Trump, blathering, wants Canada to become the 51st state. As many point out, this makes no sense constitutionally for his party, as the State of Canada would have some 50 U.S. Representatives and 60 electoral college votes. The House and presidency would turn a maple shade of Blue for a generation. If Canada entered the U.S. as several states—reasonable given that it has 10 provinces—the Senate would turn likewise. A better idea, suggests Canadian Green Party leader Elizabeth May, would be three left-leaning U.S. states joining Canada instead: California, Oregon and Washington.
Speaking at a press conference last week in Ottawa, May called out the president-elect, saying, "Hey, Donald, have we got a deal for you? You think we want to be the 51st state huh? But maybe California would like to be the 11th province. How about it? California? Oregon? Washington?"
She continued, addressing the three West Coast states: "This is what you get: free health care. Universal free health care. No more 1-year-olds who suddenly fall off the Medicaid list and their parents are in the news because they're trying to do a GoFundMe so they can get their daughter to a doctor. Universal Free health care. Guess what? Those gun laws that your Congress is too afraid to pass because of the national gun lobby. We already got our strict gun laws."
If the politics are more compatible—a debatable proposition—this union would still upend both countries. Canada has 40.1m people living there now. Add "Baja Canada" to the mix and you have another 51m people, for a total of 91m—there'd be more Americans than Canadians in the mix. The combined nation would be a little more populous than Germany (85m) and one of the world's richest. And then there's the prospect of New England states joining such a sprawling North American federation, too.
And imagine this: Charles becoming the King of Washington!
Ontario premier Doug Ford, a conservative, made a similar but less expansive suggestion, proposing Alaska and Minnesota join Canada—a more edible 6.4m residents.
If one gets the impression May and Ford are just making clear how unlikely the whole idea of Canadian and US unification is, an imperial Trump presidency has more attainable options. The shape of the Danish navy might be a more pertinent question.
