David Clement: Importing the EU’s migration problems would be near impossible

When European Commission President Ursula von der Leyan used her State of the Union address to invite Canada to become the EU’s first ever “Associate Member,” Conservative critics were beating the immigration drum as soon as the news broke.

Conservative immigration critic Michele Rempel Garner warned that Canada risks importing Europe’s migration crisis through further integration, while MP Roman Baber argued that the EU is unable to control its borders and that Canada shouldn’t open our borders to the EU. Even Pierre Poilievre bundled the prospect of the visa-free travel and labour mobility with Europe’s migration issues suggesting that Brussels could have a say over Canadian immigration policy.

Canada replicating Europe’s migration woes would be concerning, but that concern doesn’t survive a quick look at a map of the world.

Europe’s migration strain has one structural cause that Canada can not replicate, because Canada has no land border with Europe, and is separated by thousands of kilometres of ocean. Geography, plain and simple, prevents a scenario where someone enters the Schengen zone and then enters Canada with no further checks. Canada could never join the Schengen Area because every EU member needs to approve it. That universal approval is why Romania and Bulgaria, despite being EU members since 2007, weren’t approved to fully join the Schengen until 2025. It taking nearly 20 years for two member states to join Schengen should be a dose of reality for anyone thinking that is possible for Canada.

Every single European resident entering Canada under the terms of whatever an “Associate Membership” means will have to, by virtue of geography and political reality, enter Canada via an official point of entry and through a Canada Border Services Agency checkpoint. There is no walking into Canada like there is between EU member states.

Those travelling to Canada from Europe, whether it be for study, tourism, or for a job, would still be screened by CBSA. Screening doesn’t magically disappear if a work permit exists, it happens at the airport as it always has, for the same traveler, carrying the same passport.

And, we’ve already tested what visa-free travel can look like with Europe, because citizens of any EU member state can already enter visa-free for stays up to six months, which has been in place for years. This has never resembled anything remotely close to a crisis because the Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA) and admissibility check never went away. Those Europeans just don’t need a visa stamped in advance. A labour mobility deal would change what a CBSA officer was authorized to approve, but it doesn’t remove the officer, the biometric check, or the port of entry standing between any traveller and Canadian soil.

A reciprocal labour mobility deal with Europe would allow for a Canadian company to recruit European tradespeople and professionals to fill holes in the labour force, but that prospective employee would still be processed through the same system for every other traveller to Canada. It would, on the flip side, give Canadians the opportunity to work anywhere from Lisbon to Helsinki without the hurdles of a work-visa or lottery system. None of the benefits from that openness require Canada to adopt EU migration policy, asylum rules, or border management because none of that governs how a person physically reaches Canada. One would think that it would be obvious that nothing decided in Brussels operates in place of the checkpoint at Pearson or Vancouver International Airport.

Setting aside the misguided grievances over EU immigration policies creeping into Canada, we shouldn’t just accept any deal Brussels puts in front of us, and it certainly shouldn’t become a backdoor on adopting EU law. If Canada were to, for example, follow the Norway Model with the EU we would be absorbing their single market laws with no vote or say on how those laws are written. The prime minister could not take that offer and erosion of decision making, while citing that type of erosion for the pullback from a deal with the Americans.

Any form of membership with the EU should, first and foremost, advance the free movement of goods alongside the opening of mobility. Freer trade with Europe coupled with increased mobility would be a win-win for both parties, so long as our trade reps insist that we are not a “rule taker” on regulatory matters.

For example, Canada shouldn’t adopt European style agricultural regulations. Our sector is internationally competitive precisely because we don’t follow Europe’s lead on policy. There are well documented reasons why farmers protested en masse throughout Europe in opposition to Brussels’ heavy hand. Canada as part of the EU, in any form, would be the bloc’s fourth largest economy only behind Germany, France and Italy. And, we produce more than five million barrels of oil per day, in comparison to less than half a million barrels for the entire EU.

Ottawa can and should flex its weight here to ensure that increased openness does not equal European rules and regulations, and that is what the Conservatives should be pressing on.

Free trade and mobility, without the Brussels bureaucracy, is where the real debate sits, not with migration woes we structurally can not inherit.

David Clement is the Policy Director at the Consumer Choice Center.