Politics
Carney Announces Plan To Protect Canada From America Using Belgium
By Mor Michael, . BSN Network. Satire.
Prime Minister Mark Carney stood before the international community this week and announced, with the full confidence of a man who has thought this through, that the best way to protect Canada from the United States is to get very close to Europe.
The proposal, described by Carney's office as a "historic realignment of transatlantic partnership," calls for deeper military cooperation, trade integration, and what one senior official called "a shared commitment to the rules-based international order," which is diplomat-speak for a group chat where everyone agrees in principle and nobody does anything by Thursday.
The specific mechanism for defending Canadian sovereignty has not been fully detailed. What is known is that it involves the European Union, a body of 27 member states that required six years to agree on olive oil labeling and is currently running its fourth consecutive emergency summit on something that was supposed to be resolved in 2019.
Carney addressed reporters with the measured calm of someone explaining a very good idea to people who have not yet understood it. "Canada is not a client state," he said. "Canada is a sovereign nation with sovereign rights, and we intend to exercise those rights in full coordination with our European partners, pending ratification, implementation review, and the standard 18-month phased consultation process."
Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, issued a statement calling the development "a landmark moment for the democratic world," before departing for a previously scheduled four-day recess.
Analysts were divided. Some called the move a shrewd pivot away from American economic dependence, noting that Canada sends roughly 77 percent of its exports to the United States, a figure that the new EU alliance will not, in the near term, change at all. Others pointed out that the EU's collective defense commitments are legally non-binding and that France has historically interpreted "collective" to mean "everyone agrees with France."
Gordon Lightfoot, who is deceased and therefore unavailable for comment, would have had thoughts.
Donald Trump, asked about the announcement at a press availability in Florida, said Canada was "always doing something" and that Europe was "a mess, frankly, a beautiful mess, but a mess," before pivoting to a seventeen-minute discussion of golf course drainage.
In Brussels, officials confirmed they were "warmly receptive" to the Canadian proposal and would be forming a working group to study its feasibility. The working group is expected to deliver preliminary findings no earlier than the second quarter of 2027, assuming the group can agree on a meeting format, which it currently cannot.
Back in Ottawa, Carney's office released a four-page summary of the alliance's strategic objectives, which included the phrase "robust multilateral architecture" eleven times and the word "sovereignty" twenty-three times, once in bold.
The summary did not mention Belgium specifically. Belgium does not need to be mentioned. Belgium is simply there, as it always has been, holding everything together, waiting to be useful, bearing the quiet dignity of a country that exists primarily to house the headquarters of organizations that cannot agree on where else to put them.
Canada, according to the plan, will now shelter under that dignity.
A sovereignty shield built from committee minutes and extremely good waffles is still a shield.
The story we are making fun of: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-17/carney-calls-on-closer-canada-eu-alliance-to-defend-sovereignty