Pivoting from the United States and seeking new alliances will require pain and sacrifice ... and it’s not clear Canadians are willing to stick with it.
Seeing as the last time we made a deal with the Euros - CETA, more than 10 years ago - it was apparently signed in pencil and remains unratified …. We may have the right idea but it’s unlikely we have the time
Peter, yes, we do have CETA but MC seems to want us to become a member of the EU in all but name. Canadians seem to want such a thing but ever so many of them simply have no idea of what that would entail. Just as one f'r example, they have no idea just why the UK withdrew from the EU other than that the UK was "foolish" and no idea of how Brussels rules the various countries, etc.
As you point out, we have had CETA for some years but relatively little trade. Why that would change, I simply don't know. Truthfully, I'm not certain that closer ties with Brussels et al is or is not the "right idea" but, even if it is, how would such a thing actually help us in the here and now?
Imagine if Trudeau seriously floated the idea of joining the EU, in say 2018. I'm sure his successor Andrew Scheer would have been a perfectly mediocre PM.
But now most people support this without knowing what it's even going to entail.
I just have to laugh at the comical nonsense that is coming out of this period of long-term general Canadian derangement. It's been going on for so long now that we've lost perspective on what is sane. It's like when you've been on a drinking bender for days and think you are sober despite just finishing another 12 pack of beer because you have forgotten what sober is like.
As a conservative, I believe that this message of “Growing up” is, has, and will always be part of the conservative platform. So much so that if you take the message that Mr Poilievre has been trying to get across, I believe it lines up quite well. Less government, smart industry, more wealth…
The bills will always have to be paid.
Give businesses and people freedom and opportunity, get government out of every aspect of my life… and watch us prosper.
Canadians have no appetite for actual sacrifices, for really any goal. They are willing to volunteer others to sacrifice on their behalf, but nothing themselves. What was that recent poll - everyone wants to stand up to the US but not if it costs them $500?
Re "Hello Europe!" - what happens in three years if Marine LePen is president of France, the AfD is ascendant in Germany (thanks to the globalist, for lack of a better word, policies pushed by Trudeau and Carney and indeed Harper to a lesser degree) and there is a friendly smiling Democrat in the White House willing to make a formal apology and re-normalize relations? Do we realize all of a sudden that the Trump-era tariffs aren't actually that high, and maybe the Americans aren't so bad after all?
Everyone across the board supports doing what we can to increase trade with Europe, but throwing ourselves at the Europeans like we are on the rebound and looking for a new bed partner is just pathetic.
We all know that nobody is raising taxes. Well at least not yet. It will be our spending power that gets inflated away, and the debt our descendants will have to contend with. In fairness, this is just like what the US is doing.
KRM, you start your post with "Canadians have no appetite for actual sacrifices ..."
I respectfully suggest that you might have started slightly differently: Canadians have an absolute appetite for actual sacrifices as long as it is someone else and some group other than them that has to make the sacrifice ..."
This is a very useful piece, but we’ll need to wait in order to find out whether we’re up to the task. One can “acknowledge the reality that Canada felt comfortable under-investing in core competencies”, and so we must, without constantly using that reality to blame Canadians or our leaders past and present for our predicament. Doing so clearly makes some people feel good, but it serves no purpose. Whether we’re prepared to accept the pain will depend on many factors: not simply the amount of pain or even its ostensible justification (defense, sovereignty, infrastructure, independence, stronger federation?) but on how well our political, economic, and intellectual leadership can mobilize support. Engaging in relentless carping, as Jivani and others do, whether for the sake of carping (because blaming someone else is always easier than looking in the mirror), or because they can’t stand to see a Liberal PM succeed (and hence care less about promoting Canada’s success than Carney’s failure), or because they really do sympathize with Trump and his acolytes and would prefer to see us subjugated, is neither useful nor praiseworthy.
Good post. One quibble: Jivani isn't carping, he's conniving. He is not stupid and clearly knows what's at stake. I suspect he would like to parlay his friendship with JD Vance into the job of governor of the state of Canada.
Excellent piece. I think Canadians have the resolve to get through this: We supported Chretien and Martin through the really difficult health, education and other social services cuts of the 1990s.
(It's true that the PCs and Reform split the conservative vote, but I'm not so sure the right won't split again if Maple MAGA seizes control; see the BC Conservative Party implosion, the NDP by-election win in Alberta.)
Start with what I call the "Gurney" (my label) doctrine. Peace, Order, and Good Government. Via: National Security; Critical Infrastructure; and, Social Development.
Great article, full of hope and optimism for the future. Unfortunately this fountain of hope resides with Steven Harper, former PM defeated at the polls by nice hair, fancy socks and pie-in-the-sky policies. Canadian voters do not appear to understand how prosperity is fostered or how to compete for international investment dollars. Harper urged "removing the barriers and regulations that exist in no other country". Did anyone hear his plea?
Another excellent column, Matt. I am foursquare behind everything you have to say here.
I also have to say that one of the most pleasant surprises, for me anyway, is that I find myself foursquare behind what Stephen Harper has been saying. I never supported his government, but all that is irrelevant now.
He is showing himself to be a true patriot, and he is telling us things that we need to hear (and he has more gravitas and statesman-like-ship in his left pinky than does the current Leader of the Opposition). There are still things he has to say that I disagree with, but all that matters now is his love of country, and I am all over that.
It’s true, I worry too about Canadians’ desire to take on sacrifice. We have arguably been the most privileged of nations by virtue of sharing the continent with the US; and have been insulated from the worst of the many crises that have beset our world these past 100 years. We need to rouse ourselves from our torpor, and as Matt says, this is a big ask.
However, let’s give ourselves a little breathing room. I believe we’re no different than any other country in that we have deep reserves of pride in our country. That’s an essential part of human nature, and we’re no less human than a citizen of any other country.
As Northrop Frye put it, a Canadian is an American who rejects the Revolution. I take that to mean that we share a lot of the same assumptions and aspirations as our American cousins. Given our common origins, it couldn’t be otherwise. But having rejected something that fundamentally defines the American nation, we chose to go our own way and live as a separate people. I believe that has not changed.
For the longest time, all we’ve been called upon to do is to cheer loudly for our national hockey teams and boast about our health-care system (not talking so loudly about that, these days). But the world is a lot meaner now, and we’re going to be asked to dig deeper. We’ve done it before, and given the pride we take in being Canadians, we’ll do it again.
Inevitably there will be the usual nay-sayers to say that Canadians aren’t willing to make any sacrifices and anyway, “we’re not a real country”. Those guys are just the mirror image of all those ostensibly lily-livered Canadians. They’ve never been asked to rise to the challenge, and with their reflexive negativity they're not capable of it.
So long as they insist on falling back on their cynicism, they’re not going to see the opportunity that lies before us “to realize our true potential as a country, which … we have come nowhere close to achieving”. None of what they say is helpful; it’s just tiresome, and they should just stop. Or pull up stakes and move to the US.
To imply that Canada has not been a normal country and reiterate for rhetorical effect rubs me the wrong way. I know you're a columnist and your goal is to get a rise. I also don't read Stephen Harpers comments to suggest any kind of agreement with the "you've got to be a State to get the beneifts of a state" nonsense coming from the White House. Canada has been a deeply integrated with the US economy for decades now and is a crucial part of Norad and NATO. We are now slowly beginning to make progress on building our defence capacity. Yes, we may have rode on the back of the US hegemonic military build up to defend continental North America. I think most Canadians understand those days are over. Right now Canadians are feeling a greater sense of unity and national pride than we have felt in decades. Carney is doing everything his packed schedule will allow to build new alliances, to change the permitting, regulatory and tax infrastructure (finally)that has held us back so we can demonstrate that we can get big things done. This is a pivotal moment for Canada. To suggest we can't do it, we're not a normal country and we might not be ready for the pain is an insult to those who are already struggling with higher costs. It underestimates our patriotism, tenacity and determination and seems slightly out of touch with the public mood.
Agreed. It's excellently stated to say "Will entrenched Canadian bureaucratic norms really yield to the pressure from Carney and others to trim environmental assessments and Indigenous consultations down to something efficient enough not to scare away would-be investors."
We're already paying for the rest. Can Ottawa decrease the inherent costs of their bureaucracy and instead spend the money on seriously occupying the north and upgrading to modern times such as getting defensive drones?
Central Canada has the government they continually vote in. That Liberal government is asking them to change. They cannot blame anyone but themselves. Question - will they adjust?
Great column and you nailed it on the Canada needs to grow-up because the world has changed since the pandemic (why have we not conducted a Royal Commission on COVID? Anyone? Anyone? It was a glonbal catastrophe and its impact has changed the world, utterly. Canada is brutally divided on this matter and that brings me to the word : Avoidance.
Canada rocks at avoiding big tough decisions.
I'm 59 in three weeks. I remember in the 1980s, income tax was regularly in the news. Sine the mid-90s I've not heard or read anything about where the money is supposed to come from.
There is a bill to be paid. A really really really really big bill. It has accumlated over the decades, I think, while changing the national discussion on taxes from increases to tax cuts.
It has been all tax-cuts all the time ever since the mid-90s. We know that we are now being presemnted a bill for being cheap bastards, content to live under the protection of the meth lab currently residing underneath Canada.
We are buried in debt. The conversation about what we spend our borrowed money on has not taken place and Matt lists the clearly major high ticket expenses we're all about to pay for. There's more out there. Pain and sacrifice is not something Canadians experience very often.
It's pathetic that it took a dirtbag conman octogenarian lunatic to make us do something to get to 2% GDP on NATO spending.
That is messed. That is unserious. We are going to be tested hence, I think. Carney is ahead in the polls by a couple of galaxies. Hopefully when the wrath of Canadians boils over at their taxes going up folks will look at this as a national self-own.
Leadership is going to have to be displayed at all levels of government to drag Canadians, likely kicking and screaming, into the world that has changes since COVID.
"... Are we actually prepared, as a country, to pay higher taxes to support a much larger military? ..."
Canada is already a high tax country - as compared to the US, of course, but our taxes are definitely not cheap as compared to a host of other countries either. On the other hand, on the other hand .... many readers will shout, "Scandinavia!" and they would be correct that the Scandinavian countries do have higher tax rates than Canada.
I am not whatsoever an expert on the Scandinavian counties but it seems to me that they are a far more homogeneous countries that offer a whole range of reasons for each of those countries to exist on their own. As I understand matters, they all have noticeable armed forces and they all have - very unlike Canada - the ability to actually DO things.
Matt, you ask just how much pain Canadians are willing to endure. You also note that we continue to exist with NIMBYism, at least in terms of the Toronto island airport. I suggest that you find the answer to your question in the airport "conversation" which was not at all a conversation but an immediate retreat in the face of some locals who just didn't give a damn about the larger picture.
Matt, you further say that you are optimistic about Canada and that "... [t]here isn't any particular reason Canada should not be one of the richest and most powerful counties in the world ..." Well, except, see Toronto island airport, see native "consultation" that has become a veto for the loudest, mouthiest groups, see ......
Put differently, I do not share your optimism.
You note "... most of what we have working against us are things we’ve done to ourselves. We can undo them, but there will be costs for that ..." I just don't see a real acceptance by Canadians to agree to pay those costs. Hell, we can't even keep up the infrastructure that we built generations ago because it would require extra taxes to keep bridges, transmission lines, etc., etc., etc. in good repair.
A thoughtful piece, identifying the complex and somewhat contradictory factors that will make what needs to be done difficult to do. To that I would add what I think is perhaps an even larger one: the politics. The fracture line in the Conservative Party in Canada is a symptom much more serious than it may seem. It's a cancer that may look minor now but has the potential to kill the patient.
Canada's politics have generally been about policies, about what to do and how to do it. The mess the US is in, is in large measure because politics there have ceased to be about any meaningful policies and become little more than tribal identity. That malignant strain is metastasizing into Canada in the form of "maple MAGA". Though it appears in the Conservative Party, it's not conservative in any Burkean sense. It's authoritarianism, which I'm sure you've noticed is a problem widespread in the western world these days. (The conditions, and mistakes, that have led to its resurgence are worth a column themselves. Actually, they're worth at least a book.) The fundamentally destructive nature of that strain of politics is a mortal threat to the change management that has to happen in Canada, and it's one that only the Conservative Party can stop – if Conservatives have the integrity. Harper does; it remains to be seen how many more do.
As foar as Europe goes this would be the main fall out from the mystical associate member. I doubt if many Canadians are seeing this.
Sovereignty over key regulations. Aligning with EU standards (as in EEA models) would make Canada a rule-taker on trade, environment, and energy without voting rights, potentially restricting oil/gas development and risking US trade tensions.
Seeing as the last time we made a deal with the Euros - CETA, more than 10 years ago - it was apparently signed in pencil and remains unratified …. We may have the right idea but it’s unlikely we have the time
Peter, yes, we do have CETA but MC seems to want us to become a member of the EU in all but name. Canadians seem to want such a thing but ever so many of them simply have no idea of what that would entail. Just as one f'r example, they have no idea just why the UK withdrew from the EU other than that the UK was "foolish" and no idea of how Brussels rules the various countries, etc.
As you point out, we have had CETA for some years but relatively little trade. Why that would change, I simply don't know. Truthfully, I'm not certain that closer ties with Brussels et al is or is not the "right idea" but, even if it is, how would such a thing actually help us in the here and now?
Imagine if Trudeau seriously floated the idea of joining the EU, in say 2018. I'm sure his successor Andrew Scheer would have been a perfectly mediocre PM.
But now most people support this without knowing what it's even going to entail.
I just have to laugh at the comical nonsense that is coming out of this period of long-term general Canadian derangement. It's been going on for so long now that we've lost perspective on what is sane. It's like when you've been on a drinking bender for days and think you are sober despite just finishing another 12 pack of beer because you have forgotten what sober is like.
Good piece Matt
Harper is wise and in tune with the situation.
As a conservative, I believe that this message of “Growing up” is, has, and will always be part of the conservative platform. So much so that if you take the message that Mr Poilievre has been trying to get across, I believe it lines up quite well. Less government, smart industry, more wealth…
The bills will always have to be paid.
Give businesses and people freedom and opportunity, get government out of every aspect of my life… and watch us prosper.
Canadians have no appetite for actual sacrifices, for really any goal. They are willing to volunteer others to sacrifice on their behalf, but nothing themselves. What was that recent poll - everyone wants to stand up to the US but not if it costs them $500?
Re "Hello Europe!" - what happens in three years if Marine LePen is president of France, the AfD is ascendant in Germany (thanks to the globalist, for lack of a better word, policies pushed by Trudeau and Carney and indeed Harper to a lesser degree) and there is a friendly smiling Democrat in the White House willing to make a formal apology and re-normalize relations? Do we realize all of a sudden that the Trump-era tariffs aren't actually that high, and maybe the Americans aren't so bad after all?
Everyone across the board supports doing what we can to increase trade with Europe, but throwing ourselves at the Europeans like we are on the rebound and looking for a new bed partner is just pathetic.
I think that the political price of doing nothing is greater than the cost of angry voters hit with high taxes.
We all know that nobody is raising taxes. Well at least not yet. It will be our spending power that gets inflated away, and the debt our descendants will have to contend with. In fairness, this is just like what the US is doing.
KRM, you start your post with "Canadians have no appetite for actual sacrifices ..."
I respectfully suggest that you might have started slightly differently: Canadians have an absolute appetite for actual sacrifices as long as it is someone else and some group other than them that has to make the sacrifice ..."
Haha that's what I meant in my second sentence which is now corrected.
This is a very useful piece, but we’ll need to wait in order to find out whether we’re up to the task. One can “acknowledge the reality that Canada felt comfortable under-investing in core competencies”, and so we must, without constantly using that reality to blame Canadians or our leaders past and present for our predicament. Doing so clearly makes some people feel good, but it serves no purpose. Whether we’re prepared to accept the pain will depend on many factors: not simply the amount of pain or even its ostensible justification (defense, sovereignty, infrastructure, independence, stronger federation?) but on how well our political, economic, and intellectual leadership can mobilize support. Engaging in relentless carping, as Jivani and others do, whether for the sake of carping (because blaming someone else is always easier than looking in the mirror), or because they can’t stand to see a Liberal PM succeed (and hence care less about promoting Canada’s success than Carney’s failure), or because they really do sympathize with Trump and his acolytes and would prefer to see us subjugated, is neither useful nor praiseworthy.
Good post. One quibble: Jivani isn't carping, he's conniving. He is not stupid and clearly knows what's at stake. I suspect he would like to parlay his friendship with JD Vance into the job of governor of the state of Canada.
Excellent piece. I think Canadians have the resolve to get through this: We supported Chretien and Martin through the really difficult health, education and other social services cuts of the 1990s.
(It's true that the PCs and Reform split the conservative vote, but I'm not so sure the right won't split again if Maple MAGA seizes control; see the BC Conservative Party implosion, the NDP by-election win in Alberta.)
I think the splitting up has already begun. Poillievre is finished. Harper ensured that this week in his speech alongside Mark Carney.
Actually Harper and Pierre are in total agreement.
Yes, I know. But ... optics, etc. I suspect hard core CPC partisans need therapy after seeing him along with Carney.
Start with what I call the "Gurney" (my label) doctrine. Peace, Order, and Good Government. Via: National Security; Critical Infrastructure; and, Social Development.
Excellent piece.
Great article, full of hope and optimism for the future. Unfortunately this fountain of hope resides with Steven Harper, former PM defeated at the polls by nice hair, fancy socks and pie-in-the-sky policies. Canadian voters do not appear to understand how prosperity is fostered or how to compete for international investment dollars. Harper urged "removing the barriers and regulations that exist in no other country". Did anyone hear his plea?
Another excellent column, Matt. I am foursquare behind everything you have to say here.
I also have to say that one of the most pleasant surprises, for me anyway, is that I find myself foursquare behind what Stephen Harper has been saying. I never supported his government, but all that is irrelevant now.
He is showing himself to be a true patriot, and he is telling us things that we need to hear (and he has more gravitas and statesman-like-ship in his left pinky than does the current Leader of the Opposition). There are still things he has to say that I disagree with, but all that matters now is his love of country, and I am all over that.
It’s true, I worry too about Canadians’ desire to take on sacrifice. We have arguably been the most privileged of nations by virtue of sharing the continent with the US; and have been insulated from the worst of the many crises that have beset our world these past 100 years. We need to rouse ourselves from our torpor, and as Matt says, this is a big ask.
However, let’s give ourselves a little breathing room. I believe we’re no different than any other country in that we have deep reserves of pride in our country. That’s an essential part of human nature, and we’re no less human than a citizen of any other country.
As Northrop Frye put it, a Canadian is an American who rejects the Revolution. I take that to mean that we share a lot of the same assumptions and aspirations as our American cousins. Given our common origins, it couldn’t be otherwise. But having rejected something that fundamentally defines the American nation, we chose to go our own way and live as a separate people. I believe that has not changed.
For the longest time, all we’ve been called upon to do is to cheer loudly for our national hockey teams and boast about our health-care system (not talking so loudly about that, these days). But the world is a lot meaner now, and we’re going to be asked to dig deeper. We’ve done it before, and given the pride we take in being Canadians, we’ll do it again.
Inevitably there will be the usual nay-sayers to say that Canadians aren’t willing to make any sacrifices and anyway, “we’re not a real country”. Those guys are just the mirror image of all those ostensibly lily-livered Canadians. They’ve never been asked to rise to the challenge, and with their reflexive negativity they're not capable of it.
So long as they insist on falling back on their cynicism, they’re not going to see the opportunity that lies before us “to realize our true potential as a country, which … we have come nowhere close to achieving”. None of what they say is helpful; it’s just tiresome, and they should just stop. Or pull up stakes and move to the US.
To imply that Canada has not been a normal country and reiterate for rhetorical effect rubs me the wrong way. I know you're a columnist and your goal is to get a rise. I also don't read Stephen Harpers comments to suggest any kind of agreement with the "you've got to be a State to get the beneifts of a state" nonsense coming from the White House. Canada has been a deeply integrated with the US economy for decades now and is a crucial part of Norad and NATO. We are now slowly beginning to make progress on building our defence capacity. Yes, we may have rode on the back of the US hegemonic military build up to defend continental North America. I think most Canadians understand those days are over. Right now Canadians are feeling a greater sense of unity and national pride than we have felt in decades. Carney is doing everything his packed schedule will allow to build new alliances, to change the permitting, regulatory and tax infrastructure (finally)that has held us back so we can demonstrate that we can get big things done. This is a pivotal moment for Canada. To suggest we can't do it, we're not a normal country and we might not be ready for the pain is an insult to those who are already struggling with higher costs. It underestimates our patriotism, tenacity and determination and seems slightly out of touch with the public mood.
Agreed. It's excellently stated to say "Will entrenched Canadian bureaucratic norms really yield to the pressure from Carney and others to trim environmental assessments and Indigenous consultations down to something efficient enough not to scare away would-be investors."
We're already paying for the rest. Can Ottawa decrease the inherent costs of their bureaucracy and instead spend the money on seriously occupying the north and upgrading to modern times such as getting defensive drones?
Central Canada has the government they continually vote in. That Liberal government is asking them to change. They cannot blame anyone but themselves. Question - will they adjust?
Great column and you nailed it on the Canada needs to grow-up because the world has changed since the pandemic (why have we not conducted a Royal Commission on COVID? Anyone? Anyone? It was a glonbal catastrophe and its impact has changed the world, utterly. Canada is brutally divided on this matter and that brings me to the word : Avoidance.
Canada rocks at avoiding big tough decisions.
I'm 59 in three weeks. I remember in the 1980s, income tax was regularly in the news. Sine the mid-90s I've not heard or read anything about where the money is supposed to come from.
There is a bill to be paid. A really really really really big bill. It has accumlated over the decades, I think, while changing the national discussion on taxes from increases to tax cuts.
It has been all tax-cuts all the time ever since the mid-90s. We know that we are now being presemnted a bill for being cheap bastards, content to live under the protection of the meth lab currently residing underneath Canada.
We are buried in debt. The conversation about what we spend our borrowed money on has not taken place and Matt lists the clearly major high ticket expenses we're all about to pay for. There's more out there. Pain and sacrifice is not something Canadians experience very often.
It's pathetic that it took a dirtbag conman octogenarian lunatic to make us do something to get to 2% GDP on NATO spending.
That is messed. That is unserious. We are going to be tested hence, I think. Carney is ahead in the polls by a couple of galaxies. Hopefully when the wrath of Canadians boils over at their taxes going up folks will look at this as a national self-own.
Leadership is going to have to be displayed at all levels of government to drag Canadians, likely kicking and screaming, into the world that has changes since COVID.
"... Are we actually prepared, as a country, to pay higher taxes to support a much larger military? ..."
Canada is already a high tax country - as compared to the US, of course, but our taxes are definitely not cheap as compared to a host of other countries either. On the other hand, on the other hand .... many readers will shout, "Scandinavia!" and they would be correct that the Scandinavian countries do have higher tax rates than Canada.
I am not whatsoever an expert on the Scandinavian counties but it seems to me that they are a far more homogeneous countries that offer a whole range of reasons for each of those countries to exist on their own. As I understand matters, they all have noticeable armed forces and they all have - very unlike Canada - the ability to actually DO things.
Matt, you ask just how much pain Canadians are willing to endure. You also note that we continue to exist with NIMBYism, at least in terms of the Toronto island airport. I suggest that you find the answer to your question in the airport "conversation" which was not at all a conversation but an immediate retreat in the face of some locals who just didn't give a damn about the larger picture.
Matt, you further say that you are optimistic about Canada and that "... [t]here isn't any particular reason Canada should not be one of the richest and most powerful counties in the world ..." Well, except, see Toronto island airport, see native "consultation" that has become a veto for the loudest, mouthiest groups, see ......
Put differently, I do not share your optimism.
You note "... most of what we have working against us are things we’ve done to ourselves. We can undo them, but there will be costs for that ..." I just don't see a real acceptance by Canadians to agree to pay those costs. Hell, we can't even keep up the infrastructure that we built generations ago because it would require extra taxes to keep bridges, transmission lines, etc., etc., etc. in good repair.
A thoughtful piece, identifying the complex and somewhat contradictory factors that will make what needs to be done difficult to do. To that I would add what I think is perhaps an even larger one: the politics. The fracture line in the Conservative Party in Canada is a symptom much more serious than it may seem. It's a cancer that may look minor now but has the potential to kill the patient.
Canada's politics have generally been about policies, about what to do and how to do it. The mess the US is in, is in large measure because politics there have ceased to be about any meaningful policies and become little more than tribal identity. That malignant strain is metastasizing into Canada in the form of "maple MAGA". Though it appears in the Conservative Party, it's not conservative in any Burkean sense. It's authoritarianism, which I'm sure you've noticed is a problem widespread in the western world these days. (The conditions, and mistakes, that have led to its resurgence are worth a column themselves. Actually, they're worth at least a book.) The fundamentally destructive nature of that strain of politics is a mortal threat to the change management that has to happen in Canada, and it's one that only the Conservative Party can stop – if Conservatives have the integrity. Harper does; it remains to be seen how many more do.
As foar as Europe goes this would be the main fall out from the mystical associate member. I doubt if many Canadians are seeing this.
Sovereignty over key regulations. Aligning with EU standards (as in EEA models) would make Canada a rule-taker on trade, environment, and energy without voting rights, potentially restricting oil/gas development and risking US trade tensions.