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Canada “is not in the business of annexing islands in the Caribbean.”

So spoke an exasperated Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird on Monday after the prime minister of the Turks and Caicos Islands suggested a “period of courtship” could one day see his country become Canada’s 11th province.

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Rufus Ewing didn’t exactly say the Turks and Caicos, an archipelago of 40 islands located east of Cuba, was gunning to join Canada.

But “I’m not closing the door completely,” he told reporters after meeting Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Parliament Hill.

If anyone appeared to be trying to close the door, it was Baird. After delivering a prepared statement promising Canada’s support for Ukraine’s newly elected government, the foreign affairs minister was hit with not one but several questions about the Turks and Caicos.

“This is not something we’re exploring,” he said, his expression clearly conveying that he thought the suggestion borderline silly. “Though I can just imagine the name of the riding,” he quipped. “Nepean-Turks and Caicos. And the amount of constituency work that would be done there.”