TORONTO—There is nothing wrong with Prime Minister Mark Carney making frequent trips to Europe. The Europeans are clearly as alarmed about the state of things as we are. I think we should be showing a little more love and attention to some of our allies and partners in other regions of the world—especially the Asian democracies—but overall, you won’t hear me criticizing the prime minister for going to Europe.

But I do think we ought to be properly calibrating our expectations. The Europeans aren’t going to save us. Right now, we are an asset to them largely because we are keeping the Americans distracted. Our torment is Europe’s self-interest.

Canada needs to be realistic about what we can count on from our allies and what we can’t. I think there is a real opportunity to expand co-operation on trade and defence. Canadian and European interests align there. But what else are the Europeans going to do? Nothing. I can’t even think of something I could ask them to do.

Maybe there are some diplomatic initiatives we could partner on? But right now, neither Canada nor Europe has much hard power to back that up with, which is kind of the problem, right? There might also be some ways........

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