this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2026
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View from Europe: The Increasingly Convincing Case for Canada Joining the EU (www.policymagazine.ca)
submitted 4 days ago by Sunshine@piefed.ca to c/buyeuropean@feddit.uk
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[โ€“] ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago (3 children)

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here: I'm against this because many European projects are incompatible with Canada. In some parts, Canada's infrastructure is as bad as the USA's. Look at public transport, for example. Everything is car centric, and if you're not rich enough to own a car, you're basically excluded from public life, I don't mean this in an elitist type of way. Even Germany has significantly better public transport than Canada. Many of the other networking projects such as TEN-T or ETCS do not make sense as it is quite literally separated from the EU. Common standards are only useful when everyone agrees to use them. But as Canada would be the only EU state on the North American continent, they would be the only ones using it. Enhanced political cooperation and trade is always a positive thing, but the EU is more than just FTAs and other diplomatic pleasantries. IMHO.

[โ€“] maam@feddit.uk 10 points 4 days ago

many European projects are incompatible with Canada.

That can change, itโ€™s just matter of will.

[โ€“] CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Everything is car centric, and if you're not rich enough to own a car, you're basically excluded from public life

Amsterdam changed. Amsterdam city streets with and without cars, before and after cycling infrastructure

Paris is changing.

โ€ฆ Kรธbenhavn

Seriously, visiting North America is โ€œweโ€™ve tried adding a [car] lane to the highway and canโ€™t figure out why nobody is cycling or taking transit.โ€

Transportation networks indeed make little sense when thereโ€™s an ocean in between. Too bad the USA canโ€™t play nicely with others.

Common standards would be a challenge, in some areas -canโ€™t do electrical because 50hz vs 60hz and deep integration with USA grid. The NEMA plugs are a bit of a nightmare. But for vehicle safety and emissions it would be a step forward; more countries adopted the EU than US standards there.

[โ€“] ragepaw@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

It's actually changing here too, at least in cities. Bike lanes being added, streets being repurposed back to foot and bike traffic. Improved public transit.

I don't even think the electrical changes would be hard because of US integration, it would be hard because of so much of it. We could switch. Most houses already have a 240 circuit needed for things like car chargers, dryers and ovens. You could easily retrofit a house. But the grid feeding that house would need to be rebuilt from the ground (pun intended) up.

Edit: re electricity: We apparently did this in the early 50s once already. We were on a 25hz system, and power technicians went to every single house and retrofitted them to go from 25 to 60hz. Wild. I just learned that.

[โ€“] tiredofsametab@fedia.io 2 points 3 days ago

There might be some goals/milestones required for joining and doing something about things like this could be one.