The Canada Problem

I came across a video of Tucker Carlson and Matt Walsh discussing Canada. They are particularly appalled by MAiD, it being applied to the young and mentally ill, and the harvesting of organs. Carlson says he would feel safer now living in Communist China than in Canada. And he suggested the US should invade Canada on human rights grounds. 

Is this hyperbole? No doubt, but it is interesting to hear it from someone able to be more objective. I fear Canadians are like the proverbial frog in the boiling pot. As the temperature rises incrementally, we cannot tell when it is time to jump. Things today still look mostly like yesterday. Okay, another censorship bill is moving through committee. Okay, a big steel mill closed down, and a big pulp mill. Okay, the latest judgment says aborigines own title to part of Vancouver. Okay, MAiD is expanding. Okay, nobody is investigating CCP influence over elections. But I haven’t been directly affected, have I? Sure, the groceries are more expensive than last week—but I have a lot wrapped up in this house, in this neighbourhood, in this job. It won’t go on in this direction forever...

First they came for the trade unionists...

But talking about invading Canada is crazy talk.

The problem is that Canada elected this government. And recently re-elected it. While foreign interference may have affected a few seats, and Communist China does seem to hold influence over the current government, the Carney regime reasonably reflects the popular will. Therefore there is no “human rights” case to invade. It would be exactly parallel to Putin invading Ukraine, “to unseat Nazi elements in its government.” It would be interfering with another country’s internal affairs.

There would have to be some direct threat to the security of the United States to make the thing even remotely legal in international law.

What the Trump government should do is to offer Canadians automatic refugee status. There has been some talk of doing this for Brits. This way the US could staunch their demographic decline with a body of immigrants perfectly suited to assimilate quickly, generally well-educated, and well-disposed to the USA. Unlike, say, Somalis. Some, it is true, might really be economic migrants, but this is far less likely to be the case than with a Third World country—they would be coming usually genuinely because they embrace American values. American values are the same as traditional British or Canadian values, after all.

This would of course accelerate the decline of Canada. Brains will drain South. This too is to the US’s advantage: a diminished Canada could not push for hard bargains over their resources.

At worst, might Canada become a bigger Cuba or Venezuela, turning to China as sponsor, an enemy right on America’s doorstep?

Then it might be useful to have a large body of Canadian refugees in the USA, able to freely organize and arm. It may not have worked for the Fenians, or at the Bay of Pigs, but it has worked for others. A government in waiting.

I’m surprised Trump hasn’t thought of it.

Elbows Down, Idiots!

Those aren't Mounties in the red coats.

Canadians, like most countries, live with various shared delusions. Perhaps it is their shared delusions that hold most countries together. But a particularly troublesome and dangerous one in the case of Canada is its anti-Americanism. 

This has my attention just now because I recently sat through a rant from a fellow Canadian irate at New York State for “stealing” the beaver as their official state mammal. “Those Americans want to take everything.”

Canada does not, of course, own the world’s beavers. New York State has as much right to the beaver as its mascot as does Canada.

Canada also did not, contrary to what every Canadian believes, defeat the USA in the War of 1812. Canada did not burn down the White House. 

The War of 1812 was a fight between the United States, on the one side, and Great Britain and Tecumseh’s Indian Confederacy on the other. Canadian militia units, “fencibles,” did participate, as British subjects, in a relatively minor role. But it is safe to say that no Canadians were involved in the burning of the White House by the British Navy.

Britain ended the war in possession of everything they had at the start. As did the US. Tecumseh’s Confederacy collapsed. On balance, then, I’d say the US came out ahead. They did not conquer Canada; but that was not a war aim.

The kneejerk anti-Americanism among Canadians is a prejudice. Like all prejudices, it is immoral. Substitute “Jews” for “Americans” in all the standard complaints, and perhaps you can see where this is tending. “Those Jews want to take everything.”

Like antisemitism, it is based on envy of American relative success. This is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, the worst next to pride. It is unworthy of a grown-up country.

It is doubly absurd since English Canadians and Americans are ethnically identical: the same language, the same accent, the same shared history, the same waves of immigration from the same countries, the same religion, the same geography, the same governmental and legal traditions. How can there be a sane basis for prejudice, even if prejudice were ever legitimate?

It is probably true that Canada owes its existence as a nation, and its relative freedom, to the United States. The American Revolution, the American Declaration of Independence, the American Constitution, and the US Bill of Rights, were the model and test case on which modern liberal democracy in general has been built, here as everywhere else. While Britain had its own liberal traditions, the American experiment pushed them further faster than would likely otherwise have been the case. The American example certainly led directly to the French Revolution, and then its many echoes throughout Europe. It forced Britain, over the next decades, to extend responsible government to their remaining North American colonies. The US Constitution also became the model for the federal system that defines Canada—for confederation.

The US further serves as the model for Canada as a non-ethnic state, America being the first nation based purely on human equality and human rights. As Laurier put it, “Canada is free, and freedom is its nationality.” If and as Canada is based on freedom, it is based on the example of the United States. The United States is the mother country.

Canada moreover could not ask for a better neighbour. The United States is ten times our size. They could easily conquer Canada in a week or two. Yet since 1815, they have made no attempt. Where else has peace between neighbours lasted so long? It has not even lasted that long internally in the United States. They have offered us free access to their markets—because the US market is so much larger, any free trade deal benefits Canada more than the US. Through NATO and NORAD, they have taken upon themselves responsibility for our defense—we could never secure our vast northlands by ourselves. We boast of our rich resources, as if we had somehow earned them. In a sense, we owe these too to the USA.

It is time we acknowledged this.

The Trade Wars

 

I cannot vouch for its accuracy, but I hear reports that, in response to Trump’s new “reciprocal” tariffs, at least seventy nations have offered to cut their own tariffs and restrictions in order to have them removed or reduced. And only two nations have responded so far with retaliatory tariffs: China and Canada.

Until now, the US has looked on Canada, if they thought of us at all, as their best friends. Cousins across the border.

I’m afraid we are revealing ourselves as secret enemies.

Shame on us.

Playing 4D Chess

 

Trump really is “playing 4D chess.” He learned how to swing a deal as a real estate developer. Consider the Gaza deal. He framed it all as a threat against Hamas: “if the hostages are not freed by inauguration day, there will be hell to pay.” But behind the scenes, the pressure was really on Netanyahu to accept a partial deal. This way, Netanyahu has made concessions, but can frame it as a victory. It’s a win-win, at least for the short term.

He is doing the same with Greenland. Greenland is a financial liability to Denmark, held only for prestige, and Greenland for its part feels colonized. Trump sees the opportunity. Denmark saves face and looks righteous by giving Greenland independence. Greenland can afford this pretense of self-determination now, with US backing. Then it gets to cut a better deal with the US. The US gets to cut Denmark out of any deal, buying wholesale. It’s a win-win.

I think Trump should and will offer Greenland immediate full statehood, to preserve the sense of self-determination.

Now how about Canada? 

Alberta’s situation is like that of Greenland. Alberta has been subsidizing the rest of Canada with their energy resources. At the same time, with their carbon tax and their environmental regulations, the Canadian central government has been hobbling the Alberta energy industry. 

Perhaps Trump was clever enough to check and realize that energy was a provincial responsibility. Perhaps he was clever enough to see that Canada has recognized the right of provinces to separate. Perhaps he was clever enough to school himself on Western alienation.

With his tariff threats, Trump is shaking that fruit from the tree. He can appeal to Albertan alienation. They have the one card to play against the Trump tariffs.

He can offer Alberta a separate deal. He says he wants to annex Canada; but the value to the US is all in Alberta. Moreover, they are more politically aligned than the rest of Canada with the US; they would probably vote Republican. He can now offer them statehood. Alberta gets to escape their subsidies to the rest of Canada, escape the carbon taxes and the environmental regulations, lower their taxes, and start pumping oil like gangbusters. 

Okay, this one isn’t quite win-win. The rest of Canada is left in the lurch, cut off from Alberta’s subsidies and facing stiff tariffs from the USA. 

Unless they quickly end equalization payments, kill the carbon tax, end supply management, cut environmental regulations, and start severely restricting immigration.

All of which would be more or less what the Canadian public is demanding.

So, again, win-win. Unless we are governed by idiots.

Uh-oh.