, regulatory clarity, and overall investment climate, higher education quality, corporate research and development spending, patent registrations, and the diffusion of advanced technologies โ€”from broadband infrastructure to digital services. The next line: In short, Canada already behaves like a de facto member of the club in all but name.

[โ€“] Sunshine@piefed.ca 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Our food, climate and vehicle standards need to be upgraded though.

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[โ€“] Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it 27 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

As a European, i am happy that my country is in the European Union, would be bad otherwise for various reasons;
yeah, they sometimes do bad decisions, but overall it's great-- chat control is the biggest shit but we should reject it as much as we can

[โ€“] Typotyper@sh.itjust.works 12 points 3 months ago

Generally warm and soft

[โ€“] madde@feddit.org 3 points 3 months ago

Can only speak for myself, but I'd love the idea. I think our french and some of our Belgian neighbours ( :) ) would be ecstatic to have more french speakers in the EU.

From a cultural point of view, especially Quรฉbec I experienced to be very similar to Europe.

I myself could see myself living and working in Canada for a few years if this would ever come to pass. I stayed in Toronto and Montreal for a while and loved everything about it. Currently there's too much red tape in my field of work however to consider the move, whereas I've lived and worked in several EU countries already.

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[โ€“] iamthetot@piefed.ca 34 points 3 months ago (2 children)
[โ€“] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 9 points 3 months ago

As a Brit who emigrated to Canada, I'd be delighted if this is how I finally get my EU citizenship back.

[โ€“] khannie@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago

EU here. Hell yes!

[โ€“] henry_cavill123@lemmy.world 24 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Article is too long...

It'd be a little weird as Canada is not in Europe but other than that it'd be a perfect fit. Much better fit than Turkey or even Hungary...

[โ€“] alk@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Could rename it to the Earth Union and keep the acronym

[โ€“] cadekat@pawb.social 11 points 3 months ago

Earth United has a better ring to it.

[โ€“] shittydwarf@piefed.social 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[โ€“] saltesc@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

AU is taken, mate. But I reckon Australia would be bloody on board too.

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[โ€“] ragepaw@lemmy.ca 11 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Cyprus is in Asia, and is a member of the EU and was allowed because it was "politically and culturally European". It could be argued that Canada would qualify under those same circumstances.

We even have something that Cyprus doesn't, and land border with an EU country (Denmark), and a sea border with an EU country (France).

And while we were independent of the UK from a governmental point of view, we were still a dominion of the UK until 1982, which means we even have historical precedence in the EU as an overseas territory, though never in an official way.

[โ€“] Lumisal@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

Neither is the South American continent but part of it is in the EU too.

[โ€“] FreddiesLantern@leminal.space 23 points 3 months ago (1 children)

EU here, yes pls. Iโ€™ve never been there but Iโ€™ve always loved the idea of Canada. Hospitality, human rights, healthcare, โ€ฆ all values we should hold high and unite over.

[โ€“] DoctimusLime@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 3 months ago

Weil said ๐Ÿ™Œ

[โ€“] hanrahan@slrpnk.net 16 points 3 months ago

Australia as well please, love to join the grand EU project. Anything that brings people closer together in a fractured world is a good thing.

[โ€“] nkat2112@sh.itjust.works 13 points 3 months ago

This would be wonderful!

[โ€“] plyth@feddit.org 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

liberal counterweight to autocratic hegemony

Nobody is expecting the European Commission.

[โ€“] thenextguy@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

Their chief weapon is beer.

[โ€“] notsosure@sh.itjust.works 8 points 3 months ago (4 children)

As Canada isnโ€™t in Europe, some renaming has to happenโ€ฆ perhaps Freedom Union?

[โ€“] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 4 points 3 months ago

A union of nation states that value freedom.

United States of Freedom?

[โ€“] Asetru@feddit.org 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

French Guyana isn't in Europe either and nobody cares, so there's precedent.

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[โ€“] Randelung@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That term has been thoroughly tainted.

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[โ€“] VoxAliorum@lemmy.ml 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

After reading the article, I am still not sure whether that's a good idea because such an expansion likely comes with additional conflicts. Wouldn't mind a EU & Friends though. In general Canada has been very stable, reasonable and constructive in the last years.

[โ€“] SW42@lemmy.world 16 points 3 months ago

There actually is an โ€œEU & Friendsโ€ called the EEA. Would be pretty nice to have our Canadian Friends here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Area

[โ€“] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 7 points 3 months ago

I'm Canadian. Sign me up! I remember as a lad in the 1960's that commercials on TV compared Canada to the nordic countries, not america. That's right around the start of "capitalization" when "business administration" students were pushed out of colleges in huge numbers and everything slowly went to hell.

[โ€“] dermanus@lemmy.ca 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I like the idea, although our provinces would have to give up quite a bit of their sovereignty which would be a hard sell politically. We have more trade barriers between our provinces than the EU has.

We're a good sized market, but not so big that the EU would be willing to put up with 10 exceptions to their rules.

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[โ€“] ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here: I'm against this because many European projects are incompatible with Canada. In some parts, Canada's infrastructure is as bad as the USA's. Look at public transport, for example. Everything is car centric, and if you're not rich enough to own a car, you're basically excluded from public life, I don't mean this in an elitist type of way. Even Germany has significantly better public transport than Canada. Many of the other networking projects such as TEN-T or ETCS do not make sense as it is quite literally separated from the EU. Common standards are only useful when everyone agrees to use them. But as Canada would be the only EU state on the North American continent, they would be the only ones using it. Enhanced political cooperation and trade is always a positive thing, but the EU is more than just FTAs and other diplomatic pleasantries. IMHO.

[โ€“] CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Everything is car centric, and if you're not rich enough to own a car, you're basically excluded from public life

Amsterdam changed. Amsterdam city streets with and without cars, before and after cycling infrastructure

Paris is changing.

โ€ฆ Kรธbenhavn

Seriously, visiting North America is โ€œweโ€™ve tried adding a [car] lane to the highway and canโ€™t figure out why nobody is cycling or taking transit.โ€

Transportation networks indeed make little sense when thereโ€™s an ocean in between. Too bad the USA canโ€™t play nicely with others.

Common standards would be a challenge, in some areas -canโ€™t do electrical because 50hz vs 60hz and deep integration with USA grid. The NEMA plugs are a bit of a nightmare. But for vehicle safety and emissions it would be a step forward; more countries adopted the EU than US standards there.

[โ€“] ragepaw@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

It's actually changing here too, at least in cities. Bike lanes being added, streets being repurposed back to foot and bike traffic. Improved public transit.

I don't even think the electrical changes would be hard because of US integration, it would be hard because of so much of it. We could switch. Most houses already have a 240 circuit needed for things like car chargers, dryers and ovens. You could easily retrofit a house. But the grid feeding that house would need to be rebuilt from the ground (pun intended) up.

Edit: re electricity: We apparently did this in the early 50s once already. We were on a 25hz system, and power technicians went to every single house and retrofitted them to go from 25 to 60hz. Wild. I just learned that.

[โ€“] maam@feddit.uk 10 points 3 months ago

many European projects are incompatible with Canada.

That can change, itโ€™s just matter of will.

[โ€“] tiredofsametab@fedia.io 2 points 3 months ago

There might be some goals/milestones required for joining and doing something about things like this could be one.

[โ€“] TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Better start practicing your Canadian then.

Educational material

[โ€“] Sunshine@piefed.ca 6 points 3 months ago

Make maple syrup part of the standard European breakfast!

[โ€“] SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 months ago

Fukan lol, been there

[โ€“] st3ph3n@midwest.social 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Ooh, can you imagine the freakout that would happen in Washington?

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[โ€“] Sunshine@piefed.ca 3 points 3 months ago

Itโ€™s going to happen after Albania!

[โ€“] shittydwarf@piefed.social 3 points 3 months ago
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