Carney says Canada welcomes the ambition without adopting the associate-member label
Prime Minister of Canada, addressing the European Parliament
“Yesterday, President von der Leyen spoke of moving beyond CETA to an alliance for the future – opening the door to Canada becoming the European Union’s first associate member. Canada welcomes this ambition – polling shows an overwhelming majority of Canadians support much closer ties with Europe.” … “I want to be precise about what I am not proposing. I am not proposing a third bloc in order to become a great-power rival – only with better manners.” … “We are pursuing resilience so that no one can control our open markets, impair our sovereignty, threaten our territorial integrity, or undermine our freedoms, our democracies, our rule of law.”
Source and context
Official statement
About this source
The Prime Minister's Office transcript of Mark Carney's address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on 17 September 2026, the day after von der Leyen's proposal. Carney attributes the associate-member phrase to von der Leyen rather than adopting it, and the separate PMO readout of their meeting avoids the term entirely. Wire copy rendering his sovereignty passage as "no country could control Canada's markets" does not match this transcript, which reads "no one" and "our", and omits his references to territorial integrity, democracies and the rule of law.
Before the quotation
Von der Leyen had made the proposal the previous day with Carney present as her invited guest. Canada and the European Union already trade under CETA and agreed a Strategic Partnership Agreement in June 2026.
After the quotation
At a news conference the same day Carney said there would be debates and a vote in the Canadian Parliament on the final structure of the alliance, and that the process was at the start of a road. No motion, text or date exists. An EU-Canada summit follows in Montreal on 29 and 30 October 2026.
How this statement is classified
Case context: Should Canada become an associate member of the European Union?
The label describes this statement’s response within the context above.
Why this label?
Relative to whether Canada should become an associate member of the European Union, Carney welcomes the proposal and commits his government to pursuing it, which supports the proposition. The closest competing label is mixed_or_conditional, and it is a genuine question here, because he welcomes von der Leyen's “ambition” rather than the label itself, his office's readout of their meeting avoids the term, and he has promised a parliamentary vote on the final structure. Those are qualifications about scope and process rather than conditions on his own support, which is why this stays a defence. An editor may reasonably disagree.
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Should Canada become an associate member of the European Union?
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