36 Replies to “CANZUK”

  2. And Quebec can either go along or go it alone and sign agreements with 3rd world countries like France, Algeria, and Haiti.

  3. CANZAU for sure.
    UK? No thanks.
    Maybe after they fully Brexit and drain swamps like Luton and Rotteringham, etc

  4. CANZUK would be just another excuse for a massive bureaucracy with hundreds of unelected government employees all deciding on the proper curvature of English cucumbers and on how brown to make paper towels.

  5. Why Canada would not enter into a trade agreement that helps them can’t be serious.. Those countries have a common nexus (UK).. I know that Canadians think that they think like Americans, but they are wrong.. I spent >22 years as a Canadian in Americas Media and I have always had problems understanding some things that Americans take for granted. I am now an American and think I understand some of my issues (maybe not)… I am more American than Canadian… Go Think

  6. New Zealand has the 53rd largest economy in the world, 1/10th the size of Canada’s and gently nestled between Peru and Algeria.
    It would make more sense to right-size NAFTA. German (and other) companies are setting up shop in low cost Mexico to deliver their products into the world’s largest economy. That cannot go on forever.

  7. That would be just reviving the old Commonwealth trading partnership, ditched by the Brits in favour of the EU.

  8. The only reason they are floating this is because they hate Trump, and assume that we cannot do business with The Great Satan.
    Let’s re-do NAFTA. CANZUK may bring in some business, but when the world’s largest market is a stone’s throw away…. unless you are blinded by ideology.

  9. Christ, this used to be called the Commonwealth, until that arch traitor Edward Heath, a confirmed bachelor, sold us into EU slavery. We were even on good terms with Argentina, bought a lot of beef from them over the years, (anybody remember Fray Bentos meat pies?). And in the 19thC, Brit’s built Argentina’s railways. There is, or maybe now was, a Welsh speaking community in Patagonia, as my 1st wife said. Go figure. The UK had deeper roots in the world outside Europe, and it grieves me to think they have been thrown away so carelessly.

  10. UK Seriously? We may a well trade directly with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. (Eastern Canada imports Saudi skin-tax oil already).
    Justin would need to get Masta China’s permission for a free trade deal with the white slave people of Australia – t’aint happening.

  11. Just out of curiosity could please elaborate!
    My blood pressure hits the roof when one is asked define yourself as A Canadian. The response is were not Americans!
    So it is acceptable to describe one as something one is not??

  13. As a Yank this is perhaps none of my business, but a return to Commonwealth trade and security agreements would possibly benefit everyone, not only the English-speaking world.

  14. Of course it makes perfect sense (not the least of which is our common ancestry rooted in the Commonwealth and Empire)
    CANZUK could take advantage of economies of scale in purchase of military equipment. CANZUK would probably quickly become the third largest trading block as the EU disintegrates. An honest approach to common defense would mean less reliance on our US brethren. Our common language and heritage makes the deal all that much better. (Ultimately though, the greatest sense would be CANSUKUSA, a free trade agreement of the English speaking peoples)
    Naturally it makes sense; which is why the liarberals, led by Le Dauphin, will never go for it. Quebec will see it as a return to our natural British heritage and will therefore oppose it. The liarberals, in their never ending pandering to their Quebec base, would never go for it. (Unless there was a brown bag of cash in it for Denis Coderre) The liarberals have had a non-stop agenda of promoting every culture that washes up on our shore and refuse to acknowledge the only reason there is a Canada; our British heritage
    P.S. I too would be uptight about the free mobility of some of the folks in the UK that would like a caliphate any where they go.

  16. So if this were to be taken as far as possible, unifying trade, technology, etc, would Canadians have to learn how to drive on the opposite side of the road? and convert to 220V/50 cycle? /sarc off

  17. Yup it is perfect.
    Perfect goal for the idiots who we have elected in all of these former commonwealth countries.
    While world trade grows through business and customers needs, the effete elites can seek their former glory in a confederation of the irrelevant,doomed by distance to be uncompetitive on any day.
    Sounds more like a “That will show Trump” ploy by a bunch of useless tools.
    Just more proof that national insolvency is unavoidable in all 4 nations.

  18. On a more serious note though, having been to Australia a couple times, I felt extremely ripped off by the fees the banks (in Canada) charged for exchanging currency. Leaving the UK out of the equation, a ‘Commonwealth-Pacific’ dollar for CANZ would be terrific!

  19. Without including the US the whole thing is a joke. Impractical and really adding no value to anything.
    Just feel good anti-Trump nonsense. Aside from the UK they are all really pip squeak economies. NZ population is less than Toronto. Australia’s population is like a few US cities combined. No perspective. No understanding of economic reality. Just wishful thinking.

  20. Without the presence of the US to keep competitive pressure on costs , canzauk would devolve into just a union of English speaking socialist Utopias .

  22. Absolutely. In the real world, if anyone is trying to thumb-nose their biggest customer, they aren’t long with the company … or that customer.
    BTW: Didn’t the Aussie recently piss off the US? And yes, Trump is the US.

  23. Erin O’toole won’t get past the first vote.
    End of discussion.
    I can’t believe I’m reading that in FP!!

  24. No, you can drive on the right lane, but 240V 60 cycles would be nice for the toaster and the tea kettle!! We do pay Sask Power for the resistance in the cord!!

  25. Back in my service days, I routinely handled documents marked AUSCANUKUSNZ so obviously the English-speaking world got along just fine. We used to swap people in the various Commonwealth air forces until the Americans insisted that all our people had to be Canadian citizens to access CANUS material. I had a Maori instructor during my early RCAF training days and have a long-time British-born friend who trained in Canada, did his National Service in the UK and then came back to serve until retirement in the RCAF. There was also an Australian and a Nigerian who had South African citizenship I served with. But I’m not sure we’d want South Africa in an a future agreement as I think that nation has strayed somewhat from its Commonwealth roots. All that said, the four countries mentioned in the title would need to include the US to be viable.

  26. Other than your sad lack of a First Amendment FREE SPEECH right … I’m down with a CANZUK … because you’re MY PEOPLE. I will be thrilled to trade with “my people” … esp. if they manufacture AUTHENTIC San Jose Sharks jerseys … not that bootleg crap flooding the market from Malaysia.

  27. As a Canadian, I like the idea of living/working in Oz or NZ, and even like the idea of more of them in Canada. Not crazy about Australian Rules football, though. So, some pluses, some minuses.

  28. A silly idea. No natural trading advantages. Australia and NZ are competitors in some cases. Our interests lie with heavily populated, resource hungry countries – both on the pacific and the atlantic.

  30. Are you crazy?! Australian Rules Football is brilliant! Wish it were televised here more frequently.
    As a U.S.’er here, I like the idea of a UK heritage alliance. In reality these superb countries, and we are too, have bought too much into PC. Our cultures have diverged over the centuries. Seeing especially the Aussies go down the tubes is heartbreaking. Remember, they had beach rapes, et al., which their media covered up. Canada had honor killings. Suspect the U.K. is enjoying its last gasp of relevance before the muzzies start dismantling monuments along with government. And the U.S. will fall soon after! I am truly grateful to be old.

  31. This is a proposal made to appease the Media Party with some of the usual Anti-USA BS that masquerades as “moral probity” in Ottawa. “D@mn Americans, I hate those b@st@rds.”
    It is hard to see how free trade with two countries that are literally as far away from Canada as you can get will be a Big Win for our economy.
    Britain is a wreck. They need oil, but they need to buy it from someplace that’s not on the other side of the Atlantic. They don’t make things in Britain any more, the same as they don’t make things in Hamilton Ontario anymore, and for the same reasons. Debt, unionized labor cost, energy cost, taxes, regulation.
    Meanwhile, the Liberals continue to play cute with the one thing we have that everybody wants: oil.
    Free trade with the USA is it, baby. Free trade with Oz is a nice gesture and all, but it’s hard to ship a car from Sidney Australia to Sidney Nova Scotia, know what I mean?

  33. Reaction here is a bit over the top. The US is and will continue to be our major trading partner, but that is no reason to ignore bi-lateral or multi-lateral deals with the (hopefully soon) independent UK and the Australians and Kiwis. Indeed, a deal with New Zealand on dairy might just be a small poke in the eye to “supply management” crowd.
    Under Stephen Harper, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand cooperated nicely with one another and, collectively, with the USA on military matters. As in so many aspects of government, Mr Harper tended to do small, achievable things that made Canada a better place to live. It was often not enough to suit me, or done quickly enough to suit me, (and it wasn’t flashy enough to provoke a swoon), but it fulfilled the mandate he was given. I don’t think that this plan is likely to push Mr “Vote for Me Second!” O’Toole into the leadership, but we should not ignore these other parliamentary democracies.

  34. Does anyone think that Canada in this situation might…I don’t know…absolutely hemorrhage millions of people?
    Despite the romance of being a nation of immigrants, Canada could barely grow for the first few hundred years. Some loyalists came north in 1776 and then hardly any growth until 1890 when the United States claimed the West was Won! and sealed the borders and stopped the free flow of people.
    Before this, Canada would lose 2 people to the U.S. for every 1 that showed up to live in Canada. Only because birthrates were massive did Canada not wither away. It wasn’t until Laurier came around and adopted the ‘populate or perish’ program of immigration by funneling millions of eastern Europeans into Western Canada that the whole, “We are a nation of immigrants” thing really became mythology.
    So anyway…
    If you were a young person and could freely move to Australia and work or study, wouldn’t you rather just go do that? Why stay here and freeze your ass off for 8 months of the year? The U.K. as well…way nicer weather and cooler cosmopolitan cities like London with more history and a bigger economy.
    Canada would see it’s population drop by four or five million people in the course of a decade.

  36. oa515 >
    “Canada would see it’s population drop by four or five million people in the course of a decade.”
    Damned. You sold me on it already. If we ensure Australia maintains a more “beneficial” welfare system we could loose millions of deadbeats overnight!
    Where do we sign up?

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