CANZUK International - "merger" of UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand

[khabibulin]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

Sadly, that will never happen. Many Canadians despise the US and spend a considerable amount of their free time complaining about the US. It's a national pastime.

And yet in 2016 (with its relatively low Canadian dollar) there were almost 20 million visits by Canadians to the US, comprising of almost 200 million overnight stays. And this number is down from the recent dollar parity years like 2013 which saw 23.4 million visits and 238 million overnight stays.

Yet you make a blanket statement that many Canadians despise the US?

[wg_flamip]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

its easy but there is an age restriction, i believe the cut off is 27. AFAIK Ireland had the oldest age that one could do a working holiday at 35. A guy i knew was too old to do it for a lot of countries he looked into and only ireland had a program he was able to do, he was about 33 at the time.

IIRC, the cut off for most of the work holiday visas available to Canadians is 30. I believe it's 35 for Germany as well.

[bless-u]

I am all for embracing the motherland again and strengthening the social and economic ties between commonwealth countries provided whatever issues the UK is having with the EU wouldn't be dragged into this new alliance. It'd have to be a clean start. I suspect it'd probably be less problematic than NAFTA. Global competition is getting more and more severe especially in view of the challenges coming from emerging economies. Having a combined strength with similar countries can't be a bad thing IMHO. That's what the EU is trying hard to achieve with European countries. Goodness sake, we still have the portrait of Her Majesty the Queen on our money. So why not go for it?

[balletomane]

The more I've read about this, the more I think I'd be open to supporting it (should this become a political issue in the future - Andrew Scheer has apparently expressed support for CANZUK so I wonder if this proposal could get more publicity come 2019).
It isn't so much an EU like proposal, as there is no common currency, etc. I guess it's somewhere in between NAFTA and EU integration.

My biggest worry would be a "brain drain", say Canadians leaving for Australia due to the warmer climate , but I suspect overall this would be a minority.

Link to their website:
http://www.canzukinternational.com

[MolsonExport]

Sounds ridiculous. How about joining into a union with France, Belgium, and a few other countries where French is widely spoken?

Personally i would love to see Canada join the EU, but that will never happen, so why pine away for it?

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by balletomane

My biggest worry would be a "brain drain", say Canadians leaving for Australia due to the warmer climate , but I suspect overall this would be a minority.

I think if CANZUK ever came to pass, that you would see a lot of Canadian youth heading abroad for extended work periods and/or vacations. Whether this would lead to a permanent brain drain however is debatable. I think most Canadians would return home for their permanent careers.

It also wouldn't be a one way street. Australians in particular are world travellers, and I think an opportunity to live and work abroad for them could be quite appealing.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by balletomane

The more I've read about this, the more I think I'd be open to supporting it (should this become a political issue in the future - Andrew Scheer has apparently expressed support for CANZUK so I wonder if this proposal could get more publicity come 2019).
It isn't so much an EU like proposal, as there is no common currency, etc. I guess it's somewhere in between NAFTA and EU integration.

My biggest worry would be a "brain drain", say Canadians leaving for Australia due to the warmer climate , but I suspect overall this would be a minority.

Link to their website:
http://www.canzukinternational.com

Well, if you look at the U.S. the northern states have taken a hit to the benefit of the Sunbelt but it hasn't been fatal and many northern metros and states are still very dynamic. And Sunbelt locales are often only a half-day or a day's drive away from northern ones. Whereas Australia is half a world away.

Pretty sure most Canadians would stay put under that scenario.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I think if CANZUK ever came to pass, that you would see a lot of Canadian youth heading abroad for extended work periods and/or vacations. Whether this would lead to a permanent brain drain however is debatable. I think most Canadians would return home for their permanent careers.

It also wouldn't be a one way street. Australians in particular are world travellers, and I think an opportunity to live and work abroad for them could be quite appealing.

They would totally take over Whistler. Aussies everywhere.

[ssiguy]

I can see some of the advantages of the free movement of labour but that's about it.

Considering the cultural ties, we do remarkable little trade with any of these countries. Australia' s primary export is raw materials of which we need none, NZ's are most agricultural again of little use to us as almost all our tropical food needs already come from California and Mexico, and our British trade includes little manufacturing and no energy exports at all. In short, I don't see the point.


I don't think most Canadians {although I would like to hear more French Canadian opinions} would really care one way or another. I say concentrate on joining the EU with free movement of labour but keep the CDN$ as have many EU countries kept their own currencies. I think Canadians {especially Ont/Que.Atl} would far prefer Ottawa join the EU as opposed to this TPP.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I can see some of the advantages of the free movement of labour but that's about it.

Considering the cultural ties, we do remarkable little trade with any of these countries. Australia' s primary export is raw materials of which we need none, NZ's are most agricultural again of little use to us as almost all our tropical food needs already come from California and Mexico, and our British trade includes little manufacturing and no energy exports at all. In short, I don't see the point.


I don't think most Canadians {although I would like to hear more French Canadian opinions} would really care one way or another. I say concentrate on joining the EU with free movement of labour but keep the CDN$ as have many EU countries kept their own currencies. I think Canadians {especially Ont/Que.Atl} would far prefer Ottawa join the EU as opposed to this TPP.

Moving closer to the EU would likely be more tangibly beneficial than CANZUK, it's true.

[MonctonRad]

I would have no objection to Canada joining the EU, but an EU without the UK is less appealing than an EU with the UK.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I think if CANZUK ever came to pass, that you would see a lot of Canadian youth heading abroad for extended work periods and/or vacations. Whether this would lead to a permanent brain drain however is debatable. I think most Canadians would return home for their permanent careers.

It also wouldn't be a one way street. Australians in particular are world travellers, and I think an opportunity to live and work abroad for them could be quite appealing.

Tens if not hundreds of thousands of Canadians either have or are eligible to have UK citizenship and I don't see them pouring into the UK? I'm not sure why that would suddenly change.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I would have no objection to Canada joining the EU, but an EU without the UK is less appealing than an EU with the UK.

Though either of those are still more appealling than hitching your wagon to "a UK that's not part of the EU"!

[Innsertnamehere]

Right now to work in the US you need an employee sponsored visa. Easy to get if you can find a gainfully employed position in the US with an employer willing to sponsor. This is still limiting however. For example, I have a friend who's boyfriend is working in San Francisco currently. She is looking for a job in public health, what she went to school for. In the mean time however, she cannot move to San Fran and work, say, a waitressing job. She can't go unless she can find a position in which the employer is willing to sponsor, which a waitressing job wouldn't allow. If you had a year long "work for free without a sponsor", she could go down, get a waitressing job, and have a year to find something "real". In the mean time she is stuck in Ontario while trying to remotely search from 5,000km away.

[Capsicum]

Do Canadians really want a union specifically that excludes the US, in favor of forging stronger ties with the other countries though, or it is another one of those token "let's define ourselves in contrast to the US" kind of thing, with not much of a leg to stand on.

As discussed in many conversations in this forum's various threads, and even in general real life conversations, Canadians often try as hard as possible to distance the country's identity from the US, but at the end of the day still follow US media much more than any other country, and don't really "walk the walk" by paying attention to and picking up non-US ideas, culture, media, trends etc.

We still act as if US issues are Canadian issues, as if the US world is our domestic world. It seems we like the "idea" of being more worldly, more British, more European etc. than the US more than actually going out of our way to be that way. Only Quebec or French Canada has actually gone out of its way to catch up with European/France's/overseas cultural influence. Other Canadians seem to only pay attention to the world if they have immigration ties/family ties to certain places.

I don't mind Canada looking towards more non-US countries, but I hope it's more genuine interest in reconnecting to the rest of the world and not just symbolic.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

Do Canadians really want a union specifically that excludes the US, in favor of forging stronger ties with the other countries though, or it is another one of those token "let's define ourselves in contrast to the US" kind of thing, with not much of a leg to stand on.

As discussed in many conversations in this forum's various threads, and even in general real life conversations, Canadians often try as hard as possible to distance the country's identity from the US, but at the end of the day still follow US media much more than any other country, and don't really "walk the walk" by paying attention to and picking up non-US ideas, culture, media, trends etc.

We still act as if US issues are Canadian issues, as if the US world is our domestic world. It seems we like the "idea" of being more worldly, more British, more European etc. than the US more than actually going out of our way to be that way. Only Quebec or French Canada has actually gone out of its way to catch up with European/France's/overseas cultural influence. Other Canadians seem to only pay attention to the world if they have immigration ties/family ties to certain places.

I don't mind Canada looking towards more non-US countries, but I hope it's more genuine interest in reconnecting to the rest of the world and not just symbolic.

As I said up the thread: there is Canada how it is, and Canada how it sees itself/would like to be. CANZUK is the latter at play.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Tens if not hundreds of thousands of Canadians either have or are eligible to have UK citizenship and I don't see them pouring into the UK? I'm not sure why that would suddenly change.

Anyone with a UK-born parent has the automatic right to UK citizenship without restriction; while those with UK-born grandparents go through a much-simplified process for visas.

Ireland is even more generous; anyone with a parent OR grandparent born anywhere on the island of Ireland (regardless of whether its the Republic or Northern Ireland) has the automatic right to Irish citizenship without restriction. This right can even extend to great-grandchildren of the Irish born provided the first generation who left Ireland registered their foreign-born child in the Irish government's registry of foreign births.

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I can see some of the advantages of the free movement of labour but that's about it.

Considering the cultural ties, we do remarkable little trade with any of these countries. Australia' s primary export is raw materials of which we need none, NZ's are most agricultural again of little use to us as almost all our tropical food needs already come from California and Mexico, and our British trade includes little manufacturing and no energy exports at all. In short, I don't see the point.


I don't think most Canadians {although I would like to hear more French Canadian opinions} would really care one way or another. I say concentrate on joining the EU with free movement of labour but keep the CDN$ as have many EU countries kept their own currencies. I think Canadians {especially Ont/Que.Atl} would far prefer Ottawa join the EU as opposed to this TPP.

I remember watching a CBC marketplace show a while back and New Zealand supplied a lot of dairy products that were used in Canada to make ice cream products.

[thurmas]

This might be the dumbest post I have seen on this forum yet. What next vanwintorfax a merger of Vancouver Winnipeg Toronto and Halifax?

[SpongeG]

you can sign the petition, Its been going around facebook the last week or so

they are up to 218,000+ so far

https://www.change.org/p/parliaments-of-...ntrol&utm_term=share_facebook_responsive