Since the election, many people have been suggesting a redrawing of the American-Canadian border where blue states would be annexed by Canada. Some favourites:
United States of Canada and Jesusland
Canada 2.0
I could get behind a plan like this. The Toronto Sun thinks so too:
…if a signifcant number of Americans should choose to go a different route — a northern route — we’d be hard pressed to say no.
And if such great states as New York, California, Washington, Pennsylvania and Hawaii actually wanted to become Canadian provinces, well, who are we to argue?
Yesterday, Howard Gensler of the Philadelphia Daily News brilliantly argued exactly that, in an eloquent call for the so-called “blue states” — i.e., all those that backed Democrat John Kerry — to join Canada.
Yes, join Canada — not annex us. We’d annex them. The blue states are all contiguous to our border and/or to one another, so the new border could be smoothly drawn.
The blue-staters would gain acceptance for their more liberal views here in the land of free health care and soon-to-be-legal gay marriage and marijuana. And we’d get New York City, Los Angeles, California wine country, a host of world-class cultural institutions and a raft of great sports teams (the Grey Cup would never be the same).
Again, to be clear, this is not an anti-American thing. This idea comes from an American, from Philadelphia, the birthplace of America, for crying out loud.
We would remind the would-be immigrants, though, that they’d also better be prepared to live with higher taxes, gun control, bilingualism and no Fox News.
Then again, as Kerry supporters, they probably think those are all good things. And hey, with an additional 50-odd million people, our economy can only get better. Not to mention our military and our business sector.
We’d have freer movement of softwood lumber and cattle, and Toronto could trash in Michigan without worrying about the border closing. And we’d be a superpower!
We’d miss our friends in the American South, of course, and Florida — but we’d still visit as always.
After our vacation in the province of Hawaii, of course.
Honestly, with an offer like that, how could we refuse?
Indeed, how could we?