In Strasbourg on Wednesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen offered Canada something the EU has never extended to any nation: associate membership. The proposal is born of mutual necessity — Canada needs new markets as Washington's trade war bites, while the EU needs the critical minerals Canada holds and China currently supplies. For Britain, watching from the outside it chose for itself, the announcement is a quiet reckoning: the EU is now offering to others the closer alignment that Brexit foreclosed for the UK.