Canada’s timely pact

When it starts taking effect next month, the Canada-European Union trade accord will be more than just another international economic pact. It will be a cry for trans-Atlantic unity, a defiant stand against the sinister populist and isolationist winds buffeting the world today.

The EU’s trade commissioner, Cecilia Malmstrom, underlined the accord’s importance in Ottawa last week when she commended the Canadian government for favouring open borders instead of closed ones and working with, not against, other nations.

This is a timely message and Malmstrom had no trouble identifying the dangerous forces she sees.

She cited the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, last year’s Brexit vote that will take the United Kingdom out of the EU, and the upcoming French presidential elections in which one of the leading candidates, Marine Le Pen, plans to pull France out of the EU.

With all the uncertainty hanging over the future of Canada’s trade partnership with America, the prospect of increasing Canadian trade with Europe is welcome.

The fact that the negotiations for the Canada-EU trade pact were started by Stephen Harper’s Conservatives and completed by Justin Trudeau’s Liberals demonstrates its broad political support in Canada.

But as Malmstrom insists, this accord is also saying something vital to the international community: The populist tide can be turned back.

And despite all the forces trying to pull the world apart, Canada and the European Union are doing their best to hold it together.