Standing before the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney proposed something that does not yet exist — an 'associate membership' in the European Union — inviting a nation long tethered to American gravity to imagine a different kind of belonging. The proposal, however speculative, reflects a genuine shift in Canadian sentiment: a people reconsidering their place in the world as the familiar certainties of their southern relationship grow more turbulent. Whether or not the legal architecture can be built, the longing it named was already real.