Josh Udall backs deeper EU trade but says closer alignment means giving up sovereignty
Josh UdallHost of The Elevate Report, a Canadian politics podcast and Substack, speaking on his own programme
On the September 16 episode of his podcast The Elevate Report, host Josh Udall opened with an extended sarcastic passage treating Ursula von der Leyen's associate-membership offer as another announcement without substance from Mark Carney, then set out his own position: he supports expanding trade with the European Union but objects to closer regulatory and cultural alignment, citing the digital trade agreement and recent EU lawmaking. After reading Pierre Poilievre's red lines on taxes, laws and immigration, Udall said there was nothing in them he disagreed with and that they were "spot on," and argued that pursuing closer ties the way the government appears to want would require giving up some sovereignty. His characterisations of Carney's record and of EU lawmaking are his own.
“Sure, I think deeper trade EU is great. If we can expand trade with them, awesome. … But to culturally get closer to them, that's what makes me nervous. This whole digital trade agreement, seeing what we've been seeing in the EU and the laws they've been trying to pass, no thank you. … There's nothing he said there that I disagree with. It's spot on. … So what does an associate membership really mean? Because it looks like you keep wanting to get closer to them. You're going to have to give up some type of sovereignty if you want to do it the way that you seem to want to be doing it.”
Analysis
Where this statement fits
Should Canada become an associate member of the European Union?
In her State of the European Union address on 16 September 2026, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she would like to work with Prime Minister Mark Carney on opening the door for Canada to be the first associate member of the European Union, as part of moving beyond the existing CETA trade agreement to what she called an Alliance for the Future. Carney, present as an invited guest, told the European Parliament the following day that Canada welcomes the ambition, while attributing the associate-member phrase to von der Leyen rather than adopting it, and promised debates and a vote in the Canadian Parliament on the final structure. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre set red lines against Canadians paying taxes to Brussels, following European laws they did not vote on, or adopting European immigration policy. United States President Donald Trump said that if he judged the arrangement a hostile act he would impose heavy tariffs on Europe or curtail trade. No agreement has been signed, and associate membership is not a status defined in the European Union's treaties.
Source and context
Analysis
About this source
Episode of The Elevate Report, a Canadian politics podcast and Substack, published to its YouTube channel on the morning of September 16, 2026, running 46:52. Host Josh Udall, identified as the publication's author on elevatereport.ca, opens with an extended sarcastic passage treating the associate-membership offer as another empty announcement from Mark Carney before setting out his own view. Much of the episode consists of him reading and reacting to other material, including a Financial Times report, a Sam Cooper post and Pierre Poilievre's statement of red lines; those passages are the other speakers' words, not Udall's. The quoted wording is our transcription of the audio.
Before the quotation
Udall opened the episode ironically — "We are a associate member of the EU. We're so back, baby" — listing recent Carney announcements he regards as achieving nothing for Canadians, and arguing there has been no focus on interprovincial trade barriers or Canadian identity. Before the quoted passage he said the EU side of the story showed deeper trade was the real content of the offer.
After the quotation
Udall read a post by journalist Sam Cooper asking whether special access could be obtained without giving up pieces of sovereignty, and cited a Financial Times report that in his account showed the EU was not enthusiastic about the idea. He closed by inviting listeners to send him social-media posts defending Carney's handling of the offer. The passages in which he reads Poilievre, Cooper and the Financial Times are those sources' words rather than his own.
How this statement is classified
The label describes this statement's response within the context above.
Why this label?
Udall combines materially different positions on it: he endorses deeper trade with the EU without qualification, while rejecting the regulatory and cultural convergence he believes the arrangement would entail and asserting it would cost sovereignty. That is the same shape as Pierre Poilievre (945), whose red lines Udall expressly adopts, and both are classified “Mixed or conditional”. The closest competing label is condemns, used here for Andrew Scheer (950), who rejects associate membership outright as a sovereignty question; it loses because Udall's "no thank you" is directed at cultural and legal alignment specifically, immediately after he calls expanded trade "great" and "awesome," so he does not reject the arrangement as such.
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- Mark Carney
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The Dispute Index. "Josh Udall backs deeper EU trade but says closer alignment means giving up sovereignty". First published: 2026-09-17. Last updated: 2026-09-22. https://disputeindex.com/events/964-on-the-september-16-episode-of-his-podcast