No idea what this actually means, if it means easier trade, I'm all for anything that reduces our dependency on the yanks, as long as we don't need to be involved in their regulatory or legal regimes. The Americans are no longer our friends, Salut, mes amis Européens. :)
Carney was asking for freedom of movement of goods, people and services, but without full monetary and legislative integration.
So, easier to sell stuff, easier to buy stuff, free to just travel to/from Canada/EU and work there with no extra paperwork, free to buy and sell service from Canada to EU and vice versa.
No Euro, no vote in EU, no ECJ, no payments into each others budget.
Tighter integration than UK, not as tight as Norway/Switzerland/Iceland.
Common defense was already agreed anyhow.
I can tell you this enjoys broad support in the EU public. Although, no joke, a lot of peoples first reaction is: "They need to compete in Eurovision first. Otherwise they should wait for Australia to join first."
A lot of this is about resource access, and that can't be magically conjured. You can have all the industry and business you want to put on paper, but this is a tangible concern for Europe where they require these things from a stable and trusted nation with a similar regulatory and political environment.
This trade matter is likely going to require a new type of agreement that has some special privileges not extended in any other case for both parties.
It's actually going to raise questions as to why the EU are A-OK with this now when a possible interpretation of associate membership is it's what Cameron was trying to negotiate the UK into when complete inflexibility on the EU side triggered the Brexit referendum.
All depends on what an associate member is of course.
The UK already enjoyed a large amount of unique concessions as a full member. The rest of the EU was right not to give in. Also, game theoretically it's of course more important to not make leaving (or threatening to leave) the union seem too lucrative. No such problem in negotiating tighter integration with nonmembers (and in retrospect, many of the old WP countries should've joined as something like associate members at first…)
>> Also, game theoretically it's of course more important to not make leaving (or threatening to leave) the union seem too lucrative.
Because you simply wouldn't be offered the option of just deescalating your full membership to an associate membership. If you want to leave, you leave fully, and then in time we can discuss what happens next. Also, obviously an associate membership shouldn't feel more desirable than full integration if you're eligible to both. Indeed from the UK's perspective it would be exactly the opposite to what they wanted: free labor and movement but no representation.
How so? Many EU states have benefited enormously from being on the receiving side of EU subsidies, which obviously would be out of the question without full integration. Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland have rejected membership, which essentially means that as EEA members they have to observe all the EU regulations and agreements when it comes to trade, without having any say about them. They have their reasons, but those reasons don't apply generally.
"Being misled" is obviously nonsense that deserves no further comment.
It literally privileges people in countries outside the EU by giving them more rights than those inside.
Which many people inside the EU would observe seems completely consistent with EU behaviour.
Edit to add: "Being misled" would refer to the way the EU was sold to many participants in earlier decades as an economic union, and not an all encompassing political one, with it simply ratcheting that way. Whenever objections occurred referenda would simply be repeated until the populations complied. It's far from the exercise in democracy that proponents promote. (This is distinct from saying it is _all bad_).
> It literally privileges people in countries outside the EU by giving them more rights than those inside.
Mostly, like, the right to have, say, your own standards on chemical safety, tho. That is generally not something that most people would _want_; it basically just means you lose your job because import/export becomes, if not impossible, at least bureaucratically expensive enough that people will just buy from elsewhere.
Your position seems so astonishingly alien that I don't even know how to start replying. It seems biased against the entire concept of how human cooperation works.
> This is the other part: if associate membership is a thing then won't half of the EU start thinking that's their future?
Presumably by "half of the EU" you mean (sometimes) euro-sceptic states like Hungary or Poland? Well, these are not in EU because some illuminati/lizard people tricked them into joining and now won't allow them to leave, like some of their politicians would like you to believe, but because they enjoy billions of subsidies per year.
I would like to make a slight correction: the hungarian public opinion was never, ever euro-sceptic. This was one of the major reason the previous government was voted out, because they didn't reflect the will of the people. Opinion polls regularly poll 70-80% of EU approval despite being decade-long propaganda trying to change peoples' minds, making Hungary de facto one of the most pro-EU countries in EU.
There is a strong case that much of the eastern bloc were tricked into joining, by the UK, in order to weaken the Franco-German efforts for ever closer union.
Could you elaborate regarding how exactly were eastern bloc countries "tricked" into joining by the UK? And what prevents them from leaving now that the tricksters from UK have long since left themselves?
> the tricksters from UK have long since left themselves?
This wasn’t intentional of the people who started the cogs turning, it was meant to be an empty gesture to get elected, no one expected it to actually pass.
There is always the debate around "Europe of two speeds" - where there is a deeply integrated core of nations, maybe even going towards "United States of Europe" and the others tightly associated, but not fully integrated.
Of course the set of countries and level of integration depends on whom you ask
Maybe, and that might actually be okay from the EC’s pov. There’s a fairly old proposal for a ‘two speed EU’; a core that accelerates towards near-federalism with a more eurosceptic periphery.
Right. The oddity now is the euroscepticism is rooted in the countries previously considered the core.
I am of the view the UK should never have joined as a full member, and it would have been better to establish the two speed membership way back then, allowing France and Germany particularly to engage in further integration without mutual interference involving the UK.
Let's face it, UK never was "full member", for all means. But that's beside the actual point: the German/French euro-skeptics see their countries paying the eastern block a lot of money, sees that same block totally ungrateful about it (ooga booga colonialism), but at the same time don't notice their own employers happy to have such markets at their fingertips - because said markets grab also jobs at their expense, again something the eastern block actively ignores. At the same times the ruling parties everywhere won't touch a running system (even when it's barely running) to not lose their hard won privileges, and the rightwing grows claiming imaginary but heartwarming solutions.
I don’t think Cameron did much serious negotiation on this front. He resigned the evening of the referendum results.
It was a deliberate choice by his successors to pursue a hard Brexit. A softer Brexit was always possible and likely would have been more acceptable to the EU, as it would have had less financial impact and disruption to trade.
You've got it wrong: "After the deal had been approved, Cameron described it as giving the United Kingdom "special status within the European Union" and immediately declared that both he and the UK Government would campaign for a "Remain" vote in the referendum within a "reformed European Union"."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%932016_United_Kingd...
There's no planet on which Cameron's visit that time was regarded by anyone on any side as anything other than a failure. Cameron was simply putting a face on it.
It has pissed off the EU (understandably), pissed off his own supporters, and pissed off his enemies.
The point is that the referendum was an unconditional 2015 Conservative manifesto promise, and was going to happen anyway, regardless of how Cameron's renegotiations with the EU went (sources here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49726666)
The outcome of the negotiations may have affected the course of the Leave and Remain campaigns, but it was not the trigger for the referendum itself.
This is was about immigration. I don’t understand why people are still in denial about this. I am pretty sure it would have happened anyway regardless of what economic concessions UK would have got. It’s worth to note that the immigration is still an issue in the UK and the EU and I think more EU members will leave because of this.
Exactly. And, let's face it, democracy. Either the people in the UK wanted freedom of movement or they didn't, and they voted on that basis.
People don't exactly feel they agreed to the Boriswave either, and now when I am back visiting the UK it's noticeably the most racist it's ever been, by a very significant distance.
I'm in Canada now and Canada has the same dynamics going on.
> Exactly. And, let's face it, democracy. Either the people in the UK wanted freedom of movement or they didn't, and they voted on that basis.
It was neither. They wanted freedom of movement that was only one way. In fact they didn't know what they wanted because they were sold a bill of goods when it came to Brexit.
I think this is what will kill it in Canada too. There’s maybe only a million Canadian citizens who would be interested in the idea of freedom of movement to Europe. There’s probably 10-20 million Canadian citizens who would be a hard “absolutely no way” to opening their borders to 250 million random Europeans in return.
Yeah but you have to wonder why the EU nations themselves are not very happy with the EU immigration.
One part of the answer is that some are more open to out of EU immigration than others. A while ago that was Germany who got 1 million plus of refugees and economic immigrants from Syria , Afghanistan and other non European countries.
Now it seems that Spain is that willing to take immigrants and of course also provide them citizenship after 3-5 years. So you may end up with a disproportionate amount of immigrants that come from Europe but are not really European in terms of looks and behaviour.
I really fail to see how EU will continue unless far right wins all over Europe and a common restrictive immigration policy is agreed.
Give it another ten to twenty years and the far right will be in control all across Europe. Ugly, but the blame for this happening will be entirely at the EU’s door.
People were poor, wages had hardly grown after years of austerity following the 2008 crash. A huge campaign pointed the finger squarely at the EU: they are taking our money, they are the reason you’re poor, you would be richer without them.
I have seen it differently. I’ve seen it about immigration, the party driving it being UK Immigration Party. Boris “party” put some economic spin on it but it was fuelled by immigration.
The referendum was entirely the UK's choice and had nothing to do with the EU. It offered more concessions than the UK deserved (having already held numerous opt-outs) and they still called the vote.
One of the effects of Brexit is that EU popular solidarity has noticeably improved while the UK has gone in the opposite direction. That says a lot about Brexit.
The referendum was triggered by him making a bad political calculation that he would win it and could squash the aisle of his party that was pushing his idea. This was never truly due to a failed negotiation. The hardliners in his party wanted entirely out either way.
Cameron was trying to reduce the scope of EU integration with the UK (esp freedom of movement), with the threat he didn't want to use of a referendum, the EU said no (as the other commenter explained partly to disincentivize others, but also because they thought he was bluffing and people would never vote to leave), so the referendum was held.
That's wrong, he did get what he wanted before the referendum: "After the deal had been approved, Cameron described it as giving the United Kingdom "special status within the European Union" and immediately declared that both he and the UK Government would campaign for a "Remain" vote in the referendum within a "reformed European Union"."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%932016_United_Kingd...
Not sure why its so difficult for you to understand the obvious goal of taking a hardline stance on leaving the EU as a member state vs onboarding possible partnerships, members, etc. You're looking at this backwards.
I think that the EU would be in worse shape today if the UK had followed most other members at the time and restricted freedom of movement to it for the countries that joined in 2004 and 2007. It would have been nice to have got some credit for that.
No, nothing public, we are all speculating. But we can surely guess at 99% that Canada would get no voting power, being that we are in North America and Canada isn't interested in that kind of arrangement.
Cameron did get what he wanted before the referendum: "After the deal had been approved, Cameron described it as giving the United Kingdom "special status within the European Union" and immediately declared that both he and the UK Government would campaign for a "Remain" vote in the referendum within a "reformed European Union"."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%932016_United_Kingd...
That is a rather fantastical and revisionist version of why the Brexit referendum was called - which had more to do with a misguided attempt to put the crazy wing of the Conservative Party to bed rather than anything to do with the EU, where the UK had the best deal imaginable already.
Nevertheless when put to British voters 50% of them decided that best possible deal still wasn’t in their interests. And that 50% who voted No was more people than even voted in the EU elections (to elect MEPs) before that. So the EU was very much fine with their democratic process seeming like an irrelevance, while at the same time the Brexit vote was actually an example of a democratic process working as it should. One can argue about craziness or otherwise, but there were at least 17 million crazies at the time and if there was a referendum to rejoin the EU would likely be a different 17 million crazies voting No again.
> but there were at least 17 million crazies at the time
Yes. Just the demographics has substantially thinned their numbers by now though.
> would likely be a different 17 million crazies voting No again.
Highly unlikely - and turnout on the other side would be dramatically improved. Had the vote been held again the following day, it's likely that the result would have been different. If it were held today, it would be a landslide towards rejoining with the original terms.
People actually know what they're voting for, instead of falling for make-believe horseshit about how much money could go into the NHS (but didn't) on the side of a bus, with a heavy dose of Russian propaganda on Facebook.
I think you’ve fallen into the common trap in believing that there was a simple narrative which can be used to understand the Brexit vote, when the data shows there were 17 million different and varied reasons within a mass resistant to modelling.
The ones that are persistent are "I'm going to vote for anarchy because politics does no good for me", "I'm racist and don't understand that this doesn't get rid of people I really want to get rid of but really want it to so whatever" and "I'm xenophobic and haven't accepted that there isn't a British Empire anymore".
There may be fringe cases around specific regulations, but those were the main three. People were voting for whatever they wanted Brexit to be, most of which is pure fantasy, not what it actually is, which is a clusterfuck of badness, and zero benefit to anyone.
I say this as someone _who was a member of the Conservative Party at the time_, though the fact that the candidate in my constituency since 2010 was Jacob Rees Mogg meant I have voted against them in every election since then.
> And that 50% who voted No was more people than even voted in the EU elections (to elect MEPs) before that.
This is ignorance or just plain bad faith. MEPs are not the main democratic mechanism of the EU, it's the national governments. This is on purpose, so that both national democracy and sovereignty can be maintained.
This is the typical of EU misinformation spouted by people who have a problem with the EU. Of course people can dislike the EU all they want, but people who constantly rail against it, with little or no basis in fact, I'll never know. It's not about the EU, it's some sort of bitter obsession or ideological idiocy. Somehow the EU means much more to them than they claim, otherwise they wouldn't spend so much energy complaining about it.
But I was a supporter of the EU who noticed this. Like I comment elsewhere, the EU is like Teflon and resistant to critique - when there is an issue or a defect we get comments like yours “yes yes but this isn’t the actual process, that is a governmental/national/commission/parliament issue.”
It’s not misinformation - it’s a very basic fact about the democratic mechanism we had for electing who represents us in the EU parliament which makes and votes on our laws. The opacity of this process and the general lack of enfranchisement in it is a major flaw but one that the EU was content with, because a simulation of a democratic process is good enough, better even, because it avoids the scrutiny and can be defended by people like you. It’s a basic fact that people did get off their arses and vote to leave in greater numbers than even bothered to be enfranchised in the elections for MEPs. You don’t have to bleat about it or invoke ignorance or bad faith because all you show up is your own bad faith to a fairly basic fact.
And it remains that people had never been given the chance to vote on whether they wanted to be governed by the EUs mechanisms. It got decided for people by politicians that it was in their interests that a trading block rapidly evolve into a super-national government. It was decided by those politicians how it operates and politicians the ones with the control over its integration, and what kicked off my comments in this thread, that it has a president who speaks for the whole of Europe who only they choose. When put to the actual people for the first and only time, they decided they weren’t into it for myriad of individual reasons that can’t be usefully modelled. And now as we’ve seen endless times in these threads, the response from Europe hasn’t been to go back to the drawing board, there is a general tone of traitorship and casting it as entirely British issue caused basically by racists and idiots, when it happened within the EU and was also an EU issue. Nowhere else in the EU would 17 million people making a very clear decision be called a gang of fuckn idiots.
> Cameron was trying to negotiate the UK into when complete inflexibility on the EU side triggered the Brexit referendum.
You are assigning too much responsibility to the EU here and none to the other actors responsible for Brexit. It borders on propaganda, but I do not want to assume ill intent.
And Cameron, didnt he say he would guide UK no matter the result and then resigned when Brexit won?
Brexit was obviously going to happen a good decade before the referendum, the tension was so blatant. This idea people were conned into voting leave is just utter nonsense - they'd been chomping at the bit for the opportunity for years.
Now the UK has managed to ramp up the tension dramatically, but without some easy foreign political bogeyman to blame. It's not going to end well either, but it's not clear exactly what the endgame is. This is why the Greens, Reform and Restore are suddenly things.
>>> "it's what Cameron was trying to negotiate the UK into when complete inflexibility on the EU side triggered the Brexit referendum."
"Negotiate" ... is that what you call it?
David Cameron (and team) were the most inept bunch of wankers this country has had the misfortune of being represented by in living memory (in terms of medium/long-term real impact).
We had better terms than anyone in the EU and we still fucked it up.
I mean, not really, since the UK was trying to renegotiate an existing deal (which they profited from for decades) towards a deal that would favor the UK more than the EU and would trigger an entire blow-back of other member-states wanting to renegotiate on their EU responsibilities without losing the advantages that this deal brought, whereas the deal with Canada is a new deal where the EU gains better trading and less dependence on the US and Canada gains better trading and more security if their next door neighbor falls apart even further.
The UK renegotiation was a net loss for the EU, this Canada deal is a deal where both parties gain something.
Also, the Brexit referendum was a campaign promise of David Cameron that was going to trigger if his conservative party won the 2015 general election. Sure, the relationship between EU and UK had strained over the years, but trying to pin this on the inflexibility of the EU feels a bit misdirected.
> Also, the Brexit referendum was a campaign promise of David Cameron that was going to trigger if his conservative party won the 2015 general election
That is iff the renegotiations with Brussels failed, which they did.
> The UK renegotiation was a net loss for the EU, this Canada deal is a deal where both parties gain something.
V. hard to see what Canada gets out of it. All the roadblocks to Canadian trade with the EU today (especially around resources) are internal to Canada and have nothing at all to do with EU status.
> All the roadblocks to Canadian trade with the EU today (especially around resources) are internal to Canada and have nothing at all to do with EU status.
Presumably under the proposed thing Canada would largely adopt EU regulations. This would make trade (particularly for small businesses) _far_ easier. See the UK for how difficult this can become if you're not in alignment; it's survivable for huge companies (though even some of them had trouble; for instance Marks and Spencers' stores in Ireland literally went empty for a while because they were insufficiently prepared), but if you're a small business importing a bunch of components from Europe and making a thing which is largely sold to Europe, there's a _massive_ difference in bureaucratic overhead between being in and out.
Even many Norwegian SMEs don't see direct sales to Europe as worth the overhead, and Norway's in the EEA, as close to the EU as you can get without actually being in it.
> Presumably under the proposed thing Canada would largely adopt EU regulations.
Canadian provinces do not agree with each other about trade regulations. They will not surrender this to the federal government, and they certainly won't to the EU.
>[The Conservatives promised a referendum] iff the renegotiations with Brussels failed, which they did.
No. The Conservative party promised an EU membership referendum by 2017 in its 2015 manifesto. That was not conditional on a failure of renegotiations. Nor, indeed, did David Cameron even concede that the renegotiations had failed, so that can’t possibly have been his stated reason for calling the referendum.
> My policy is to hold a renegotiation and then a referendum. That is what we promised in the manifesto and then to abide by what the British public say.
So you can see that there was never any suggestion that the referendum would be called or not called depending on the outcome of the renegotiations.
The explanation is easy: Canada is not on the European continent. The EU can only extend full membership to countries on the continent, so Canada needs a special arrangement. And because there's a whole ocean serving as a reason for this special treatment, it's easy to argue that it won't extend to countries who can become full members.
It's not actually reporting on the substance in any meaningful detail, and no one is, for the relatively simple reason that once it happens every special interest group in Canada will find something to go nuts about.
The UK wanted it the opposite way. They wanted full access to the EU market but forbid the movement of people because they wanted to get rid of the Poles. The EU would never agree to that and rightly so.
Inflexibility was not the reason for Brexit. It happened because the British population was tricked by being fed misinformation about the EU for years by people like Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson. Little things like "The EU bans bendy bananas" to big things like "Turkey is going to join any day!"
Why is the EU obligated to treat every country the same way? Canada presents different economic opportunities and challenges than the UK. Or, if you want to say it was due to politics, who was bashing who?
> To enable free movement of goods and services the EU insists that the goods and services are produced in an identical regulatory environment.
Doesn't seem to be true anymore, at least in every case. See the EU-Mercosur agreement for one recent exception to this, the goods we're now importing from South America don't have the same regulatory environment by far, to many of our local farmers.
Depends what they mean by ‘full’, really. I expect the EC would be happy enough to let them opt out of the euro, say. But maybe not the working time directive.
Technlogy? That would likely result in a US market crash the likes of which has never been seen before. Look at what percentage of the stock market is the magnificent 7. Now imagine what would happen to that if US tech giants were no longer allowed to sell their products/services in the EU. The market is fragile as it is with the AI bubble going on.
Trade? That cuts both ways, and the US economy and cost-of-living crisis doesn't give them lots of wriggle room.
Products? China will be all to happy to step into whatever market is thus competition-free, not to mention the impact this would have on US businesses.
Also, being a European Broadcasting Union (EBU) "Associate Member" is the name for the mechanism that allowed Australia, Canada and other countries to be admitted into Eurovision.
If you've been around the ESC scene, you know there's a lot of embassy involvement (parties in embassies are a thing), the scene is catnip for those interested in politics, the politically active, and to some extent politicians. Eurovision is also one mechanism for discussions of economic development. Hosting the contest is usually an excuse for upgrades to public infrastructure.
And there's Eurovision Asia starting in November. South Korea is an Associate Member of the EBU, for example.
Ahh, that one time the Belarussian delegation tried importing so much alcohol into [host country] to give away for free to everyone at the artist party, that it was all seized at the [host country] border and caused a minor diplomatic incident. The free chocolate branded with the artist's face made it in though. Fun times.
And that wasn't the year that Belarus sent "I Love Belarus" as their Eurovision song.
lol, this took longer to land with me than it should have, being the token "not in the target demographic" guy. And now I know more than I wanted to know about the AI scene ;)
But the concept has floated around for over a decade under several different project names - Asiavision, Our Sound, ABU Song Contest. Somehow "Eurovision Asia" is the one that got countries to sign on and participate. There's a stronger political statement in Asian countries participating in "Eurovision" than in "Our Sound". It surprises me, but 2026 has brought a lot of global cultural & political shifts.
The American version was "The American Song Contest", hosted by Snoop Dogg & Kelly Clarkson, with US states competing against each other. Most Americans don't even know it ever happened.
Russia has its own rival "Intervision Song Contest", which the US participates in. Something something global cultural shifts.
Hey, Celine Dion won Eurovision already. We just need to get Switzerland to retroactively let her win stand for Canada :)
If it gets a free trade and freedom of movement system in place, I don't think anyone is going to object in Canada much. Unless they try to open up fisheries, which would get them a bunch of Maritime (and Quebec?) objections...
Australia has managed a 2nd and a 4th from 11 entrants. Our voting participation is quite low though, as the voting windows are usually at awkward AEST times and the main Australian broadcast of the contest is delayed until our primetime.
>>So, easier to sell stuff, easier to buy stuff, free to just travel to/from Canada/EU and work there with no extra paperwork, free to buy and sell service from Canada to EU and vice versa.
>>No Euro, no vote in EU, no ECJ, no payments into each others budget.
This version of EU integration is more popular than EU itself in significant part of EU right now.
Well, the Brexit campaign was manipulated by a state actor (or rather: 'a criminal actor disguised as a state'). None of the alt-right nationalism is in the long-term benefits of the country. This is globalism, the end game. You either team up, thereby reducing your costs, or you get swallowed. Ask Ukraine, Tibet, Hong Kong how it worked out for them not belonging to a bigger team. So divide and conquer is a logical move for the opponent, and it happens to align with alt-right. There is also documented evidence of external influence in these. A medium such as Follow The Money has documented such in various of their articles.
> The whole political course of Ukraine in the last ~20 years is mostly about teaming up with EU and NATO, isn't it?
Not, on the NATO front at least, the part between NATO bending to Russian demands not to extend Membership Action Plans to Ukraine and Georgia in 2008 (followed immediately by the Russian invasion of Georgia)—when Ukraine abandoned pursuit of NATO membership—and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, only after which did it resume pursuit of NATO membership.
The resumption is sometimes tied to the Revolution of Dignity preceding the Russian invasion, and even occasionally claimed to be a reason for the invasion, but the decision to abandon the neutrality position was well after and a response to the invasion rather than the other way around.
Yanukovych was elected in 2010 promising "economic modernisation, greater economic ties with the EU, and military non-alignment." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yanukovych). His backsliding on those promises is what caused the Revolution of Dignity. I think the OP's statement is roughly accurate.
Does Canada's agricultural output follow EU's (quite strict) norms? Not sure if this falls under "legislative integration" but I'd say that it would be quite important to have settled. The same goes when it comes to Canada's work-related laws.
It's not an insurmountable problem if they don't have compatibility on standards
It'll just take time to reach an agreement both sides can accept and it's in some ways simpler than something like the EU-Mercosur agreement since one "side" is a unified country rather that been two trading bloc's negotiating.
It's fascinating watching the world re-align so quickly (by diplomatic/negotiation standards).
> Does Canada's agricultural output follow EU's (quite strict) norms?
It might not be as strict anymore, as the EU-Mercosur Agreement seemingly ended up relaxing a bit on the strict norms and regulations. Many farmers were/are protesting this agreement exactly because the farmers in South America would compete against local farmers who are more strictly regulated.
So, seems we're a bit flexible on that front, when push comes to shove :)
In the past years it has become pretty clear that even the mainstream right wingers/neoliberals of the EU (ie. the EPP) appear to be ready and willing to drop or loosen all kinds of annoying ethical, environmental, and consumer protection regulations at a moment's notice if it helps large corporations (often US, not even EU) make more money.
I want to know the person who grows the celery seeds.
I bought a box 37 years ago, a tiny little box, and I've been using it to season soups, almost weekly that whole time.
There can't be more than one guy that grows those seeds, for the entire planet! So my questions are, first who is this guy, and second is the in the EU?
Also, has anybody else noticed this?
And if you think buying his celery seed farm, don't. It's a very limiting market.
"Single market (but food treated specially)" wouldn't be unprecedented; Switzerland was basically like this for a long time.
Working Time Directive may be more of a sticking point, though Canada doesn't seem _that_ far away from aligned with it anyway (big difference would be on paid time off, where Canada's way under the minimum).
AFAICT many EU nations let stat holidays count towards the paid time off allowance. Ontario has 9 stat holidays. 10 paid days off guaranteed + 9 stat holidays is pretty close to the 20 required by Europe's paid time off guarantees.
Which countries are these? The UK used to have a derogation which allowed them to do this, and Malta has some weird thing, but otherwise I wasn't aware of any exceptions?
Easier to fly to Europe from our privatized airports! Sounds great!
The funny thing is that we got this, instead of tangible and needed deregulation within Canada. Another announcement, instead of actual shovels in the ground and making life better for Canadians.
What actually _is_ the deal? Nobody in this thread seems to have any idea what the specifics are, which matters a lot. It sounds like we're still at the "very early talks" stage? Less integration than even Norway (EEA)?
It has to be like Norway/Switzerland/Iceland or more to get any free movements of goods and services. Level of access goes hand in hand with integration in term of regulation, etc.
"Associate member" actually sounds like TIGHTER integration than Norway/Switzerland/Iceland, which are not members at all. Switzerland is not even in the EEA. It is a very bad term, actually as Canada cannot be an EU member (it isn't in Europe) and if they don't want or can't join the EEA then that leaves a Switzerland-like deal, which is purely bilateral.
It's the law and it should be very strictly enforced because otherwise it'd open the door for the Middle East and North Africa... But I don't think Canada would want to join the EU, it's anti-Trump bluster.
Turkey, only a tiny part of which is geographically in Europe, is a candidate (though talks are suspended in practice until, at least, Erdogan is out of power), and Cyprus is geographically in Asia/Middle East, not Europe. The rules could certainly be loosened further with agreement.
But also, yes, Canada probably does not want to be a full member, at least in the near-term; they want some sort of alignment not amounting to full membership. I wouldn't be totally amazed if we look back on this as the start of the (long-suggested) two speed EU system.
Middle eastern or North African countries can’t join because the member states don’t want them to join and they need unanimous agreement. See Turkeys failed bid for example. Even a country with positive general public appeal like Ukraine is very unlikely to join in the next 10 years
Yes, unanimous agreement is required once a country has applied, as part of the process of accepting the application.
However Article 49 of the European Union states: "Any European State which respects the values referred to in Article 2 and is committed to promoting
them may apply to become a member of the Union".
So Middle Eastern and North African countries (and Canada) cannot apply in the first place.
I think Turkey is in the grey area that allows some wriggle room as it spans both Europe and Asia.
Canada does not want to join the E.U. as a full member and that is not what is being offered.
Canada very much is not “blustering” when it comes to Trump. A big majority of Canadians see sovereignty and less reliance on the US as a massive issue. Canada has embraced China in a way that was unthinkable 5 years ago in a deal intended to hedge against the US. The Canadian Conservative Party lost an election it was thought to have a guaranteed win from and has continued losing seats since then in large part due to their half hearted response to Trump.
I'll go back to my first comment above: What is an "associate member"? We don't know because it's a concept that does not exist but the very name suggests something stronger and tighter than anything that exists with non-members that have very close ties (Norway, Switzerland, Iceland).
Hence I think it is safe to say that this is a lot of bluster, or ar least hyperbole, considering what Canada and the EU might really want and the long and complicated treaty process to define and create an "associate member" status.
Bluster has a connotation of empty threats and loudness for the sake fo loudness.
Canada has been making real moves, and doing it quietly. In the past year non-US exports have grown by a record 11%. New trade and defense deals have been signed with more than 20 countries.
Whatever is going on in Ottawa, bluster is not the word for it.
Not Canada, it is Von Der Leyen who took upon herself to use this "associate member" term and even EU countries are surprised not least because of basically whhat I explained earlier [1].
Ah. I thought you were saying that Canada's pivots outside the US were anti trump bluster.
No idea about the EU side rhetoric, but it may not be bluster considering that Canada has huge potash and oil/gas reserves that could replace Kremlin aligned sources in the EU (and the defense deal that Canada just announced with Ukr.).
To "join" the EEA both sides/parties of it has to agree, so yes, members do have a say, it's beneficial (and should be) to both parties of the agreements.
For one this seems related to EU the umbrella organization, not Europe the continent, while I suppose the European Economic Area might be geographically limited to Europe the continent. Maybe something like the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) might be more applicative here.
Being an Associate Country (or Associate State) doesn't guarantee visa-free travel (ask how we know), yet I'm sure that Canadians will get it served on a silver platter.
You are confusing the current „candidate members“ with the new „associate member“ that doesn’t exist yet and is basically something Canada will get first.
Among other things, they mentioned „recognition of professional qualifications“ in their speeches today, which is the first step in freedom of movement, so the direction is there.
Also, visa free is a third thing, which already exists for Canada/EU. Neither needs a visa to travel to the other.
No - it means that Charles III is an independent monarch for two separate nations.
The monarchy is 99% ceremonial in Canada but it's important to note that the Canadian Crown isn't the UK Crown... Canada is not a dependent of the UK in anyway, simply the person that wears the Crowns is the same person.
>the Crown has had both a shared and a separate character: the sovereign's role as monarch of Canada has been distinct from their position as monarch of any other realm,[n 4][16][65][66][67] including the United Kingdom.[n 6][69][70][71][72] Only Canadian federal ministers of the Crown may advise the sovereign on any and all matters of the Canadian state,[n 7][70][73][74][75][76][77] of which the sovereign, when not in Canada, is kept abreast by weekly communications with the federal viceroy.[78] The monarchy thus ceased to be an exclusively British institution and, in Canada, became a Canadian,[40][79][80][81] or "domesticated",[82] establishment, though it is still often denoted as "British" in both legal and common language,[40] for reasons historical, political, and of convenience.
It's not just theoretical -- IIUC, if Charles, William and George get hit by the same bus, Charlotte would become Queen of the UK while Louis would become King of Canada.
I'm sure that in that scenario Canada would quickly update their primogeniture laws to give Charlotte primacy over her younger brother, but at the moment the primogeniture laws of the two countries are different.
The monarchy is essentially ceremonial in the UK too - the position gives the monarch a platform for advocating for inoffensive things like the environment, and the pomp of state visits is perhaps sometimes useful, but the monarch really has no wield-able political power despite technically being the boss and inviting the winner of elections to run the country.
As an ex-Brit I was always pro-monarchy, enjoying the pageantry and historical continuity, although the current crop of royals don't have much going for them. Perhaps William will turn out OK.
I guess if going in the UK gets tough the royals could move somewhere else to reign. Sigismund was king of Sweden and Poland, though he couldn't maintain both. Maybe we'd need some drama with usurpers and uncles and so on to keep the populace entertained. Without the civil war part...
These countries choose voluntarily to hold ties with the UK, and each other, and some accept the UK's monarch as nominal head of state, but don't be mistaken; they are all fully independent countries. Some are republics, some are kingdoms with their own monarch. They value each other's friendship, shared values and heritage, but they're not beholden to the UK or each other.
There is no King of England. Charles III is King of the United Kingdom, and all places within. The UK does not have a King of England any more than they have a King of Scunthorpe or a King of North Piddle.
The last King of England was William of Orange, who died in 1702 and was succeeded by Anne, who was the last Queen of England. The Act of Union 1707 merged the Kingdom of Scotland and Kingdom of England into a single successor state, the Kingdom of Great Britain. In 1801 that became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and in 1922 became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
> Charles III is King of the United Kingdom, and all places within. The UK does not have a King of England any more than they have a King of Scunthorpe or a King of North Piddle.
It really shouldn't surprise you to learn this, but the ordinary name for the "United Kingdom" is "England".
His title is "His Majesty Charles the Third, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of His other Realms and Territories King, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith" but he can claim many others. In Canada he is announced as King of Canada.
The main negative of the EU is people can migrate through it to get to your country, like the UK's small boats crisis. Canada, being so far from the EU, doesn't have that unique disadvantage. Which is good news for Canada if this does end up working.
This requires likely an alignment of trade and product standards, so could still be demanding legally to get over the line. But the foundations are similar.
Maybe Canada could just join EFTA, that would be easier.
The UK left and wasn't even able to make proper deals for exiting the EU, their own Brexit caught them by surprise and it was total chaos for a long time. They could now try to get closer integration with the EU but there doesn't seem to be much will for it in the UK.
I think free movement of people doesn’t imply Schengen Zone style borders - I thought this was mostly an economic lever that people can move and work in another country by default, not a human right where a country cannot exclude chosen people (known criminals, etc) and track all crossings. I think of it as another country giving me a visa is opt-out for that country, not opt-in.
The CE rules are relatively sane and followed commonly right? At least I see a lot of CE-stamped goods in Australia… so I always assumed that was the case.
All that Schengen does is dismantle border checkpoints. As a German, I can freely move to any EU country for any purpose - transit, tourism and work - no matter if, say, I were a convict or whatever.
There are expulsions and entry bans even under Schengen, but these are incredibly rare things to happen as the freedom of movement is considered to be a cornerstone of EU values.
Freedom of movement is more than just visa opt-out. It’s legally almost impossible for an EU country to prevent a citizen of a different EU country from moving there. They would need to arrest you for terrorism or something equally dramatic.
The ECJ has consistently ruled that the freedom of movement is very broad.
I know this because it creates an interesting corner case where Swiss citizens don’t have quite the same broad freedom of movement since ECJ rulings don’t automatically apply to non-EU citizens. For example, an EU citizen can move to Greece for no reason at all and just sit on a beach. A Swiss citizen cannot, and has to find work in 3-6 months or leave.
> Also, to be able to sell stuff, you gotta comply with the CE rules one way or another, there is no free card here.
Yes but there's a big difference between "only import electronics that aren't fire hazards" and "you have to pay custom & excise on anything you import".
Not all of the EU is in schengen, but we do have freedom of movement. Ireland for example is not in Schengen and never will be because of our travel arrangements with the UK.
> Although, no joke, a lot of peoples first reaction is: "They need to compete in Eurovision first. Otherwise they should wait for Australia to join first."
What? First time I hear of this. Honestly, Eurovision doesn't really have anything to do with the EU. We all know the main sponsor is from a non-EU country whose participation is much more controversial than Canada anyway.
Because Eurovision is this cultural joke that unifies all of Europe in this yearly cultural moment of absolute madness.
And the EU treaties refuse to define what „European“ means, so using „watches Eurovision“ as a rule of thumb is surprisingly workable as a definition of where the borders of „Europe“ end.
I guarantee you that the winning song will play on repeat over and over again in every city in Spain, the Netherlands and Ireland irrespective of if they are competing, and people will still watch the circus from those countries. The whole "well we are not competing this year as a protest" is part of the joke.
That is the whole point. If you want to understand more, this song is genuinely a good explanation:
Israel's public broadcaster is a long time member of the European Broadcasting Union, which has nothing to do with EU, and honestly not all that much to do with Europe either. EBU organizes Eurovision. Why Israel's public broadcaster wanted to be part of EBU I don't know, cultural identification with Europe I guess? You'd have to ask them.
But either way that's not the scandal. The scandal is that Russia's broadcaster got kicked out for Russia doing bad things (fair enough) but Israel's was kept in despite their government doing even worse things.
Simple, for one the ITU region assignment, there's a bunch of other countries in Africa and Asia that are in the European Broacasting Area and thus eligible to join the EBU.
The other thing more applies to other sports like soccer, most Arab countries (but especially Iran) will not accept having to work with Israel because it would require them to accept Israel as a legitimate country.
Yeah, the scandal is about different members being held to different standards. Why are Azerbaijan and Israel allowed to stay while Russia got kicked out? Especially since Azerbaijan and Israel both have manipulated the voting in addition to waging wars.
Yeah, Azerbaijan is another which is often forgotten. Honestly, it seems Eurovision is mostly interesting for countries that need PR help. I'd be happy to see the whole thing go, it's outlived what little purpose it had.
> Eurovision is also stupid. Why is Israel part of it? That makes zero sense, even way aside from what war criminal Netanyahu is doing - it's not a european country. Something is wrong with the word EU. It constantly seeks to expand. So that is now a misnomer.
Eligibility to compete is not based on country, but my membership to the European Braodcasting Union of which Israel is a member, and Australian SBS is an associate member and was allowed to compete as a special case.
Don't bring Eurovision into it. Learn to lighten up and have some fun instead.
Agree, any country in the world should be able to participate in ESC, as long as the country agrees with peace, love and understanding. So yes, please ban Israel as soon as possible, together with any other countries that don't share these three very basic principles, that seemingly is easy for all the other participants to follow.
The EU is likely to develop a military at some point and has some defence cooperation. if you do not trust the US, that means you cannot rely on NATO, which means you need some alternative.
> Right now it seems to me that e. g. Carney, and Leyen, use this more as promo-tour.
I agree. It might be meant as a threat to influence US policy.
Yes, and it might be a good idea. It should probably not be part of the EU though - there are a number of non-EU countries you would want in a European NATO such as the UK, Norway and Iceland.
When several EU countries are already struggling with large Indian Subcontinent communities that don't integrate (and dodge taxes and food-processing regs--Indians where I am have their own large underground cash-only food economy among themselves), opening up flow of people from Canada's mobile classes which has seen vast demographic change seems like it would only exacerbate the problem.
I am assuming you are somewhere in Europe and given your apparent dislike for Indians, let's look at an alternative narrative. As a Canadian of East Indian origin, I can tell you that if these individuals are Canadian citizens, they are very unlikely to leave Canada for Europe. If they are not Canadian citizens, the point is moot anyway. In fact, I would expect more European citizens of South Asian origin to move to Canada, where English is spoken, integration is generally easier and salaries are far higher. So, breathe easy.
Which countries are these? There's a large population of Indian immigrants in Ireland, who seem to be integrating fine and are not notably doing much tax dodging (they would largely work in high-skill PAYE jobs, where tax dodging is virtually impossible).
I have such fatigue from listening to the rhetoric and whining from US farmers when enough of their goods are dangerous for consumers and illegal in Canada and the EU.
It's all bad faith from the US trying to run over any market they don't control so they can weaponize control over food supply of another nation later.
I don't mind countries setting their own rules for the food they want to consume, and for sure the EU can be overly bureaucratic.
On the other hand, the US is the only country I've been to where I have purchased milk in a completely sealed plastic container, and it was rancid when I opened it. Upstate New York is proud of their local and organic produce, but they are selling rancid milk in stores like that's a normal thing. That was a shock as a visiting Australian.
I remember a delightful trip to Canada, where I ordered a hamburger, and they'd only let me have it well-done. I asked why, and the waitress says "The beef comes from the US", with a grimace...
Keep in mind, social media and western online dialogue is extremely US centric. If every country was a house, the US is where everyone meets to party. So every spec of dust spawns endless content for everyone to dig into. Nevermind that people who have the most time to spend on social media, dictate the narratives that are popular.
The reality is that the US better if you have money (like white collar salary man level) and (much) worse if you are an odds-and-ends gig economy type worker (like an influencer).
From the vantage point of a ~75% income bracket home, moving to Europe is almost purely downsides (conventionally, some people give up everything for their dream to live in a cold dank cave), whereas being in a <50% income bracket home, Europe seems like a utopia.
You can't make that generalization. What you describe will be different city to city, not to mention country to country. Further, privacy and safety regulations (which are EU-wide) will not be available in US, independent of income. Though that's city or state dependent too, I guess. It's just too hard to make these offhand comparisons, unless we make them more concrete.
I agree about social media distorting things. When I visited US, I was surprised that it's not GTA-like violence everywhere, haha. I feel silly sharing that. But, the biggest surprise was how friendly and warm strangers were. Memes didn't hint at that at all.
Yeah, I'm curious about which ones are a problem. I could see there being some incompatibility, and the details are more interesting than sweeping statements.
Some regulations would have to be normalized and agreed upon between the countries for trade open up. Can't have different quality standards and ways of evaluating and declaring them.
Programmers keep thinking law is if/then, it's not, it's a set of instructions to judges, which may contain obvious errors or conflict with other instructions, which is why we allow humans to interpret them instead of computers.
Are you defending PPWR? Not in spirit but actual implementation?
It will never get so-far as the judge because the EU has already admitted the law cant be followed and arent going to be taking people to court over it.
One I have actually dealt with was VATMOSS. Especially when first introduced it had very low ceilings for registration and actually deterred small businesses from trading across borders.
I also think GDPR is too strict for small businesses and non-profits and not strict enough to deal with big businesses that trade data.
Having health with VATMOSS too my experience is that it was trivial to implement. Maybe your country fucked up the rollout? Here in Sweden I had zero issues.
Its not the country, its the implementation cost for small businesses. In particular the ceiling for registration was so low that even micro-businesses with minimal cross border sales had to comply.
Its would have been trivial for a big business, but it was not for small businesses.
Maybe just calibrated poorly. Small enough and IMO the only important rule is no sharing with others. That should always be strictly enforced. But why worry about how some small timer handles my personal data or if I can make various requests of him? The stakes are too small to matter.
You're on a tech-focused Silicon Valley based news forum. Most people here think if you're not carte blanche allowing your Ai companies unfettered hyperscale economy-threatening death spiral infrastructure investments for a nebulous end goal that benefits a small minority with undertones of civilizational collapse and mass unemployment then you're a over-regulatory nanny-state that is crushing innovation.
Welcome to Canada where the regulations are in fact provincial.
Canadian provinces have a harder time trading with each other than countries in the EU, although thanks to the sales tax and package transit changes the EU is becoming competitive in this area.
...Those cookie banner things for a start!! heh. ;)
Mostly just wouldn't really work because Ottawa would have to somehow represent the provinces to the EU and the provinces and Ottawa don't work together in a way that would be compatible, I don't think anyone in Canada would want to change how Ottawa works with them. We may also end up in the same position again as we have with the Americans, nobody but us likes our supply management system[1]. GDPR is also something I think Canadians would struggle to get behind, our PIPEDA framework is quite good and I think most folks approve of it (except Quebec, who have their own framework). Taking the Euro would be a problem, etc etc, I think I could probably build quite a big list. btw, I respect the EU regulation, and that Europeans quite like it, I was just saying I don't think it would be practical for us to re-work the whole country to accommodate them, that's all.
A lot of replies confidently explaining ‘what this actually means’ in some detail despite the article saying things like:
> [Canada would be] EU's first "associate member"
> …
> [Von der Leyen] did not give specific details on how any Canadian membership would work, but listed manufacturing, technology, AI, defence, energy, critical minerals and economic security as key areas for cooperation.
> …
> But "associate membership" of the EU does not currently exist and the process, if agreed, could take years.
“Also in September 2023, France and Germany proposed a restructuring of the membership of the EU to allow the UK to rejoin as an associate member, rather than a full member. Associate membership would include membership of the European single market but not the EU customs union, in exchange for participation in the European Court of Justice and making contributions to the EU budget.”
I was surprised to learn that Canada doesn't even have free trade across their own provenances. A big benefit of the United States is that it's essentially a very large free trade zone across 50 states.
If Canada wanted to facilitate trade, I would imagine they would figure it out internally. So my guess is that this is just giving up some political autonomy for some unknown reason, maybe to stick it to the US?
The biggest trade barriers between Canadian provinces are labor licensing laws. The biggest trade barriers between American states are labor licensing laws.
The second biggest trade barriers between Canada provinces are liquor regulations. The second biggest trade barriers between American states are likely car emission laws.
The problem is the differences are asymmetric. Canadian labour mobility is a lot more impactful when the pool of skilled labour is just overall smaller.
Doctors can move pretty much freely between 44 American states. Doctors can't do that in Canada, and here we need more specific kinds of doctors in rural populations and there is absolutely no reason to not have a harmonized licensing regime.
We also have non-uniform regulation on stuff like the manufacture of construction goods (for example door sizing) which can cause a big drag in trade. This might be harder to fix but it exists and is not comparable to the US market.
Not comparable at all. The US is one market unless you have a compelling reason to protect your state market. Canada is 10 separate markets with provincial agreements between them - all protecting themselves. Easiest example is Quebec.
The US is the opt-in system where the States regulate everything not specifically allocated to the federation and Canada is the opt-out system where the federal government regulates everything not specifically allocated to the provinces.
Of course it's more complicated -- the US's inter-state commerce clause has been broadly interpreted by the courts.
The US also doesn't have free trade following the same criteria, labeling requirements differ by state, licensing regimes are different, the same kind of challenges that exist in Canada
What is a provenance WRT Canada? :-) But it is true, our provinces have trade barriers internally that is an ongoing source of dispute. There has been movement since the USA started falling apart to remove them. The dumbest one was that hay bales had to be re-arranged on the AB/BC border.
Just want to chip in: I love you "yanks", not so much your politics and your imperialistic tendencies, but nearly all Americans I met were nothing but kind (coast to coast, left or right).
Every "yank" I know is also pretty great. The problem is a political system that has entrenched an advantage for a party that would otherwise be consistently in the minority, reducing the ability of the center to moderate policy.
Canadians are right to be skeptical that the next presidency will be significantly better than the current one. A serious amount of goodwill has been burned and I think the average view up north is that it's time to build a very solid backup plan.
It doesn't even fix things if the next POTUS is the exact opposite. The world has been shown what we are capable of doing. Any four-year stretch could be governed by a joke hired to "own the libs".
Caligula's horse can't be elected solely because horses don't live past 35.
If a company wants to sell in the EU, they should comply with EU rules. The market and the regulations are closely linked, you won't get one without the other.
There are multiple levels of European integration [1]. Fun fact: Canada already borders the EU. There's an island called Saint Pierre and Miquelon, which is only ~12 miles from Newfoundland. These islands became a massive smuggling hub for alcohol during Prohibition.
Here are some guiding principles of EU integration:
1. To have a say in EU rules generally requires being a full member. To some extent you can negotiate your entry into whatever level you desire but this has to be mutual agreement and can be difficult to change later without essentially threatening to leave;
2. Conditions generally need to be reciprocal. If you want freedom of movement in the EU then you have freedom of movement from other European states. This was a real sticking point in the Brexit negotiations and the EU doesn't play with reciprocal freedoms; and
3. Any sort of free trade with the EU will mean adopting EU regulations to be within the EU customs union. I don't see this flying with Canada because despite current trade hostilities with the US, the US is and will remain the primary trading partner of Canada. Adopting EU regulations might make US trade more difficult;
Also, the US might have legitimate cause to object. If Canada and US have free trade and Canada and the EU has free trade then that's opting the US into EU regulation essentially.
In some ways this is similar to the strained situation invented for Northern Ireland.
Obviously, Canada won't be joining Schengen or the Euro. Canada already has visa-free travel to the EU.
Canada still has a housing crisis and increased migration from the EU is likely a political non-starter even though those things aren't really related and literally nobody is going to tackle the true cause of the housing crisis (just like in every developed country). As an aside, the true cause is hoarding combined with tax advantages and a political goal of raising house prices.
In short, I don't know that this means anything because I don't think anything can substantively change with the Canada-EU relationship.
Eased travel and trade, but not full membership voting rights, etc. So basically, an extensive trade and economics agreement, with options to intensify relationships later on.
This is a sinking ship trying to lash unwitting tenders to it to try to keep it afloat while it rams an iceberg. Canada does not need that kind of trouble.
> as long as we don't need to be involved in their regulatory or legal regimes
The only reason the trade is easy in EU (and with it non-EU partners) is these regulations. Countries that choose to stay outside but wanted access to our market (like Norway, Switzerland, etc.) - had to accept the regulations. So I highly doubt you'll get your wish.
This message has been brought to you by the Minister of The Truth of the Government of Canada. /// Ce message a été émis par le Ministre de La Vérité du Gouvernement du Canada.
Thank you for directing your hate at the specified target. /// Merci d'aiguiller votre haine à la cible sus mentionnée.
> Canada's Bill C-22 Would Force Encryption Backdoors
> Signal, Windscribe, and NordVPN say they'll pull out of Canada before building surveillance infrastructure. The biggest threat to encrypted communications in a Western democracy since Australia's 2018 law.
And yet NordVPN and Signal both continue to work in Australia (I don't know who/what Windscribe are), so all other things aside, I suspect this is a hollow threat.
They have not asked yet or companies (Fastmail for example) just provide access and keep quiet.
> Australia passes world’s first law authorizing encryption backdoors
> The law authorizes police to compel companies to create a security vulnerability, often called a backdoor, that would give investigators access to an individual’s communication without that person’s knowledge. It marks a major milestone in the so-called “crypto wars” over the public’s ability to “go dark” via the powerful encryption available on commercial devices.
>> Australia passes world’s first law authorizing encryption backdoors
First only as far as a law known to the state's citizens.
I was working on a compression and encryption idea late 80s, very early 90s albeit with too higher a price on compute power which I was hoping to improve -- fortunately I bumped into a bloke though attending a module to improve design who also worked for a company developing software which used encryption, primarily targeting a particular market overseas which would also see sales flow into other countries eventually. On telling him what I was working on he took the time to have a long chat as he lay out the difficulties he and the company he worked for had to deal with especially in regard to this country; as to be able to market the product there, the programs would need a back door ... from what I heard, I'd assume that all sold there at that time had a back door. It was a significant moment for it changed the path I was on, being apparently more or less pointless, I reluctantly moved on as it wasn't worth any more time to provide a free open source program that got around the sale aspect.
Funny thing is, myself online I couldn't give a rats if whomever in those 3 and 4 letter organisations around the world could see my emails, mailing lists etc.
This is only part of the question though, the other question is is it actually good for the EU to continue growing and becoming more heterogenous indefinitely, which to me isn't at all clear.
You could make a good case that the EU is still trying to deal with issues from the 2004 expansion for example. Doesn't mean it was a bad idea, but it's not cost free
CETA (free trade) already exists with the EU. What is happening here is mostly symbolism and diplomacy. And maybe it will lead to the last hold out EU member states fully ratifying CETA (French farmers famously difficult).
Many people (including Carney himself) are presenting this as a fundamental and recent pivot.
But the opening moves of this happened a long time ago. CETA was negotiated by Chrystia Freeland and the now-often-maligned Trudeau gov't.
(also Trudeau also had a honeymoon phase for the first two to three years of his term...)
Canada has Coke and Pepsi flavours of gov't. The differences between the two parties comes down to stupid culture wars stuff and perhaps emphasis on which sectors should dominate the economy, but they don't fundamentally differ.
Carney just eviscerated all environmental laws and climate change initiatives -- which were already pathetically weak -- and cons back in my home province of Alberta are still apoplectic about how persecuted they are. It's all team sport theatre. Dangerously close to US style dysfunction.
Translation: I don't care if it was Harper or Trudeau who "initiated" CETA.
I think Canada might have an opportunity to help Europe at least reason a bit about regulations.
For the most part I am thankful that the EU regulates things strictly. As long as I am the consumer of what is regulated and not the maker. Because while the regulation is well meaning, it is not always effective or efficient. And sometimes it achieves absolutely no positive results.
And yet, I am generally for regulating a lot of things.
For instance the cookie-popup-horseshit is failed regulation that came about mainly because regulators were squeamish about real solutions that would have required constant judgement calls. Instead of posing an existential risk to companies that run roughshod over our privacy, they created impotent regulation that is a dual failure: it protects exactly nobody and it wastes everyone's time multiple times over.
Companies that do bad things should face existential risks. It is the only mechanism that works. Fines only work for small players. For large players it is surprisingly often a calculation where the numbers dictate you DO bad things because the downside risk is mostly quantifiable and financially acceptable.
Yes, sanctioning companies guilty of egregious violations of privacy would have been noisy, but it would have been the right thing to do. And it would have been cheaper and more effective than what we have today.
I get that the trend is being accelerated with Donald Trump being an aggressive asshole for no reason, but Canadians pretending like they're anything but American is very weird.
I'm afraid you're mistaking our lunatic leader with "us". Understandable, but this step will be wholly unnecessary as soon as December when his power will be checked (largely). I lean right, more libertarian small government type, so you're not hearing this from a blowhard on the American left. His foreign policy, the way he's treated friends has been wanton and immensely damaging, and a whole lot of us want this corrected.
The majority of US voters like the guy. He represents the country, like it or not. Most of his voters still agree with all the stuff he's doing, and the opposition seems intent on sabotaging themselves as much as possible so he will likely win again this year.
The left things he's literally Orange Hitler, and the right is fractured between "hasn't done enough, mostly performative cruelty"/"MIGA"/"woah he's going to far, I just didn't want 'commiela'" types.
The one thing nearly everyone agrees on, however, is he is a disappointment. This much is evident from his absolutely underwater support in the polls, and how multiple states are likely to swing blue in the midterms.
Trump won the popular vote once, not consistently, against an understudy candidate who was pushed on stage at the last minute. Also, opinions have shifted since that time as people have noticed how unhinged Trump is.
Voting for someone and liking someone aren't synonyms. You claimed one thing, now you're saying something else.
In 2024, if the Dems just had a normal primary they would have won. But they consistently lied to people about what they were seeing with their own eyes (Biden's obvious lack of mental acuity), which people find really insulting, and then forced in a weak candidate.
To clarify, since this is the Internet and people make lots of assumptions: I voted against Trump three times, plus I voted against him in my state's open GOP primary, which he lost.
That's all copium. Harris was a perfectly average Democratic candidate and an improvement over Biden.
Yes, if they'd run Bernie they probably would've won, but there was zero chance the Democrat party would ever run a far-left presidential candidate - it goes against all their interests. It's like saying the Republicans should've run Chuck Schumer.
Agreed, it is a weird way of saying that. But it is basically what I'm saying.
I used the word "endorsed", not "voted". The distinction does matter.
Only about 25% of the voting age public voted for Trump. Almost 25% of the voting age public weren't registered to vote, perhaps some of them wanted to vote but couldn't, so let's use the registered voters as the denominator. 75.8% of them voted; roughly one third for Trump, one third for Harris and one third didn't vote.
Choosing not to vote against a likely outcome is an endorsement of that outcome in my opinion.
We usually rely on polling for those answers. When you encounter a randomly-selected American on the street, do you find it 50/50? I’m in Wyoming, perhaps the reddest state, and it’s close to 50/50.
As another of your, ah, problematic presidents once said:
> "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."
Like, if the US had just elected ol' minihands once, that would be one thing. But it did it _twice_. Ultimately, even if he's comprehensively put back in his box, there is an issue of long-term trust.
At this point, Pandora's Box has been opened; it has been established that the US president can just act like a crazy dictator and... none of the mechanisms which are supposed to prevent that actually really function. Even if the US elects the most normal, sensible, rule-of-law-focused president imaginable in 2028, Canada will still have to look to 2032. I'm not sure that anything short of constitutional change would really restore trust, and the US is set up such that changing the constitution is virtually impossible.
The calculus for the US is different than that for Canada. Most Canadiens have a very inflated view of themselves and their nation, but any honest view into this relationship shows clearly: Canada has a lot to lose; the US does not.
We say as Europeans while interacting daily with USA engineers and other people here on HN - a site ran by Silicon Valley investors - while we usually talk about USA-made software. I personally do not hold every American accountable for the actions of their government.
On day-to-day interactions with my coworkers, I had no problem working with Americans.
At the same time, a lot of them voted in favor of foreign policies that I very strongly disagree with.
Both can be true at the same time, and the former doesn't make me forget the latter. Especially when their president continues to voice threats against the sovereignty of my country.
The current regime is due 2028. For most of their history Canada and USA had cordial relations. This looks like a reactionary measure rather than a long term strategic one. Europe is in decline and facing political irrelevance, not the type of partner you want to have particularly if your border neighbor is one of the two current global super powers. It’s yet to see if the UE’s economic reforms will pay off, even of they do, is still decades away, with no cheap energy and having to invest in their own defense. You don’t want to hang out with the losers. Put your emotions aside, be patient with the current US government and get ready for post 2028.
Yeah speaking of history. Let’s pretend that the US and Canada have never been in conflict before. We literally went to war, had multiple territorial disputes, plans of invasions, tariffs and trade wars, not to mention all the disagreements in foreign policy including Vietnam, Cuba and Iraq. None of this has prevented the two countries to have one of the most peaceful and cooperative relationships between two sovereign nations in modern history.
Why would the next US administration expend political capital to roll back the damage done, instead of accepting it as the status quo and negotiating from there?
I'm not saying there is no way that America and Canada can't repair the trade and diplomatic relations, just that Canadians shouldn't expect generosity and friendship.
Trust has been broken. The US has lost its shine and hard-earned reputation. Most of the trust was that a person like Trump would never have been elected in the first place.
Can't unelect Trump. The damage has been done, and is ongoing.
Sure, but that's what I'm asking. What institution, with what governance? Someone ultimately has to decide what these systems will and won't do, and there isn't an obvious democratically legitimate institution with global jurisdiction over AI as far as I'm aware?
Today no legitimate institution exists, so I think open model are the best we have.
As to how a company like Anthropic should act if they want to be the ones to govern it, I think it's a great question but I can't answer that in a HN thread. Fundamentally they'd need to change their governance structure to be less tied to US and private interests, and address many of the ethical concerns raised by scholars/commentators/politicians like Cory Doctorow, Marietje Schaake, and Carissa Véliz to start with. That's just the tip of the iceberg.
For how addiction is defined, google ICD-11, it's: Impaired control over the behavior, the behavior taking increasing priority over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation despite negative consequences, plus distress or functional impairment.. (I'm an alcoholic, 5 years sober)
I've just spent the past 20 minutes thinking about how I do it, I can do both eyes closed and eyes open, at work, I mostly talk with my eyes closed actually because my thinking style is generally quite visual. I then spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how to explain it, and it sounds a bit nuts...for eyes open there are generally 2 things involved for me, one is what I could describe as "disassociating from my eyes" my eyes are open but somehow my brain just kinda suppresses the image into what becomes an out of focus low contrast blur, and then my eyes typically look up a bit. The images themselves appear in an area that feels like it's in the top of my head where a darker area has formed, in that space I can think about what I want to visualize, or my brain serves me images if I'm thinking. I googled around a bit, according to this research, folks who have strong minds eye report a few different places that they use to build the image within, some people report they built it out in front of them, other like me build it "inside", other folks report other spots: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.30.679629v2.... - this one is also pretty interesting: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105381002...
Appreciate it. I don't really miss it much (though it explains various things about my preferences, such as finding visual descriptions in books extremely boring unless the language used itself interests me), but that one experience did drive home that I am missing something, and so occasionally I do try to experiment to see if there's any way I can trigger that experience again.
9th Cir effectively said that the customer was using their own Amazon account and their own Perplexity account to access Amazon, with AI acting as a tool, and that the AI was doing something Amazon ordinarily authorizes customers to do: browse, search, and shop. The court said it was was concerned that Amazon’s broader CFAA theory could end up making users criminally liable for using AI as a tool. Also, Amazon doesn't care about the user, it only cares about being able to prevent Perplexity from accessing their products.
My little sister is a very petite woman, and drives a massive SUV, when I asked her why she said it makes her feel safer, I suppose that is a form of comfort. I'm 6ft tall and skinny, that's not particularly tall, but if I was a driver, I'd certainly consider the leg/head room of an SUV.
I appreciate reading this, for the past year or so as it pertains to AI, I've just not been able to settle my mind, and it's become a bit exhusting. I presumed I wasn't the only one who swings back and forth and it's comforting to read someone else post the same thing, makes me feel a less nutso. :)
Have you noticed that has become more common recently? Because I have. It seems over the past 3/4 months, reload and see a new title happens pretty much daily to me (it also seems to work because sometimes it causes me to click the video I didn't click with the old title).
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