When Donald Trump threatened to tariff Canada and said if we Canadians don’t like it Canada can become the 51st state, my wife’s reaction was: “Oh yeah? How about you become the 11th Canadian province?”
There are two strong reasons for doing so, neither, unfortunately, yet recognized by international law: 1) Cultural/political; 2) Geographic/glaciological.
Some states want to be Canadian
First, the cultural/political. Trump did win the popular vote by a razor thin margin. But a large percentage of those who voted for him were not really voting for him as much as they were voting against the horrific Harris.
The states that voted Democrat would prefer to be governed by Canada where, among other benefits, everyone is entitled to free, high quality health care.
Conveniently, these are mostly along the West Coast and the Eastern Seaboard down to Virginia, so easily incorporated into Canada. Indeed, the northernmost of these already share a border with Canada.
Canada should surreptitiously send subversive provocateurs, whom we would call liberation agents, to these states to encourage holding referenda in which citizens would vote whether or not to secede from the U.S. and join Canada.
Even if a state voted to remain within the United States, important cities within it could secede from the state to join Canada. Who can doubt that if the Royal Canadian Navy (what little there is of it) were to sail up the East Rivuh, the FDR Parkway would be full of Manhattanites waving Canadian flags? If it entered Chesapeake Bay the banks of the Potomac River would be lined with people cheering it all the way to Washington.
Our Navy would be greeted by millions if it anchored in San Francisco Bay, Puget Sound or Boston Harbor. In Miami it would find three quarters of the population already holding Canadian passports (provided it arrived in winter.)
The response would be so overwhelming that we may even have to rethink our welcoming immigration policy, best described as “Let ’em in first; ask questions later.” Sure, it would be great to acquire the Rembrandts in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the planes and rockets in the Air and Space Museum in D.C. and all the masterpieces in the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. But do we really need that dictatorship infested U.N. Building and Trump Tower?
Similarly, before anschlussing (annexing) Berkeley and San Francisco we should have a national discussion about whether we want all those privileged, white Democrats sitting around in coffee shops engaged in conversation about whether decolonization of their art museum may not have gone too far, while expressing displeasure over uppity baristas who, when told to faintly sprinkle a soupcon of cinnamon over the foam of the latte, “Just handed me the cinnamon shaker with a why don’t you do it yourself gesture! I mean is this woman for real? And does she like seriously expect a tip?”
Some states already are Canadian
Second, the geographic/glaciological. This brings us to the large amount of Republican red you see on 2024 electoral maps that is in between the two coasts, otherwise known as “the flyover states.” They would not likely vote to join Canada.
It doesn’t matter. The fact is that during successive ice ages, glaciers pushed our Canadian topsoil over the border, depositing it in what would later become the flyover states. What states like the Dakotas, Nebraska and Oklahoma have to understand is that they are already on Canadian soil. And since they exist on Canadian soil they are now, applying your president’s own principles, already Canadian.
So, speaking as a Canadian, I would give him a choice. One: you dig up the top two feet of soil in all your Republican voting flyover states, load it into dump trucks or freight cars and dump it on the northern side of the 49th parallel;
Or two: save yourself the trouble and just sign over all the states that consist of Canadian soil lent to you during the ice ages. Moving the border from the 49th to, let’s call it, the 39th parallel.
He could hardly object to the second choice since it is the same rationale he himself used to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. If the Gulf of Mexico should be called the Gulf of America because it is part of the continental shelf of the U.S., how much stronger is the argument that the northern half of the U.S. should be called Canada because it sits on Canadian soil?
Murray Teitel works in Toronto as a barrister and has written commentary and art criticism for many publications.
First Published: January 30, 2025, 10:30 a.m.