“Canada has what the world wants,” Mark Carney likes to tell people. But what does Canada want? The European Union, apparently. The bloc’s President, Ursula von der Leyen, has announced that Canada would become its first “associate member.” This is happening, she said, because “above all… Europe and Canada believe in democracy.”

Really? The EU spent years trying to block Brexit. And in 2015, when Greece voted to reject the conditions on EU loans, Brussels replied with even more stringent conditions. “There can be no democratic choice against the European treaties,” von der Leyen’s predecessor said at the time. But the rise of right-wing parties across Europe – most recently, the AfD’s election victory in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt – is proof many have lost confidence in the EU project.

Germany is the object lesson in the damage of mass migration, high taxes, extreme environmental policies and a self-inflicted energy crisis. Crime is rising and the economy is stagnant. German manufacturing, rebuilt so successfully after World War Two, is moving offshore – in part to China. Meanwhile, the country’s elite has tried to repress political opposition using dubious methods. The AfD has been under government investigation since 2019 for “right-wing extremism” (read: opposition to mass migration) and was formally classified as “extremist” by German intelligence forces in spring last year. This tactic has failed.

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