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It is natural for that class to be exasperated, and even natural for it to exaggerate the long-term effects — to paint a ludicrous apocalyptic vision of the U.K. losing the technical and moral leadership it enjoyed before there was an EU, and that Norway and Switzerland seem to have little trouble maintaining on the outside.

I just do not see why Canada, in particular, ought to swallow it. If we regard the EU so highly in this country, we might start imitating it, not by progressing toward continental union, but by applying its principles within our own national borders. Before Thursday night, the British probably had slightly stronger economic privileges in Germany or France than British Columbians do in Ontario. And this is the part of the Brexit that may actually hurt most in the medium term — the setback for a neo-liberal dream of zero transaction costs and harmonious regulatory standards.

On the whole, we willingly accept heavy tacit costs, every day, for living in an independent Canada. Many polite liberal intellectuals of the type now keening with fear for the Old Country, did not even want us to have a free-trade agreement with the United States, which mitigates those costs dramatically, and do not want us to conclude similar deals with any other country.

Even as a double standard, this is freakish. Canada, a colonial relic with one wealthy neighbour whose creation involved the elbowing aside of millions of aboriginal occupants, is a precious gem whose sovereignty can tolerate no dilution or tarnish. Britain, an aboriginal home still substantially in the hands of its aborigines, is insulting the heavens and calling eternal shame upon itself by asking for the status we enjoy unchallenged. If there are bigger hypocrites than us anywhere on the planet, I am not sure where to start looking for them.

National Post

