The Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ) and the Ontario alcohol Régie (LCBO) are among the largest buyers of wines and alcohols in the world. Monopolies inherited from Canadian prohibition – which took place straddling the XIXe and xxe centuries and not to be confused with American prohibition, which assured the fortune of Quebec families – the distribution and purchase of alcohols remain the privilege of each provincial government in Canada. Since the beginning of March 2025, in response to the customs duties imposed by Donald Trump on his neighbor, the American wines and alcohols have disappeared from the stores of three provinces of the country at the maple leaf, Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba; While British Columbia has chosen to ban alcohols from the Republican states.
That’s not all. The Canadians resell their Tesla electric vehicles, the car manufacturer led by Elon Musk, a figure in the new Trump administration. Passages to the border between the two countries collapsed by 70%. In mid-February, in Montreal, an ice hockey match between the Canada and the United States selections was the scene of three fights stored between the players in the first nine seconds of the game, just after the Montreal public copiously whistled the anthem of the North American neighbor.
For almost three months and the inauguration of Donald Trump at the head of the United States on January 20, a revolution is in the process of being set up along the “the longest border in the world”. If Trumpist voters claim that Canadians should pay their “Fair Share” -otherly said their share-and that even some Republican senators wonder about this situation, more and more Canadians would like to move away from the United States. Donald Trump’s repeated insults –“51e State”,, “Governor Trudeau” On several occasions -, the threats and applications of customs duties on Canadian products have created the conditions for a nationalist awakening within the Confederation. An economic and strategic rapprochement with the European Union (EU) is inevitable. How far will he go?
First, the federal elections of April 28
All Canadians will tell you. After more than nine years of “reign” since November 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, then chief of the Liberal Party of Canada (PLC, Center), had become an unpopular figure and announced his resignation from these two positions on January 6. So much so that the Conservative Party of Canada (PCC, Right), led by Pierre Poilievre, a libertarian from Alberta (the cradle of the Canadian populist right), caracked in the polls with 20 to 25 points ahead. Until January 7, 2025. That day, during a press conference on his future foreign policy, Donald Trump launched his first attacks on Europe, Mexico or Canada (among others). The next day, the curve begins to reverse.
In two months, led by his new Prime Minister Mark Carney, officially entered on March 14, the PLC resumes more than 20 points in the polls, thus catching up and even exceeding the CCP in the voting intentions in the next federal elections, convened anticipated after the resignation of Justin Trudeau. With the aim of renewing the deputies of the House of Commons, the lower room of the Canadian Parliament, this ballot will be held on Monday April 28, 2025. From memory of Canadians, we had never seen such a reversal of the situation. If the possible victory of Mark Carney and the Liberal Party are confirmed in the ballot boxes, it will be the most surprising come in the history of the country.
For this, we must thank Donald Trump. Since September 2022 and his arrival at the head of the Canada Conservative Party, Pierre Poilievre had carried out his campaign on wokism, the “zero Net emission”, the excess of COVVI-19, the drop in taxes, the drilling of oil. And suddenly, he must fight on the ground of nationalism, while the very existence of Canada is challenged by his neighbor in the South.
As Mark Carney said at a press conference in Ottawa on March 27, “The old relationship we had with the United States, based on a deep integration of our economies and close cooperation in terms of security and defense, is over.” The Canadian Prime Minister continued: “I make the solemn promise that if President Trump threatens us again, we will fight back. We will retaliate with our means to get the best “deal ” for Canada. We will build an independent future for our country which will be stronger than ever. (…) The road in front of us will be long. ”
The United States as a milestone in Canadian unit
Canada is a conglomerate of provinces, sometimes depopulated, separated by very long distances. There are strong identity regions such as Nova Scotia, New Brunswick or Acadia, in the east of the country. There are the provinces historically tempted by independence, Quebec (Francophonie) and then Alberta (somewhat “Texas of Canada”). Then there are those who feel closer to the United States; They are rural, conservative, individualistic, such as Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, located in Western Canada. Finally, there is Ontario, the country’s economic heart, the province depositary of the sacred mission to defend the territorial integrity of Canada and which houses the national capital Ottawa.
On the sidelines of the last Quebec referendum in 1995, in which the “yes” almost prevailed (49.42%), some provinces of Western Canada have also started discussions with Washington in the event of secession of the French -speaking province. If Canada has not divided, it may also be because of the United States. Indeed, Canadian identity, a product in history, is also defined as opposed to the American value system.
This immense country with a population of “only” 41.5 million inhabitants would be somewhat a “non-American”: evolution against revolution, community against individualism, etc. Like Europeans, Canadians do not display their faith. They want control of firearms. They believe in the usefulness of taxes, in the welfare state, in social spending. They attach great importance to nature, ecology, science. They do not question abortion. They are pacifists. They refuse a justice system based on money. They have a parliamentary regime rather than presidential (in Europe, France is an exception). They promote international institutions and multiliberalism, free trade, immigration …
In short, Canada is a European country, probably the only European country outside the old continent. But Canada is also a country turned to Europe. About 65% of the population lies in eastern Canada; Six hours by plane separate London from Montreal; Its two official languages, English and French, are of European origin. Mark Carney, the Prime Minister, knows Europe very well, since he was the governor of the Bank of England-the Central Bank of the United Kingdom-between 2013 and 2020. Besides, in the middle of March, for his first official trip abroad, he chose to go to Paris and London, where he described Canada as “The most European of non -European countries”.
A European Canada-Union alliance is inevitable
According to a survey by the Canadian Institute Abacus Data, published on March 10, 46% of Canadians are favorable to their country to join the European Union, with only 29% between it. If Eastern Canadians and Liberals are attached to continental Europe, Western Conservatives and Canadians feel closer to the United Kingdom and the United States.
In addition to these scores, superior to certain European countries, complementarities are obvious. First, the European Union is Canada’s second trading partner after the United States. Then, the EU represents a market of 450 million inhabitants (more than 500 with the United Kingdom), the most important after China and India. Canada, on the other hand, is the second largest country in the world after Russia. It is an energy power: oil (Alberta is also “the Kuwait of North America”), gas, bituminous shales, hydroelectric energy (sufficient to ensure the electrical consumption of Quebec), rare minerals, uranium, gold, etc. But also agricultural: with 9 million hectares and 2 million lakes, Canada has enough cultivable area to potentially feed the whole planet.
Then, recently, the country shares a border with the European Union. These are Hans Island, a tiny piece of land located between Isomere Island (in northern Canada) and northwest Greenland (autonomous territory belonging to Denmark). Desert, the island was divided in two on June 14, 2022, ending an old litigation between Canada and Denmark.
Finally, the Sovereign of Canada is British King Charles III. Market economy, democratic regime, common history, common languages, border, sovereign: Canada is not only a full European country, it brings to Europe space, natural resources and energy independence.
The North Atlantic, the new European geopolitical project
Donald Trump’s presidency is not an anomaly in the history of the United States. The “dropout” of values, on the move for four decades, between “American Empire” and parliamentary liberal democracies, is there to last. In this new competition in which China, Russia, the United States, the European Union will have the choice between submission and independence.
In order not to pay the price for a new Yalta between Beijing, Moscow and Washington, the EU will have to have a strong defense, build industrial, energetic, agricultural independence and probably enjoy an enlarged space. After the temptation of a “Mediterranean Europe” in the 1980s (entrance to Spain and Portugal, Greece in the European Economic Community, North-South partnerships, etc.), that of Eastern Europe in the 1990s (fall in the Iron Curtain, end of the Soviet Union, German reunification, the desire for engagement of Russia), Europe could engage in a new path.
Two major events explain the future “shift” to come. The invasion of Ukraine has made the EU aware of its military and political fragility. The second presidency Trump made him realize that the Cold War Alliances Pact is deciduous. In response to this new world, the European center of gravity could move somewhere in the North Atlantic. In the new big game that is stepping, Norway, Iceland, Greenland and the United Kingdom will naturally be the beneficiaries of a rapprochement between Canada and the EU.
But for that, a European cultural revolution is necessary. The original vision of the Rome club will have to evolve. It will be necessary to abandon a supranationality impossible to accept for most nations, to reform the common agricultural policy (CAP), to diversify the types of cooperation (on the model of Norway or Switzerland), to take out the defense of the criteria of Maastricht. The result would be an integrated club of liberal democracies attached to a common values system, united by a common transatlantic history, which extends from Canada to Norway and Estonia, to the eastern Mediterranean.
In a context of Icelandic referendum on EU membership in 2027, from a return from the United Kingdom to a closer alliance, the possible independence of Greenland, the filing of a membership request from Canada becomes possible. Economic and social Europe has been a success; political and military Europe a failure. The Canada-UE rapprochement will lay the foundations for a new transatlantic block, independent at the agricultural, energetic, industrial, military level and capable of offering an alternative model to “new empires”.
