A decade ago, the United Kingdom pulled off the profoundly counterproductive feat of quitting the European Union in a narrow vote whose results surprised even its proponents. Since then, their economy has shrunk, their standing on the world stage has diminished, their domestic services have deteriorated, and nothing positive advocated by its perpetrators has come to pass. Out of Brexit, there are lessons for Canada.

The lesson for Canada’s two principle groups of separatists in Alberta and Quebec have largely been missed. Fortunately for Canada, not everyone is oblivious to the consequences of ignoring the basic idea that we are stronger together, working with likeminded allies, friends, and neighbours.

We are also fortunate that one of the people involved in saving the UK from themselves following the national self-immolation of the Brexit referendum is now the Prime Minister of Canada. He was there, he saw the consequences, and he did what he could to cushion the blow within his powers as the politically neutral governor of the Bank of England.

Since taking his place at the head of our government, he has gotten to work building on the network he had already established, and Canada’s ties with Europe are closer than they have been in generations. At a time when the United States has gone from our reliable neighbour, military ally, and economic partner to an international pariah state, the timing could not have been better.

Europe was weakened at a critical moment by the successful campaign to cleave the UK out of the union. For over three years they had the opportunity to revisit the question and change their minds, and, in spite of ample evidence of foreign interference and a fundamentally dishonest campaign, just as the world entered into the Covid era, they sealed the deal on January 31st, 2020.

Clause 5 of article 50 of the Treaty on European Union reads:

If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to rejoin, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49.

So the British position is not irreversible. But an entire country accepting that it collectively made a bad decision in front of the world is not a regular occurrence. Just ask the Americans who won’t even turf a president who is completely and obviously off his rocker.

In the wider context though, the United Kingdom’s loss can be Canada’s gain. Canada is not, strictly speaking, a European state. We have more than twice the land area of the entire union combined, but none of our land is on European soil. Our culture is among the most European of non-European countries, but is nevertheless discrete.

We should have a serious conversation around the possibility of, in some way, joining the European Union. Article 2 of their treaty states the core values of the union, and Canada conforms completely to these core principles.

The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.

The United States, in contrast, no longer conforms to a number of these values, and it must force us to question our relationship with them and the values it represents.

Article 49 starts:

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.

We might have to play up our 1.2-km long border with Denmark on Hans Island and the 90 minute ferry ride from Fortune, Newfoundland to St. Pierre, France to establish our credentials as a European State, but consider what it would mean for our country.

We have been equivocating for the past year on abandoning the American F-35 due to our structural dependence on the United States. We are under constant pressure to conform to American cultural law on items such as right to repair and the life+70 year copyright term. We are beholden to American technology on a wide range of products and services — even this essay is written through SubStack, based in the US, and there is a good chance you are reading it through US-based gmail on your Chinese-built American iPhone or through American social media giant Meta.

If you have a new iPhone, you will notice that it has a USB-C charging port, after years of Apple forcing us onto their proprietary chargers. That is thanks to pressure from the collective power of Europe. You may find have heard of the right to be forgotten. Thank you European Union. You might have heard of the General Data Protection Regulations or had to agree to cookies on websites you did not realise were feeding them to you. Thank you European Union.

Then you might have gone to facebook and tried to share an interesting news story and run into the message “In response to Canadian government legislation, news content can’t be viewed in Canada.”

The continental alliance provides Europe with a powerful regulatory bloc capable of forcing compliance by American mega-corporations where Canada is laughed out of the room. Being integrated with the United States without a counterweight on these matters does not help us, it makes it difficult to make decisions that affect our own sovereignty, and it weakens us as a country and as a people. We are not integrated with the United States, we are subservient to the United States.

The Saab Gripen is a wonderful example of this. The F-35 is clearly an inappropriate and overpriced weapon for Canada. Its main selling point, that it is stealth, has already proven of limited use as Iran has already managed to hit one in combat. The high priced technology will be out of date long before the planes reach the end of their service lives. But we are under enormous pressure from the United States to buy into this over-priced ecosystem, as a payment against the on-going American protection racket.

We are stalling on making a decision on buying the Gripen, or considering other foreign aircraft like the French Rafale, because doing so forces us to confront the question head on of what our relationship with the United States actually means, and where is it headed.

Former Prime Minister John Turner was ahead of his time in warning of the consequences of becoming an American client state.

From outside the European Union, we lack the foundation on which to make decisions that do not please the Americans, and so our equivocation on buying this American albatross approaches its fourth decade. As part of the EU we would be the 4th largest country by population; a partner rather than a servant.

It is the Europeans themselves suggesting Canada think about joining the EU. They might be framing it as a joke, but there is a certain truth underlying the humour.