A Robert Leighton cartoon in a recent New Yorker magazine depicted lemmings atop a cliff preparing to jump. However, they are paralyzed into inaction by their politeness. Each lemming has a speech balloon saying, “After you.” The cartoon, entitled “Canadian Lemmings,” capitalizes on our stereotype of our nice northern neighbors. If ICE agents found it necessary to isolate Canadians from a group of mainly American citizens, they could merely step on the toes of each person. There is a useful shibboleth: Anyone who said “Excuse me” would clearly be Canadian. As an angry, hostile, crabby American -- a sort of aging, obese Yosemite Sam, I am naturally irritated by and suspicious of their preternatural niceness.
What should we do about this niceness? Ignore it as we do their whole country? Let’s take advantage of it!
The only reason there is a Canada is that we were too weak to conquer them back in the good old days of manifest destiny, when they were owned by the British. In the early 19th century, our warlike Democratic Party wanted to bring into U.S. territory the entire Oregon territory west of the continental divide up to Russian Alaska. Brits and Americans were basically sharing the northern Oregon region peacefully before that. The Democrats got James K. Polk elected President in 1844 on a wellspring of jingoistic sentiment. Once in office, despite the popular Democratic rallying cry "Fifty-four Forty or Fight!” Polk found that, realistically, we could not fight both the British and the Mexicans at the same time. In the 1846 Oregon Treaty, Polk caved in to establishing the 49th parallel (with a few adjustments for irregular coasts) as the border. The border between our two countries is not only long, but it is unnatural. Britain had a very powerful fleet at the time to back up their arguments. We are now saddled with having our state of Alaska separated from the “lower 48 states.” This has led to embarrassments such as the recent San Diego State University graduate who on the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno” declared that Alaska must be an island because it was in an inset on her map, like Hawaii.
We have disputes with Canada over waterways. Now, they claim as interior waters the straits between their islands surrounding what is known as the Northwest Passage. As the world heats up and the ice up there goes away, we need to insist that the passage is an international waterway. In the 1990s, Washington Senator Slade Gorton demanded the U.S. Navy demonstrate that even the inside passages between Canadian islands, such as Vancouver Island and the Canadian mainland, are international waters. Hostile situations still arise over free transit and fisheries.
In the 1995 Michael Moore satirical film Canadian Bacon, the U.S. President, worried about falling approval ratings because America has no enemies to dominate, allies himself with eager members of the military-industrial complex to convince the American people that Canada is the new cold war enemy. Why else would 95% of Canada’s population be massed on our northern border? Are they poised to invade, or just huddling there for warmth?
Many of the actors and comedians who appeared in this film were Canadian, and it was filmed in Canada. There are hilarious scenes of Americans trying to create tension by driving around Canada littering (a serious offense there) and by trying (unsuccessfully) to anger Canadians with anti-Canuck graffiti painted on the side of their truck. Instead, a Mountie (Dan Ackroyd) pulls them over and politely issues a citation because the graffiti is not in both English and French, thus offending a viable and sensitive segment of Canadian society by not complying with language laws. Ackroyd fines John Candy 10,000 Canadian dollars, or “10 dollars U.S.” The President’s efforts spin out of control in the end.
The President in that film just did not go about his plan in the right way. He should have had the CIA covertly foster the Quebec separatist movement. What is needed is hostility between Quebec and English speaking provinces, not between the U.S. and Canada. Much of this hostility exists already; we just need to encourage it without appearing to take sides.
Canadians warn me that Canada would collapse if Quebec separatists achieved their goal. Great! If Canada collapsed, we could persuade the English speaking provinces to join the U.S. Britain would complain, but it would do no good. They now have a tiny fleet and a feckless parliament. France would be delighted if Quebec were to become independent. They might even try to make it part of France. The U.N. is powerless, especially since we have a veto on the Security Council. Canadians, of course, would not object, for they are too nice and polite.
If “Anschluss” with English speaking Canada occurred, it would give us a new opportunity. After the English provinces are fully assimilated, patriotic American states, we can conquer Quebec. Just as the British exiled the Acadians to Louisiana, we can exile to Mexico any French Canadians who object to using English as their only language.
“A-a-a-l, Al, calm down! Your truculent nature is amply documented; however, why should we peace-loving, politically-correct, God-fearing Americans wish to conquer or assimilate friendly Canada? What about the Commandment not to covet that which is your neighbor’s?”
Well, first of all, greed. Nothing overwhelms our pusillanimous, Judeo-Christian values like greed. Also, right after issuing His “Big Ten” list, God had the Israelites conquer the Canaanites, Elamites, Edomites, Midianites, and other “ites” to take their land, so constraints on coveting apparently do not extend to land. Indeed, modern “Israelites” are still at it on the West Bank.
Canada has iron ore, nickel, zinc, copper, gold, lead, molybdenum, potash, diamonds, silver, fish, timber, wildlife, coal, petroleum, natural gas, hydropower, beer, and great hockey players. We would gain territorial contiguity with Alaska, the largest concentration of oil in the world, a highly educated workforce, water, and maple syrup.
Sure, we can trade with them to obtain whatever we need, but why not just take it? When we invaded Iraq, the bleeding hearts disingenuously whined that we were only doing it to steal their oil. We had no such intention. Canada has oil, and it is right next door. “We might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.” That is our idiom to use when you are going to be punished for something, so you decide to do something worse since the punishment cannot be any more severe. When the weenies complain that we are invading Canada for oil, it will have no more effect than it did in Iraq.
Besides, it is not like there is nothing in it for them. A Canadian, Edward Watson, complaining about Western Canada’s pitiable lack of clout in their parliament, wrote it best in a blog: “The best thing for us Western Canadians is to join the U.S. We have a lot to offer – 2.5 Trillion barrels of oil in the Alberta oil sands, greater than all the oil in the Middle East… Oil off shore BC [is] estimated at two to three times the size of Alaska’s total oil fields… If [just] the three Western provinces and the Yukon Territory joined the United States as three states, the U.S. would grow by nearly 30% in area or gain an additional million square miles of territory but only gain an additional 8 million people. That’s less than the population of greater Chicago in territory as large as Alaska, Texas, and California combined.”
Think of these benefits for them:
1. Canadians can enjoy the miracle of Obamacare. You might counter that Canada’s socialist health care is better and is mostly free. However, we know that President Obama has a superior system. Otherwise, he would have adopted the Canadian system, right?
2. Canadians can enjoy superior American beer. In Canada, provincial liquor boards have control over the import, distribution, and sale of all alcoholic beverages in the province. Despite a ruling by GATT and the execution of a Memorandum of Agreement, the regulations implemented by the provincial liquor boards in Canada even now place restrictions and fees on imported American beer.
3. The Keystone XL pipeline can finally be completed. The only reason the President has been able to block the pipeline is that U.S. government approval is needed for a pipeline which crosses an international border. Eliminate that border and you eliminate the problem.
4. The Canadians would be able to use the U.S. dollar as their currency. Experts say that this would save up to $3 billion in currency transactions. They also claim that Canada's GDP could rise by up to 33 percent in a 20-year period given the adoption of a single currency.
5. Canadians can enjoy the jingoistic rush of shouting, “USA! USA! USA!” at international athletic competitions.
I could go on, but you get the idea. It is time for us to realize the manifest destiny so cruelly denied us by British power in the early 19th century. No one has the power to stop us. Our cry should now be “90 Degrees North or Fight!” thus claiming the huge wedge of land and ocean from Alaska up to the North Pole and back down to Newfoundland. Conquest and global warming will soon result in valuable beachfront property opening up along the northern shores of our new states. Carpe Canada!