Canada's EU associate membership welcomed but undefined, raising questions

In a chamber full of applause and borrowed hockey shirts, Canada and the European Union reached toward one another with the language of historic partnership — yet the hand extended carried no legal weight. Mark Carney's acceptance of associate membership in Strasbourg last Thursday was a moment of genuine political warmth, but it rested on a concept no one had yet defined, a trade agreement ten nations had not ratified, and a single market whose rules Canada could never fully accept. Grand gestures between allies are not without value, but the distance between ceremony and architecture can be