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EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

bbc.com

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Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#221

Post by fidotron »

post-it wrote: post #146
fidotron wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The LNG won't come from Canada either. Trudeau notoriously said "there's no business case" for it, but the truth is they can't agree with how to actually get enough of it to the east coast to make a difference, and that's what blocks it. (In fairness the route does go through some very unique environments). Canadian provinces have a far bigger ability to screw things up for the whole than countries do inside the EU,…

Where there's a will, there's a way. There hasn't been a will until now.

The only "way" involves greasing the palms of every special interest group in the way until they have successfully accounted for the whole potential revenue of the intended enterprise, and that's what blocked everything repeatedly.

I'm in Quebec and very familiar with the exact territory this has applied to wrt getting resources out on the east coast, and unless someone was willing to rule by decree to bypass all those entrenched groups it's not happening, and we all know why such decrees would not happen as well.

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#223

Post by weatherlite »

dosisking wrote: post #56
baxtr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way has "China already won"?

> In what way has "China already won"? The US has depleted their missile stockpile and can no longer defend anybody. Countries in the Middle East are moving away from the US and forming their own alliances. Taiwan knows that the US cannot do anything to help them. South Korea also knows. The US has weaponized the US Dollar, forcing countries out of the SWIFT system if they don't do what they are told. As a result, th…

> China understands better how the economy works,

Many people avoid Chinese stocks like the plague because the system is still half communist and as a foreign investor you get some paper in a company on Cayman Island instead of real direct ownership. That keeps me from buying their stocks and I'm not the only one.

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#224

Post by ChrisRR »

bluecalm wrote: post #165
FabCH wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>>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.

This was one of the stupid things that was touted as a benefit of not being in the EU during brexit.

That we'd still have to comply with EU rules if we wanted to trade with them, but we wouldn't have any vote in those rules

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#225

Post by mcv »

hilbert42 wrote: post #149
InsideOutSanta wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to me that people generally see Europe's regulations as interfering with entrepreneurship, while they see American decisions that give more power to multinational corporations at the expense of smaller companies as a normal part of a free market.

"…as a normal part of a free market." That's unfettered capitalism at work—"free" implies no bounds. Multinational corporations have never been more powerful now than at anytime in history.

And that hurts the free market. A free market should be transparent, have low barriers to entry, and not be dominated by monopolies or cartels. There's nothing free about American capitalism.

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#226

Post by diego_moita »

sailfast wrote: post #132

If I’m Canada I look for a trade agreement rather than associate membership - no reason to put your eggs in one basket. As an American, I continue to be sad and tired that our current president is somehow allowed to unilaterally destroy a very successful and thriving trade partner via arbitrary tariffs that have already been ruled illegal and while it doesn’t make a damned bit of difference I’m sorry about it.

> I continue to be sad

Don't be. Trump is a necessary and welcome wake up call. We Canadians needed Trump's shock of reality.

The truth is that, for more than a century, the main trait of being Canadian was simply not being American and not trusting Americans.

In 1775 George Washington ordered the invasion of southern Quebec and we resisted. After the American revolution we received an huge influx of Loyalists, the Americans that didn't want to be part of the U.S.; we say the American Revolution created 2 countries: yours and ours. In 1812 Americans raised war against us, as a continuation of the Napoleonic wars. Although we were still a British colony, we fought back, invaded Washington DC and set the White House on fire. In 1890, the McKinley Tariffs were meant to subjugate us, the same way Trump wants to do now [1]. They backfired, made us stronger.

But in the 80's the Reagan-Mulroney trade agreement fooled us. We became too reliant, friendly and confident to the Americans. It was a dangerous illusion. The Comanche, Apache and Navajo have learned too late that you can't trust Americans. Luckily for us, Trump reminded us that lesson on time, before it would be too late.

[1] https://canadiangeographic.ca/articles/the-u-s-tariff-act-of...

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#227

Post by vehemenz »

Escapado wrote: post #60
baxtr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way has "China already won"?

I am not OP and obviously "winning" reduces too many dimensions into one. But I will say that from my recent two visits to the country that I was pretty astonished by the speed at which they are building things. Cars, Buildings, Tech Hubs, Factories. You blink twice and a new tech company plops up somewhere making high end drones or humanoid robots or CNC machines or innovative 3d printers. It feels like there is an…

Agreed, but on other dimensions China is still 150 years behind the West. It’s important to keep this progress in perspective.

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#229

Post by jeltz »

graemep wrote: post #136
Autious wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#230

Post by Longhanks »

krzyk wrote: post #197
petcat wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully Canada can just get the economic benefits and not end up having to be subject to the insane stuff like Chat Control

There are way more benefits to being in EU than disadvantages.

Just a few days ago, Iceland disagreed.
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