Canada Revisited

 

Thought I’d posted about this back in April. Come to find out, I’d done the research, compiled the reference materials, and then failed to do the writing and posting part. It happens. The graphic above is from a post I did in Dec ‘24 called Am I the Only One Who’s Noticed This?, which concluded that the idea of Canada as a 51st state was unworkable. The biggest obstacle was Canada’s population, which approximately equals California’s, heavily concentrated in the eastern provinces. The addition of two Democrat senators might be manageable, but the damage in the House of Representatives, all those Laborite stooges with a House membership pushing 40 would be catastrophic. I concluded Trump was getting their attention before the serious trade renegotiations began.

It was possible to see by the time trade talks started in earnest that the Canadian government was as backward and out of touch as the Biden administration and that not all of Canada was content to do as they as they usually do, which is just shrug and drink more beer, that’s when some observers began to glimpse the possibility of an ulterior Trump motive no one had divined before. 

There were some maps published that looked like this: 

The interesting part was not Quebec, which has always been a half-assed, constantly petulant troublemaker in the Canadian body politic. They have the worst French accents I’ve ever heard, ugly even, and their political positions are based more on contrarian vanity than reason. The provinces people were starting to take seriously were Alberta and Saskatchewan, which have always seemed dull and forgettable, except that they were really fed up with the politics of the Newsom-esque Trudeau. There was impressive talk about secession. Not necessarily with joining the United States, mind, but enough to turn the whole Canadian political equilibrium upside down.

When I noticed that no one seemed to be offering up a map that looked like this one I decided to draw it up. 

Not much left without half the population, is there?

This is a different kettle of fish. This is what Canada would look like without Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Quebec. Why without Quebec? They keep getting outvoted when they try to secede, which they attempt regularly. Who could guarantee that now? What’s the advantage to staying in what would clearly be a wholly owned economic chattel of the United States even if gossamer shreds of Maple Leaf sovereignty still clung to the corpse of Britain’s last colony?

I suppose I moved on without exploring the possibilities further because Trump’s early demands seemed to be achieving their interim goals of making the lunkheaded government accept his conditions one at a time with reluctance but no effective countermove. Through time, however, as the border issue became more visible, it also became clear that Canada had not just been a passive bystander in the assault on American sovereignty but an active accomplice. They had participated in the smuggling of undesirables and Chinese drugs across the border into the United States. The tone of the trade talks changed. And now it has reached confrontational levels that may cause the more fragile pieces of the equation to break. Namely, various Canadian pieces.

What if Alberta and Saskatchewan and even British Columbia see a huge economic opportunity in becoming states of the union? They could attract American business investment and plenty of citizens disenchanted with the Ottawa-style governments of Minnesota, Washington, and Michigan. They could (gasp) get rich American-style!

Okay. Probably won’t happen. The necessary pieces might not be within reach on the board yet, but isn’t that what multi-dimensional chess is all about? The game is not just what happens on the flat, geometrical squares of the board. It’s what happens through time in the three-dimensional realm of aspiration, gamesmanship, and unexpected tactics. Reward is the benefit of risks confidently, and wisely, accepted.

Hi Canada!