Yes, Canada is Probably For Sale

Just Castreau drove us to this historical juncture; but borders change, as does climate

In the decade that our ultra-woke PM has wielded power, we’ve fallen hard from our former favourable status in the world. Long gone are the days when Americans travelling abroad stitched Canadian flags to their backpacks to enjoy the special welcome that symbol elicited in foreign lands.

As far as ‘national identity’ goes; it kind of died for me in 1965 with the ditching of our cozy Union Jack flag, for the stripped-down corporate logo-resembling red/white nothingness. Even if they’d made the borders navy blue it would have been much better, as they were meant to signify the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans that Canada straddles. But no, to satisfy Quebec’s resentment of the Red Ensign (that marked us as part of the British Commonwealth) we got the closest thing they could bring us to China’s communist flag. We didn’t get to vote on it, and no one (that I knew) liked the history-erasing signifier.

From 1880 to 1940, our dollar stayed more or less on par with that of the US, but ever since then we’ve lagged ever further behind. (chart: https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/appendixc.pdf) Today, one US dollar costs Canadians $1.44. This is not a good trajectory.

So, President Trump’s bombshell teaser that Canada should become the US’ “51st State” has been received rather more positively than what might have been expected. The great majority of us detest the PM (to put it mildly) and wanted him out before the last election that gave him his second, profoundly undeserved victory (thanks to our flawed electoral system and a good measure of rigging).

Now, of course I do have trepidations over what it would actually look and feel like to be absorbed into America’s Manifest Destiny project. There would/will most likely be ‘unintended consequences’ but would they outweigh the potential for good that could come of such unification? It’s a big question.

My favourite Canadian news guy on Youtube, “Clyde Do Something” made a video yesterday (10 minutes) that perfectly summed up the situation, with his usual sense of humour (that’s how we spell it here!). Clyde is unbiased as a dual citizen, but brings out the salient points that suggest some sort of new arrangement might be desirable (first two minutes are spent congratulating Trump on his Ukraine-Russia peace deal):

If you don’t have time to watch, here’s his final take-away:

[ … ] a lot of Canadians are looking at this, like; ‘can we ever see justice in this country?’ It's become so corrupted — so part of the Communist Chinese regime that it doesn't look like we're going to get anywhere unless an outside force comes in and does something. So a lot of Canadians are looking at this as a way of liberating the Canadian people of a corrupt regime.

Now does that mean we need to be part of the United States, or just do we need some sort of outside force to come in and say hey let's clean up uh what's going on in Canada? Should Canada become the 51st state; should there be broker deals between the different provinces and the United States; should the US crack down on the corruption and, uh, what we largely have become — which is a narco-state Canada?

Well, what do you think? I’m really interested to hear from readers on both sides of the border, as well as from elsewhere.