- 29comments
- 28comments
- 84comments
- 35comments
- 102comments
- 9comments
- 330comments
- 56comments
- 29comments
- 8comments
- 90comments
- 125comments
- 31comments
- 146comments
- 139comments
- 29comments
- 259comments
- 9comments
- 165comments
- 21comments
- 28comments
- 246comments
- 178comments
- 36comments
- 36comments
- 68comments
- 404comments
- 37comments
- 4comments
- 81comments
So if Canada tries to make friends with anyone other than the US, it's a hostile act?
Makes it all the more obvious that USA is Canada's abusive partner, that they should have broken up with a long time ago.
I try not to take anything Trump say too seriously, but we have to remember that the USians chose him... twice.
Why would you not take him seriously?
Because he can't string together a coherent sentence?
That doesn't really matter. What matters is that he commands the most powerful (probably?) offensive force on the planet and has already shown that he is more than willing to use it to achieve is nonsense objectives.
Personally, I take everything he says and does seriously. I advise non-citizens visiting to turn their social media to private and bring a burner phone to immigration checkpoints. For citizens, turning off your phone should be enough.
But he's using that babble to demand very real, very grow up, wars.
It doesn't matter. L'etat, c'est Trump.
Agreed, and the possibility of visa free travel to the EU, plus the removal of live/work barriers is appealing. The USA really comes off as the spurned ex that calls you drunk in the middle of the night.
is it not visa free already for most of the states anyway?
Generally it is auto approved for Canadians, but you will soon need to do an "ETIAS travel authorization".
Canada actually implemented their ETA way before the EU did theirs.
"No Russian leader could stand idly by in the face of steps toward NATO membership for Ukraine. That would be a hostile act toward Russia"
https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraines-future-in-nato-prec...
edit since I guess the timestamp isn't visible to everyone: Jul 12, 2023, 5:56 PM GMT+2
Why in the world do these articles not have published dates on them?
Literally states '1 hour ago' below the author.
I see "Jul 12, 2023, 5:56 PM GMT+2" right before "After this week's NATO summit in Lithuania..."
They're not even hiding it any more. Look who paid for one of his sons wedding...
This was such a weird gesture. Why did they need anyone to pay for the wedding and why did it have to be someone with ties to Putin?
I believe the terms in human relationships are coercive control and social isolation.
Trump has already been threatening Canada and EU at various times already. Why should they assume a) this will be any different b) he'll stop if they do what he wants?
Carney has extremely strong support amongst the general public in Canada which hasn't been the case for the Canadian PM over the past 20+ years.
158 Canadian soldiers died defending the United States at the US's request after 9/11. Canadian fighter jets helped to patrol the skies in the US at the US's request after 9/11.
The insults coming from the US Secretary of Defence and President are not unnoticed. They are logged and remembered.
Bad idea. Canada (as well as all other nations) should let the US fight and lose its wars by itself.
Canada and America have enjoyed the best neighbors relationship in history, but one neighbor has been playing for the neighborhood security for decades while the other stagnates.
America is at a crossroads, our debt has become a national security issue, globalism failed to make China and Russia strong democratic institutions, climate change will happen (the trump administration is preparing for it more seriously than any other) and Europe has failed to flourish enough to stand on its own two defensive feet.
As awful as trump is, we can no longer be the worlds backstop. You may have flown some planes on 9/11 but we’ve been paying to tab for 50 years. And we can’t anymore.
This is mostly a point condensed from the book “Tropic of chaos” which everyone should read.
There is only one country that Canada needs to be secure from and they just used up most of their missiles in Iran.
You have never been "the worlds's backstop".
If that is so onerous, multiple EU countries should get nuclear missiles and make an EU NATO. But you don't want that. You want the dollar propped up irrationally by your military promises and you want NATO and non-NATO proxies against Russia ans China.
The promises incidentally fail yet again in Iran, where the Saudis already make other treaties with Turkey and Pakistan.
This has to be satire surely.
It's pretty much the exact same playbook that Russia used against Ukraine.
This comment[0] on HN from a a while back marks the parallels between the two situations very clearly.
It's very frustrating talking about this subject with Americans online[1]. In general they seem to have blinders on regarding the magnitude of the consequences of their democratic choice in leadership.
I get a sense that a feeling of learned helplessness has beset the American people and that they're not able to imagine a world of agency and action against authoritarianism.
I don't know what can shake them out of their torpor, but I do know that the longer they take to wake up the higher the price of action will be.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43485649#43487443
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49403201
Pretty much exactly this.
A whole lot of Trump's psychology has always been "it's your fault I hurt you" for the longest time — it's a very clear undercurrent in how he treated his first wife.
He's an abuser. And now so is the USA.
As I said it in another post, what does Trump expect? His negotiations are all stick and no carrot.
Canada is bound to look for new trade opportunities in the face of that.
You make a deal with Trump, it's always worse than what you had previously.
Then, no mater what you do, he breaks the deal 3 months later with some kind of implied military threat if you complain.
I don't think anyone really says it's an hostile act but both countries, Canada and the US will have to decide what it means for their ongoing relationship.
Canada is free to get closer to Europe and the US is free to be displeased about it.
Maybe it works out well for Canada or maybe it doesn't.
Why anthropomorphize geopolitics?
This is just just a big fish throwing its weight around like all big fishes do. Russia does it with its neighbors, China does it as well and India and Europe are not shy about it either.
It's just the name of the game and its been happening since the dawn of time.
Some states use force, others bribe or cajole but in the end they all try to influence their neighbors in a way that suits their interests especially if these neighbors are smaller in terms of population/economy/military etc...
The fact that so many people are shocked by such news these days is because everyone drank the cool aid of the End of History and forgot that spheres of influence still exists and that the rule of law was nothing more than gentleman's agreement that could be thrown out of the window at a moment's notice without second thoughts.
There's a lawsuit [1] on the way related to the Epstein files so this Canada-EU topic gives Trump the perfect opportunity to divert the attention.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/09/lawsuit-trump-do...
Related: "EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member' (bbc.com)" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49724141 863 comments
Reaction from the Canadian opposition leader:
https://x.com/PierrePoilievre/status/2100274078066036766
This is the same PP that grasped defeat in the face of victory, and is continually losing support, relegating himself to the same position of the Reform party that it was in the 90's. The same Polly that lost his riding last election, and had to have one handed to him on a silver spoon. I would take his opinion with a grain of salt.
Not just losing support, but his poor leadership managed to hand the liberals a majority months after the election.
Not sure what's meant by that... People won't start swimming over the atlantic ocean. And flights to Canada aren't really cheap, by any means.
Canada's net immigration (mostly from east Asia) was crazy high for a few years after COVID. Clearly enough people can afford the airfare.
Schengen and EU isn’t the same.
Seems like he's attacking a bunch of strawmen.
Classic Conservative move of building a strawman and arguing against it. None of these deals would involve taxes, EU "laws" (whatever that means) or border agreements. He's using the boogeyman of "ew brown people" to scare his base.
Apparently, even Canadian conservatives are happy to grovel at the feet of the Burger Reich and their supreme leader.
He's not wrong. I have a suspicion this EU idea is a way to backdoor immigration increases - something the Trudeau government was very keen on but was scaled back by Carney. Largely because immigration has become a hot-button issue in Canada and was partly responsible for Polilievre's popularity last election. Joining a treaty where another governing body would set the criteria for immigration and Canada just has to accept it due to freedom of movement within the EU is one way to route around the whole thing politically and make it much harder to change in the future.
If this is the motivation, it's a grossly undemocratic move.
I don't get how folks who hyperventilate about Trump being a threat to democracy can look at stuff like this and cheer.
The free movememt (if it is allowed) might be restricted to citizens. I think we need to wait for more details.
Absolutely true. I suppose I'm just seeing the ways that this could be abused by our political leaders.
This guy isn't serious and should have resigned a long time ago. Zero credibility.
It sounds like they need to read what an associate membership is before they complain about it then
It doesn't seem like anyone knows what it is yet since it's a new thing. But free movement of people for work is mentioned in almost every article about it.
what's that?
Meanwhile, Alberta, where all of Canada's "energy security" is located, is holding a secession referendum on Oct 19.
The chances of Canada getting everyone to go along with this are close to zero. (As are the chances of Alberta actually seceding).
It's just political theater
Do you think the referendum in question is not a political theater?
I don't know much, but it stands to me that the EU association is magnitudes more serious.
Alberta selling oil to USA is, by itself, like 20% of Canada's entire GDP.
And 70% of all other exports go to USA too. So yeah it is mostly just theater because there's a loud mouth idiot in the White house.
They're doing some lip-service and just hoping it will blow over when Trump is gone.
it is only around 5% of GDP
wow, no, it's not "like 20%" at all. not even close.
the entire oil and natural gas industry was 3.8% of canada's GDP in 2025.
The EU "theater" in wonderfully bureaucratic
Trips to Canada have always left a bad taste in my mouth, but they've always been to Ontario, Quebec. I've been wondering if I'd like the people in Alberta better.
What does this mean?
I would suggest you brush your teeth more often if you have a bad taste in your mouth after traveling.
Stay home, Yankee.
It's something many Canadians don't want to accept, but too much of their tourist facing industry is setup to exploit and frankly con Americans.
I recall on my first trip here ending up in hospital, being mistaken for an American and shown one price list, only for my insurance company to get on the phone and promptly a new price list appeared and a lot of "We're sorry we thought you were American" from the staff.
And prior to the mobile web dealing with Ontario hotels was like haggling in a Turkish bazaar with an obnoxious layer of passive aggression on top.
Quebec is also about to have a provincial election where separatism, and everyone's relationship to it, is the main argument.
Many people on both sides of the Atlantic wrongly think Quebec is more compatible with Europe than the rest of Canada because they speak French, but almost the exact things Quebec separatists care most about are the things the EU wouldn't let them control.
Its interesting to see just how MAGA-ajacent the comments are on hacker news. You would think most people in tech were more liberal.
Tech communities like this skew more libertarian I find, which tends to be anti everything that isn’t immediately self serving.
Carney has a majority in Parliament, he can do this pretty much unilaterally if he wants. And a straw poll at the after-beer from band last night had everybody enthusiastic about the prospect.
As for the secession referendum, it's currently polling at 20-30% and it's not a real referendum, its a referendum to hold a referendum.
I think you'll find most Albertans would welcome international trade diversity, and if anything is theatre, it's the referendum. "Secessionists" are a significant minority, and even most of those don't actually want to secede, they just don't like the national government. "Send a message to Ottawa" is the motto.
Sort of. The referendum is unpopular and is non-binding, actually a question about whether to have a referendum. Its widely seen as a political maneuver by AB to extract pipeline concessions.
Giving Alberta a market where they can sell LNG might get them on board, but this would also require a bunch of new infrastructure (pipelines? ports?) that I suspect the Canadian government will not want built.
It would be lovely to get Europe off of Russian energy imports.
Can the blue states of USA become associate members too? He has declared that the blue states are the "enemy from within" and may launch the military against us soon.
https://www.npr.org/2025/09/30/nx-s1-5557232/hegseth-general...
Unfortunately, the Constitution (Article 1 Section 10) forbids states from entering into alliances and treaties with other countries, or with one another, without the explicit permission of Congress.
There are no blue states that would want to join the EU. The big ones would rather go independent. EU doesn't offer much
That's unbelievable to be honest ! As european who live in Canada i have a weird feeling
Curious if you would like to share more.
According to the FT, Von der Leyen didn't really get the OK from member states before coming up with this. Let's see what happens in practice, the trade agreement from 2017 hasn't even been ratified yet.
Well, Finland's gonna insist on getting Celebrini in the trade.
Good. The EU is an economic and political union so facilitating trade and movement between political allies seems only natural.
Yeah, I don’t understand why people have a problem with this. I think it should basically always be true between peer nations that there is free movement and trade.
Without commenting on the EU, particularly, I would be concerned if I were a Canadian about Carney's commitment to globalism when the degenerate cases have become so common.
It's a weird two-front war where people tend to answer the social question and ignore the economic one, but the economic question has not done any favors to the EU or the US for that matter