This article originally appeared in the Financial Post. Below is an excerpt from the article.
By Jack Mintz, August 8, 2025
When announcing the new Canada-European strategic partnership in June, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada is “the most European of non-European countries.” Let’s hope not. Europe’s economy is high-taxed, over-regulated and underperforming — something we should definitely not aspire to.
It’s perfectly appropriate to diversify our trade and investment to countries all round the world. We should certainly sell more energy, manufactured goods, foodstuffs and services to Europe. We should also import cheaper products and capital from Europe. These are benefits of trade. But that doesn’t mean we should become like Europe. If anything, we should avoid copying its culture and economic policy.
The June joint release by the EU and Canada emphasizes shared prosperity, democratic values and peace and security, not just trade. These are lovely words but what do they actually mean? It is one thing to co-operate on joint strategic interests, such as the Arctic and NATO commitments in the Ukraine. But Canada’s safety is secured by the U.S. umbrella so our best interests also depend on our relationship with the United States.
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Jack Mintz is the President’s Fellow at the University of Calgary’s school of public policy and a distinguished fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
