Canadian author says Brexit "inevitable"

A Canadian author said Monday the Britain's vote to exit the European Union, though stunning, may have been "inevitable."

"Brexit has a lot of parallels to the Protestant Reformation, which is the revolution -- political and religious -- that Martin Luther launched 500 years ago next year which broke Europe into Catholic and Protestant halves," Chris Kutarna told CTV News in an interview from Regina, Canada.

"(That) didn't tell us that Brexit had to happen, but (it) certainly made it easier for us to imagine that it could happen," said Kutarna, co-author of "Age of Discovery: Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Our New Renaissance" published in May 2016.

On June 23, Britons shocked the world by voting to leave the EU, becoming the first country to leave the bloc since its inception after World War II.

In "Age of Discovery," Kutarna and co-author Ian Goldin explore how history can help people navigate and predict the turbulent times.

Despite the tumult across the Atlantic, Kutarna believes that the European Union will continue to exist and thrive.

"I think people waking up this morning in the capitals of Europe, one thing they absolutely do believe now is that the EU can be radically reshaped," the University of Oxford scholar said.

"A lot of people still believe that there are positives to be pulled out of a connected and open Europe and it's up to them now to demonstrate to the wider European public that those positives are going to reach them," said Kutarna, who have lived in China for several years, and speaks Mandarin.

He remains a regular op-ed contributor to one of China's top-ranked news magazines.

Meanwhile, in the wake of the referendum, which saw 52 percent of voters opt to leave the EU, some Britons surfed the Internet to see how to move to Canada.

Google trends data, the number of people in the UK typing "move to Canada" in their search engines surged Friday, the day after the vote. Endit