I’m an American who lives in the UK and I’ll go to war for you guys before I ever go for the US military.
American who’s lived his whole life stateside. Agreed.
Inasmuch as we can, yeah. None of our planning so far has allowed for the possibility of Moronica turning into a loose cannon and going around threatening all its friends and allies. As with Ukraine, if Moronica decides you’re fucked, you’re fucked, and there’s not a whole lot we can do about it.
If none of your planning prepared you for that, you need new planners.
France here, our mainstream media is currently either billionaire-owned and pushing Trump and Musk admiration or publicly owned but influenced by our current government (Macron and co.) which does everything possible to cosy up to billionaires so they haven’t yet (and probably never will) called Trump a fascist or Musk a neo-nazi.
You came and died in France during two world wars in the 20th century but I’m afraid France as a nation isn’t gonna have your back in this timeline - except if we manage to elect a real-left government next time.
Good luck!
I was kind of expecting this, thanks for your honesty. Many people in Canadian sub talk about NATO’s article 5, but the truth is nobody can send military gear to the nose of US navy and aviation across the Atlantic. An article 5 would be nationalization of US asset in Europe, reversing all investment in the US and maybe expelling the US from military bases in Germany. Not much would be done on Canadian ground.
Free media and journalists encouraged to dig deep and challenge things is a big part of democracy.
TIL about article 5, thanks!
I really hope mimitary action won’t happen…
realize this.
should conflict take place, it’s only to trap Americans and stop them from escaping to Canada.
second objective is to make distractions.
third is to take Canada.
What does it really mean to have each-other’s backs?
I think one thing would be making some agreements in advance when it comes to refugees. Make it easier for Canadians to escape to the EU if the US does something stupid, and make it easier for Europeans to move to Canada if Russia does something crazy.
Other than that, I don’t know what immediate steps could really be done. I’d love it if Canada would adopt some of the European privacy regulations, ditching the American-style laws currently in effect. But, a lot of things wouldn’t be easy to change. Our cars, appliances, construction techniques, electricity voltages, plug designs, etc. are all very American-style, and those kinds of things have a lot of momentum.
But, I don’t really see a downside to making the movement of people a little easier. I think plenty of Canadians would love to live and work in Europe. I think a fair number of Europeans would love to live and work in Canada – at least once Canada finally adopts proper vacation lengths, parental leave laws, etc.
Canada would be happy with most if not all of Europe’s privacy laws once we choose to ignore US interest.
Quebec has some decent parental leave and the current federal government (Liberal-NDP) wants a nationwide implementation.
Electricity could stay different just like UK didn’t use the Euro when they where member. Most other laws should be Europe inspired even if we ‘compete’ with the US deregulation. I would love agriculture related laws to be harmonized to the high standard in Europe.
There’s already EU territory with 110V systems, even 60Hz, or more precisely said Guyana is a clusterfuck of different systems. Standardisation would be nice but it does have limited market impact so the EU is comfortable to just not. Also the main reason European stoves won’t work as intended in Canada isn’t 220V, you do have 220V, but because they’re expecting three 220V phases to be fully powered, they can pull up to 13kW with everything at full tilt. Most can be configured to draw less and be hooked up to a single phase, though, you could use those. Modern DC converters don’t mind the differing voltages and frequencies in the first place and with DC motors being quite popular making e.g. a blender dual-voltage is actually quite simple, which leaves us with things like hair dryers and I mean who cares.
Australia too, we got ya…
FWIW, most people in blue states would probably have your backs too. The province most at risk would probably be Alberta, which… is Alberta
yes i am the president of those countries im glad you asked
Wait… UK, doesn’t have a president… I think this guy isn’t legit!
If it ever comes to it you can count on me. Sorry we put you guys in this position.
Most Americans have your back too…it’s just our messed up voting and education systems that let the lunatic fringe gain all the power. For a representative democracy, it really doesn’t represent the people.
According the most recent elections, most Americans don’t.
There has to be a point where Americans who don’t support chaos stop saying “this isn’t who we really are” and start admitting “huh, I guess we’re assholes now.”
Hell yeah, im just waiting for a blue state to announce intention to secede and join the EU. But that might be messy.
;(
A messy dream.
States cant secede without war. It is a kinda silly dream anyway. It is better to let the red states rot and have a display of how their ideals fail and how blue states flourish, then take our country back, then go through the insane process of digging out the roots and backdoors they are rushing to put in place as we speak
Hey, Canada! Have you considered EU membership?
I don’t think Canada should fully be in the EU, but some kind of set of bilateral arrangements like Switzerland has would be a good start.
Since Canada has lots of historical ties with the UK, it might work out well to have some kind of arrangement with the UK, Canada and the EU. That would let Britain start to undo some of the damage from Brexit, while also allowing Canada to reinforce those ties to the UK.
We didn’t know we had that option. But hell yeah… what do we have to do? Make Google and Apple put a “West Europe” label over Canada?
“West West Europe”
That would actually be hilarious
And not even impossible. The EU council and commission can basically freely decide if a state counts as “European”.
I think the biggest hurdle might be that Canada would immediately be the 5th most powerful member state because of their population.
40 is three million more than Ukraine, both in between Spain and Poland. Having a couple more mid-sized countries would enable integration of Turkey which eeks out Germany in terms of population.
The EU is talking to Turkey about membership (on and off…), and I would say that Canada is more European than Turkey.
Actual membership for Turkey hasn’t been a serious option for a long time. Turkey knows it, EU knows it. There simply is no other label than “candidate” that could better describe what TR means to the EU. They want to keep it as close as possible, and TR benefits from it, a lot. A symbiosis, if you will. As for the Switzerland model, the EU clearly stated, multiple times, that they don’t want to repeat the unholy mess of relations they created with CH and, in fact, would rather transform it to something in line with stock EU foreign policy.
Canada even shares a border with Europe, so I would say it’s close enough.
And a continental plate
As the EU mostly does not decide population based but with equal votes per country that wouldn’t be an issue.
The larger issue is the fact that the European and US regulations clash in a lot of things so it would be harder for Canadian companies to export to the US then.
But otherwise: We would absolutely welcome you.
it would be harder for Canadian companies to export to the US then.
I don’t think that’s gonna be a problem soon
Canada-US trade agreements not looking so binding ATM.
If the orange turd rips it up at will, the Canadian government should too
I would honestly be stoked
We still use the u’s (colour, etc.). Is that a prerequisite?
That just shows that you did not fall into the degenerate ways of your southern neighbours.
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i was wondering around Berlin once upon a time. in the park behind the parliament.
a slightly overly helpful german said “excuse me. are you lost?” i mumbled “no no, not really”
they walked beside me for a bit and said “ah you are english. i will take you to the parliament it’s just over there”. and i agreed
then they said “your boys died for my country” which really took my breath away
so yeah we got your back cananadia. that’s what we do when the fundamentalists kick off. even if we have to die
Fuck trump. Canadians are our friends and family.
Fuck trump. Canadians are our friends and family.
As an American, I agree with this message 100%.
Northern Brit here: we have to have each other’s backs. The only way we’re getting off Mr Bones’ Wild Ride is together ❤️ we can do this.
Resist. Rebel. Revolt. ✊
I want to get off Mr Bones’ Wild Ride, I’m tired
From the UK and personally, 100% yes but not sure I feel the rest of the population would agree. I mean, a lot of us turned our backs on the EU and there’s a lot of cross over with US right wing nutters.
However, I would believe that when push comes to shove, we would be generally willing to defend Canada, Australia and NZ over anyone else, and then European countries at the next level. The reaction in support for Ukraine was pretty universal here and there are still lots of donations and support that is not shared with any African, Asian or Central/South American countries having similar problems.
Basically, you’re white so yes you can count on us!
“Basically, you’re white so yes you can count on us!“
Russia?
If we rolled back a decade, Putin wasn’t around and something happened like idk, China invaded western Russia, I can imagine us helping Russia.
I should change it to “your population is mostly white so yes you can count on us”. I say this as an English born non-white person who has seen the differences in public reactions to Ukraine and other conflicts (Syria, various African ones, Gaza etc). Can’t say for certain it’s because of this reason but certainly feels like it!
I’m sure for some (sad and backwards) people it is a racially motivated position - but for many others I think it has more to do with cultural and geographical proximity.
But then our elected representatives go and fuck up the Middle East… I don’t know.
As an aside, do you know my favourite rugby chant? I’ve heard it at Wales v England rugby games:
“I’d rather wear a turban than a rose, I’d rather wear a turban than a rose, I’d rather wear a turban, I’d rather wear a turban, I’d rather wear a turban than a rose.”
I have a Russian friend who lives in (south) Wales and when he first arrived (10-15 years ago) he couldn’t understand non-white people being Welsh. Years later he realised that a green person born in Newport is already more Welsh than he’ll ever be.
The UK is a very contradictory bastard union that has - so far - somehow managed to stay in one piece.
Something something Emmanuel Todd and endogamous communal family structures, the tight internal clan bonds competing with and thus preventing the creation of a strong overarching identities vs. almost exclusively non-communal structures in Europe (and where there’s communalism it’s not as strong as in the Arab world, and definitely not endogamous), leading to strong overarching civil societies and identities. Very different assumptions about how society should be organised on a very fundamental, structural, level.
In those terms Europe is culturally way closer to e.g. Japan (just as much stem family structures as e.g. Ireland and lots of Scandinavian and German regions, some in France) than we are to the Arab world. Arabs actually integrating here means, for them, to flip an internal switch, saying something like “oh now my clan is my region, and my profession a secondary one”, and that is hard to do because a) you don’t actually know most of those people, while you know at least about everyone in your original clan, and b) you’re in a foreign land, not understanding what binds people together even though they might not know each other directly, also c) your family clan is still expecting you to be part of it, and not just in the “come to your cousin’s marriage” way. Lots of non-prejudicial cultural friction that especially people from absurdly individualist societies like the US don’t understand because they don’t have an overarching society in the first place. Both sides think the other is weird AF.
Well we do have the same King as the UK does. That counts for something doesn’t it?
That’s a very good point and can’t believe I didn’t think of that! Surely the British army would have to protect “his majesty’s realm” or some bollocks like that.
I just read that Canada hosts Britain’s largest overseas base, although it seems to be for training purposes.
