Mark Carney wants Canada to become an "associate member" of the European Union. Here's how you found out about it, and notice the order of events, because it matters.

First, on Sunday. The Wall Street Journal — not the Globe and Mail, not the CBC, but an American newspaper — published a story sourced to anonymous officials in Brussels and Ottawa, reporting that Carney was exploring associate EU membership.

That same day, a second anonymous official told CTV the opposite: Canada was "not seeking EU membership in any capacity." So there were two leaks, but zero answers. While Parliament has been on break since June 18.

Then, on Wednesday. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission and a woman no Canadian has ever voted for, stood up in the European Parliament and invited Carney to make Canada "the first associate member of the European Union." It's a category that does not exist in any EU treaty.

The next day, on Thursday, Carney walked into that same chamber in Strasbourg and welcomed it.

So to recap: on Sunday, a senior official said Canada was not seeking membership in any capacity. By Thursday, the prime minister was in a foreign parliament welcoming exactly that. One of those officials was lying to you.

But notice where Carney said it: in Strasbourg, where he received a standing ovation from 720 MEPs who can't vote for him, while Canada's Parliament hasn't sat in months. 

Since Carney was elected, the House has sat for just 137 days. Carney has shown up for 36 question periods. In his first year, he spent 68 days out of the country — double Trudeau's first year. He'll stand for a foreign parliament, but he won't stand for ours.

So what is an "associate member" of the EU, anyway? Nobody knows. Global News ran this headline the day after: "Nobody seems precisely sure what that means."

Canada's own ambassador to the EU, Jonathan Wilkinson, said it would mean giving up sovereignty and Canada wasn't doing that. The commission president said Canada will be the first associate member. The prime minister says he welcomes it. Three people. Three different answers. Not one given in the House of Commons.

There's a list of questions nobody's been allowed to ask, like what it means for freedom of movement. There are 450 million European passport holders — including millions who arrived from Syria, Afghanistan, Algeria, and Somalia in the last decade and picked one up on the way. Europe's migration crisis becomes ours by treaty, with no cap and no vote.

Does it mean EU law applies here? Norway gets the single market and in exchange takes the rules — farming, energy, fishing, cars, what you're allowed to say online. Does it mean European courts? No one said. Do we pay into the EU budget? No one said.

And the Europeans aren't even sure they want this.

The German government said the terminology should be "reconsidered." A French MEP said the commission president doesn't get to decide this unilaterally. Some European governments were "furious" they weren't consulted. Twenty-seven countries have to agree unanimously — and they can't even ratify our existing free trade deal. CETA came into force nine years ago, provisionally, because 10 European countries still haven't signed it. The French Senate voted it down in 2024, 211 to 44.

Now the numbers.

Canada sold $565 billion worth of goods to the United States last year — 72.5 cents of every export dollar. In December alone: $44 billion to the US, compared to just $3.8 billion to the entire EU.

Ontario builds 1.2 million cars a year, and about 1.1 million of those go to the United States. The CETA quota for Canadian cars in Europe is 100,000 — a ceiling that hasn't even been met. You cannot replace the United States as a market.

Mark Carney ran on one thing: he alone could get a trade deal with Trump. Nobody voted for associate EU membership. It wasn't in the platform, the debates, or the throne speech.

There has been no motion, no vote, no committee. He simply announced it abroad, leaked before it was explained, and never put it to you. Parliament comes back Monday.

Sign the petition at NoToTheEU.com and send it to five people who work for a living. He told the Europeans first. He could have waited four days and told you first. He didn't.

No to the EU. Not without a vote.

4,634 signatures

Goal: 10,000 signatures

We, the undersigned, say to Prime Minister Mark Carney: No Canadian government has the right to sign Canada up for European laws, European courts, European borders or European budgets without first putting it to the Canadian people — in Parliament, on the record, with a vote. Tell Canadians exactly what "associate membership" means. Then put it to the House of Commons. Until you do: No to the EU.

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