Is it time for Canada to become the 51st state?
I’ve often wondered how many Canadians would sell their citizenship for $1 million and become an American if the United States ever makes an offer to buy the country and its contents (and that means its people too) for about $35 trillion?
I know it’s an absurd and almost unpatriotic notion to even mention, but then again, given that most of Canada’s population are far from the “one per cent” status, I’m willing to bet that a surprising number would say: “Why not, we’re almost part of the United States anyway, and a million bucks is a million bucks.”
For a million dollars, most people would do almost anything. Becoming an American citizen for that amount of money would probably be an easy decision to make, because most of us will never see that kind of money in our lifetimes.
Furthermore, with the Canadian dollar heading for the 75-cent (U.S.) mark probably before the end of the year, the buyout in U.S. dollars would actually be worth about $1.25 million to each one of us.
It’s getting more inviting the more I keep writing, isn’t it?
In any event, I know there would be nationalists who would defiantly protest in outrageous and perhaps destructive ways because of their staunch belief in their country, but deep down, I think most Canadians would be tempted to take the money now and worry about the consequences later. And so far Donald Trump hasn’t said too many disparaging things about us, so there’s one less obstacle in our favour.
It’s not like the United States is the most dangerous country in the world. So honestly, what’s wrong with becoming an American citizen?
Aside from some civil unrest that has given the country a bad reputation lately, the positives far outweigh the negatives by a huge margin, and without going into too many details that make me sound like a spokesperson for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, I still think that becoming the “51st State” isn’t that bad of an idea.
As we all know, Canada (like too many countries today) needs a shot of something (anything) to keep the faith of its citizens (and industries) alive, and even our federal government’s Department of Natural Resources recently made a potentially precedent-setting decision to sell out by waiving its Non-resident Ownership Policy, (circa 1987) that restricts non-Canadian parties from owning more than a 49 per cent stake in certain assets.
I’m referring to the feds granting special clearance for Paladin Energy of Australia to develop the six-deposit Michelin uranium project in Labrador’s Central Mineral Belt without a Canadian partner.
In other words, the Aussies now hold the rights to mine 91,500 hectares of prime real estate in our backyard, and as Paladin’s Managing Director and CEO John Borshoff said in part: “I sincerely thank the Canadian government for this historic decision….”
It’s ‘historic’ alright.
First of all, it marks the reversal of a government policy that’s been in place for almost three decades, and secondly, it also marks one of the few times that a decision involving Canada’s natural resources has received approval from the Prime Minister.
What’s even more interesting and in keeping with the theme of this editorial is that the government is accepting the fact that foreign ownership is good for Canada.
So again I ask, if selling aggregate to Australia is good for Canada, what’s wrong with selling our greatest and most valuable natural resource (ourselves) to the United States?
It’s a question that may never be asked beyond here, but it’s something to think about.
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