It is bothersome, though not surprising, that the ‘Canada issue’ has not been addressed by presidential candidates in America for decades. This issue presents a number of obvious problems and a single (equally obvious) solution for them all.
We at JIPW have been advocating the takeover of Canada since the latter part of the last century, and recent developments have only made us more confident. Notwithstanding, however, we have found the issue to be an emotionally and politically charged one.
Reader, before you continue, you must take note that I am a Minnesotan, whose father and his father before him were born in Canada; and who has many Canadian relatives. It is commonly known that ‘Duecks’ are as plentiful in Winnepeg as ‘Johnsons’ in the St. Paul. Canada and America have an entanglement of fate comparable to that of England and France in the days of the Plantaganets. In attaining Canada we do not make ourselves the enemy and despiser of it, but we love Canada such that we would have it all ours.
The decidedly simple editors of our contemporary publications, such as the Pequod Lake Conifer and Gazette have raised the question of how assimilation of Canada could be in the best interests of our prosperous Republic. First, as a matter of human compassion, we ought to feel compelled to save the Canadian citizens from their arguably socialist government and failed economy. Their dollar is worth roughly half of its robust American equivelant, and the majority of their money is fed, via heavy taxes, into a half-baked nationalized health-care system as well as a ponderous number of other foolish programs.
The truth is, Canada has shot itself in the foot and is in desperate need of help. Consider the resident Frenchmen who, through a fluke in the Canadian system of representation, enjoy an unfair leverage in matters of State. This has produced in them no end of arrogance, and they stubbornly try to subvert the spread of the English language through stupid legislation. It was reported not long since that a man could not, without heavy fines, place a sign exclusively in English on his storefront. All signs, down to a piece of cardboard with ‘OPEN’ written in marker, must be in English and French. And additionally, people have to deal with all sorts of beeheaded regulations involving the relative sizes of the letters, and so on. The whole nation of Canada is shackled with intrinsic governmental flaws of this kind. It would be prudent to flush the whole parliamentary system and its accruement of fusty laws and bureaucracies altogether down the toilet, and to bring Canada under American jurisdiction.
An assimilation of Canada would also solve the longstanding and very frustrating problem of fishing rights in the Northwest Angle, a small fragment of Minnesota which was isolated from the rest of the state by a surveilance and navigational error. When Canada has been conquered, the Angle can be made a part of the new State of Ontario, and everyone can enjoy equal fishing rights as American citizens. The removal of hassles involving crossing borderlines, &c., would also be a boon to the locals at the Angle, as well as the general shipping economy which revolves about the Great Lakes.
Finally, this strategic move would put an end once and for all to the cruel practice of forcing the Canadian schoolchildren to try to learn the meandering national anthem, ‘O Canada.’ We would also be able to eliminate this confusing strain from the sports stadiums in games at which the Canadian baseball and hockey teams participate.
Further Notes
Apparently there was a brief period in the 1920s when America and Canada were both secretly drafting plans to invade each other. Tracy Mumford, reporting for Minnesota Public Radio:
“In 1921, a Canadian lieutenant by the name of Buster Brown drafted ‘Defence Scheme No. 1.’ Despite ‘defense’ in the title, it was ‘a full-on invasion plan,’ according to Kevin Lippert, the author of War Plan Red… In the end, he proposed a five-pronged attack. In the west, Canadian troops would take Seattle and Portland. In the east, the Quebecois would occupy Albany. Maine would be reclaimed, as would the Great Lakes. In the Midwest, Brown’s plan called for ‘Prairie Command’ to swing through Fargo and then head south to invade Minneapolis and St. Paul.”
†I perked up a bit when I read Today's Question from MPR News: Should the U.S. and Canada merge?
I probably wouldn’t write such a thing again today, even as satire. It’s not because the Canadian and US dollars have been at par for a couple of years now, nor because 32-year old me understands better than 18-year old me how a weak dollar can actually be good for an economy. And — you’ll have to trust me on this — it’s not even because I’m married to a Canadian. Even before I met my wife, in the wake of the Iraq war and having learned a little actual history, I woke up to the fact that American hegemony is too real and too stupid to make for good humor.
Besides which. My sense these days is that America is already such a thinly held-together coalition of such wildly different economies, values, and legal cultures that I’m not sure it can be governed fairly or effectively even without any additions.