What does it tell us about what Prime Minister Mark Carney really wants, that a yet-to-be-defined associate relationship with Europe is something to which we should aspire, but any suggestion of a comparable relationship with the US would be anathema if not faintly treasonous?The short answer is that for Mr. Carney the political meaning of the two options is not the same. In the absence of full details, being an “Associate” to the European Union sounds like statesmanship. (Once details are provided, it may not.)Meanwhile, however, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s “associate membership” offer is a compliment to identity: Canada, you are a liberal democracy, and you may sit at the table.It contrasts sharply with President Trump’s “fifty-first state” trolling, which sounds like a threat to sovereignty. As a narrative then, the lurch towards Europe seems to be developing as a response to events. The more the US President bullies Canada, the more Canada takes shelter where it can, with China if necessary and Europe with the Prime Minister’s keen enthusiasm. And so on.It sounds like dire straits. Yet what if things are developing exactly as Mr. Carney hoped they would?After all, his ideas seem to have evolved.While still a private citizen, Mr. Carney published his political philosophy in his book Value(s). Its dense prose tells us that when he wrote it, Mr. Carney still seemed to have faith in the rules-based, WTO system. While he clearly believed climate was a moral-economic failure and a test of whether we valued the future that we were manifestly failing, his book is a critique of how we assign value inside a still-recognizable liberal trade order dominated by the US..But that’s not the message of his major post-election speeches in Toronto, Quebec City, Edmonton, and now Strasbourg. In Davos and Beijing, he spoke of a “new world order.”Ironically, this would have sat awkwardly beside his book’s emphasis on values that authoritarian systems systematically violate. But his speeches treat that tension as a fact to be managed with “guardrails,” not as a reason to refuse the partnership.He also spoke of a “rupture” and the end of the old order. “Tonight,” he began in Davos, “I’ll talk about a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction, and the beginning of a harsh reality where geopolitics — where the large, main power — is submitted to no limits, no constraints.”He went on to call for “intermediate powers like Canada … to build a new order that encompasses our values.” He said the same thing in China, “I believe the progress that we have made in the (Canada-China) partnership sets us up well for the new world order.”And as the CUSMA talks came to a stop, he adopted the language of conflict — he referred to a ‘trade war’ and complained that Canada had been ‘attacked.’ Then he withdrew from the talks but has yet to explain what the offer was that he rejected.The immediate consequence was that polls showed his personal popularity soared.Canadians, understandably miffed by petty insults, the gratuitous renaming of Lake Ontario as Lake America and President Trump’s irritating habit of mentioning awkward truths — we really have been freeloading on defence for decades — have rallied to the flag. They even appear to have an open mind about a new world order around Europe’s middle powers..What part might Europe then play in Mr. Carney’s post-rupture, new world order?Leaving his book behind, here is the distillation of the Davos, Beijing, Toronto, and Strasbourg speeches.He wants a relationship with the European Union, although not membership. But it would be what he called an “Alliance for the Future" that would enable joint work on minerals, defence, AI, energy, the Arctic, space exploration, and utilization, and more seamless digital trade and youth mobility.He is explicit that this is not “a third bloc … with better manners.” He says it is a club whose strength is supposed to reinforce international law rather than replace it, and that others can join. In practice, it is a bid to make Canada-EU the core of a democratic middle-power caucus with market and regulatory weight. You will hear a lot about resilience, which is rapidly replacing ‘catalyze’ as the prime minister’s go-to all-purpose descriptor..China, meanwhile, is not regarded as an enemy.Mr. Carney is an idealist. The problem with idealists is that they tend to wish away things that interfere with the vision.For example: The European Union has bigger problems than Canada does with government debt.The Europeans have done an even worse job of controlling illegal immigration than Canada, under Justin Trudeau at his worst.The Europeans are still buying American military equipment. They don’t make Patriot missiles or F-35s. Mr. Carney wants to diversify Canadian arms procurement. It’s going to take a while if Europe is the partner.One need not stop there. Those who think supply management is a racket will hate what economic micromanagement by Brussels feels like.Above all, as Victor Davis Hanson argues, why sign on to a model the Europeans themselves are beginning to reject — open borders, expensive green energy, thin defence, low fertility — when Canada has resources, as big a US market as it can handle … and by the way, the Europe that didn’t defend Ukraine against the Russians is not going to help Canada defend its Arctic.Diversification is rational. But we already have CETA. Calling this undefined European status an “alliance for the future” while treating any deeper North American political tie as unthinkable is not a trade calculation, however. Ben Woodfinden, a former adviser to Pierre Poilievre, points out in the National Post recently that it is a statement about which dependency Mr. Carney finds culturally acceptable.He defines dependency on Brussels rules as “resilience.” Dependency on the customer who takes three-quarters of the goods is “vulnerability.”Both are dependencies. But the prime minister seems energized by dependency on Europe. It is hard to believe that this wasn’t what Mr. Carney was hoping for all along. He certainly cannot be disappointed.To the degree that he could, it is what he has always encouraged. And wanted.
