Easiest example one would be we build cars to North American standards and don't allow imports of European standard cars
Accepting European standards on a lot of things would be a good first step in opening ourselves up to more trade with the EU. It probably wouldn't change much on the car front as a lot of European brands are under larger umbrella brands that already operate here so it isn't likely they add competition for themselves in Canada.
We got fat, happy, and lazy using our proximity to the US. A slip in our standard of living and we're waking up to why having a strong economy matters. You cannot support our standard of living without one. I use to not care about the economy because things were good for me, what did I care that the GDP wasn't going up. Skip ahead if you don't want to ready me digressing about my Canadian Capitalism epiphany...
I had a good job, a house, and car. Except, that individualistic thinking eventually catches up to you and the bill for your standard of living comes due. In the form of deteriorating public services. I've realized our standard of living in Canada costs money, public money. We are not the USA, the invisible hand doesn't work here like it does there. We accept higher taxes for public services rather than relying on a higher wage and more purchasing power making up for what we'd lose in public services. The problem is, if our wages are not growing and our economy is not generating more money that is taxed to support our public services, those public services slip (like they have, directly affecting our standard of living). In a sense, it is Canadian to do more with less, what I mean is being smarter and working hard to do the same amount of work as our contemporaries. When I was in the military we had one person doing the job of three American military personnel. Using the mentality that it is the people who figure out how to work simply in the present, rather than the people who mastered complexity of the past, who get to say what happens in the future. We need to be better at working simply in our *new* present.
Unfortunately, our Grand Bargain means making some deals with the devil, everyone else is taking care of themselves, we cannot sideline ourselves by being too virtuous. We should be trading as much as we can with the US, China, India, and others. I think you also have more power to be virtuous when you're working with the devil because at least you have something to bargain with.
