EU will not grant ‘associate member’ title to Canada: sources

This idea of associate membership has been dropped from this draft statement. This instead talks about this idea of an ever closer association between Canada and the European Union. A source speaking on background said that one of the key issues was that there were several countries that were quite opposed to the idea of this associate membership for Canada, most notably Germany, which said that this was a red line for them. It's important to note, though, that this is a draft. statement. There have been different versions that have kind of leaked out over the last few weeks, but this is getting very close to the summit. So we can expect that this will be quite close to what we see initially published. This associate membership term has been floated around since last month when Prime Minister Mark Carney went to Strasbourg, France to address the European Parliament. But he himself has been quite reluctant to use that term, saying that for him, it's the substance that matters more than an actual title. It doesn't matter about specific names or nomenclature, what matters is the difference that it will make to lives of Canadians, young Canadians in terms of opportunities to study, work and travel, our Canadian businesses in terms of new opportunities, Canadian researchers in terms of depth of opportunity, and Canada as a whole becoming a more independent, more sovereign nation so we can live our lives as we choose it.