I've spent half a century (yikes) writing for radio and print—mostly print. I hope to be still tapping the keys as I take my last breath.

For a couple of centuries, people have been proposing that Canada and America should become one country. From time to time the idea has seemed like a good idea, but in the Donald Trump era such a union would create a revolution in Canada. Only 25 percent of Canadians have a positive view of Trump’s America, according to Pew Research.

Diane Francis thinks Canada and the United States should join together to form a single nation. Ms. Francis is a Canadian business journalist who was born in the United States. She puts forward her controversial idea in her 2013 book Merger of the Century: Why Canada and America Should Become One Country.

Ms. Francis’s argument is that China is clobbering both Canada and the United States economically.

She says that in the business world if two companies are being badly beaten up by competitors they often join forces to counter the threat.

So, why shouldn’t two countries use the same strategy?

Future Scenario

Diane Francis bases her idea on a fanciful description of a future world that may never come about.

She describes a broken Canada in which China and Russia have seized control of the nation’s energy resources. Canada has allowed its armed forces to decline so badly that it is powerless to protect its own sovereignty. The only alternative in such a situation, she says, is to join with America and let the U.S. cavalry take care of it.

Ms. Francis calls her forecast a “thought experiment;” kind of like fiction really.

Certainly, Russia has challenged Canada’s access to oil and gas in the Arctic and China has spent billions buying pieces of Alberta’s energy reserves.

But, this seems a long way from reducing Canada to being “sleepy and vulnerable” or a nation “in distress,” as she puts it.

Criticism of Ms. Francis’ projection into the future aside, she makes her case forcefully. In an interview with Foreign Policy magazine she said, “The Americans should just roll up their sleeves and get on with it, because they’ve got the capital and they’ve got the market for the stuff (Canada’s natural resources). At the very least, there’s got to be some kind of a joint venture, economically, and I say, ‘Let’s pick our partners.’ ”

Diane Francis says the deal is simple, Canada gets military protection and the U.S. gets unrestricted access to a treasure trove of vast, untapped natural resources.

“Every American statesman covets Canada.” Canada’s first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald

America’s Manifest Destiny

Canadian political scientist Stephen Clarkson has written that the U.S. has often cast an envious eye northwards:

“Everybody familiar with its history knows that the United States of America has always wanted Canada. During its first 130 years, it wanted annexation and was willing to use force to get it. The American revolutionaries called on the British colonies to join their republic. The First Continental Congress sent two armies north in 1775 to make the offer more persuasively. When the United States declared war against England in 1812, its triple invasion of Canada was equally unsuccessful.”

The words “Manifest Destiny” were tossed about a lot in the United States. The phrase expressed the belief that God intended America to govern the entire sub-continent.

In 1811, John Quincy Adams (he later became president) wrote that “The whole continent of North America appears to be destined by Divine Providence to be peopled by one nation, speaking one language, professing one general system of religious and political principles, and accustomed to one general tenor of social usages and customs. For the common happiness of them all, for their peace and prosperity, I believe it is indispensable that they should be associated in one federal Union.”

Then, there was the claim by President James K. Polk to the whole of the Pacific Northwest up to the Alaskan Border, which was at the latitude of 54.40o north. The territory had been jointly administered by the U.S. and Britain, but Mr. Polk wanted it to be entirely American. He campaigned for the presidency in 1844 on the slogan of “Fifty-Four-Forty or Fight.”

However, once in power, President Polk cooled down and negotiated the boundary between what was to become British Columbia and the U.S. at the 49th parallel. The Oregon Treaty of 1846 settled the border without gunfire – well, almost without gunfire.

The Pig War

There was one small bit of land that was left in limbo by the Oregon Treaty.

The San Juan Islands lie south of the 49th parallel between Vancouver Island and the U.S. mainland. The wording of the treaty left both countries believing they had a claim to the islands.

Then, along came American settler Lyman Cutlar. On June 15, 1859, he found a large black pig helping itself to some of his vegetables. So, Lyman up and shot the beast dead.

The animal was owned by the Hudson’s Bay Company and so was a British pig. Harsh words were exchanged and the whole business escalated.

American soldiers arrived to protect Mr. Lyman from being arrested. British warships were sent to look after British interests. Neither side would back down and a stand-off lasted until 1872 when an independent commission in Switzerland awarded the San Juan Islands to America. The only shot fired in the conflict was the one that killed the hog, which gave its name to the affair – The Pig War.

Merger Movements

John Quincy Adams was not the first to suggest joining Canada to the United States. The talk in America was less about merging and more about invading and seizing Canada – annexation, in other words.

And, in 1866, the U.S. Congress adopted “A Bill for the admission of the States of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Canada East, and Canada West, and for the organization of the Territories of Selkirk, Saskatchewan, and Columbia. (Annexation Bill).”

Professor Michel Chossudovsky writes (Global Research, June 2013), “The text of the bill is tantamount to an invasion plan … It consisted in the outright confiscation of public lands. It also implied U.S. control over the trans-Canada railway system, waterways, canals as well as control over the Saint Lawrence Seaway.”

The plan fell apart with the passage of the British North America Act that created the Dominion of Canada in 1867. The Treaty of Washington (1871) formally recognized Canada’s right to exist as an independent nation.

Several writers have called the annexation of Canada by the United States “inevitable.” Goldwin Smith did so in his 1891 book, Canada and the Canadian Question; so too did William Stead in The Americanization of the World in 1901.

Since then there has been no serious talk by established politicians of marching north and grabbing hold of Canada. However, schemes have appeared on paper. The “Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan - Red” was a detailed scheme for the invasion of Canada drawn up in the late 1920s.

The official word is the plan was shelved in 1939, but it’s quite possible there’s a new proposal lurking somewhere in the Pentagon. This would not be unexpected as the military in most countries draws up plans for just about every likely and unlikely event.

Welcome Friends

In 2002, Leger Marketing of Montreal found a substantial minority of Americans who would welcome Canada becoming America’s 51st state. The experts warn us not to read too much into the fact that four in ten Americans think joining the two countries is a good idea.

First, there is no aggressive intent to use the military to force a merger. Christopher Sands is director of the Canada Project for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. He told The Canadian Press that support for a merger is a reflection of goodwill towards Canada; that Canada is welcome as long as a friendly government-to-government agreement is made.

And, Harold Waller, who teaches U.S. politics at McGill University in Montreal, thinks the poll is simply a curiosity. “I doubt if the average American knows enough about Canada to make a reasoned assessment [of] what the pros and cons might be.

“There’s really an abysmal level of ignorance about Canada in the United States so I don’t know what conclusions you can reach.”

Anyway, a merger seems extremely unlikely because national constitutions get in the way. America is a republic, Canada is a constitutional monarchy. For a political merger to take place one of the two countries would have to rip up its constitution. Good luck trying to get that organized.

Bonus Factoids

In 1989, Parti 51 ran in a Quebec provincial election on a platform of becoming America’s 51st state; the party got 3,846 votes, or 0.11% of the popular vote. The party quietly slid into oblivion until it was resurrected by lawyer Hans Mercier in January 2017. However, in the October 2018 provincial election in Quebec it captured an even more dismal 0.03% of the popular vote.

In 1980, Dick Collver, a former leader of Saskatchewan’s Progressive Conservative Party formed the Unionest Party. He and another Saskatchewan Member of the Provincial Parliament, Dennis Ham, called for the Western provinces to quit Canada and join the U.S. Nobody took much notice and words like crackpot and hare-brained were used to describe the two men. The party fizzled out and Mr. Collver undertook a personal and private secession by retiring to a ranch in Arizona.

Sources

“Diane Francis on a Canada-US Merger.” CBC Radio, September 30, 2013.

“American Revolution – Invasion of Canada.” D.n. Sprague, Canadian Encyclopedia, March 4, 2015.

“Manifest Destiny.” U.S. History, undated.

“The Pig War.” Ben Johnson, Historic U.K., undated.

“Four Out of 10 Americans Support Annexing Canada, Poll Suggests.” Michelle Macafee, Canadian Press, October 14, 2002.

“A Majority of Canadians Have a Low Opinion of Trump’s America, as Do Many People Worldwide: Survey.” Rahul Kalvapelle, Global News, October 2, 2018.

© 2018 Rupert Taylor

Rupert Taylor (author) from Waterloo, Ontario, Canada on February 06, 2020:

Merma2000, or she was being deliberately controversial in order to sell her book.

Merma2000 on February 06, 2020:

I used to admire Diane Francis. It appears that aging has invaded her sense of reasoning. If this is not the case, shame on her!’

Bruce on May 30, 2019:

Canada is facing a demographic crisis and it can’t be reversed.

The only three options are join the United States and piggy back off the Americans and preserve our way of life and healthcare as provincies, or watch the Country crash in an economic crisis or import 30 million more immigrants over the next 20 years, hope for the best and still see the economy crash.

The United States has guaranteed Canada’s protection and economic existence through the bread and butter system founded by the Americans after WW2 but the American led and guaranteed world order is collapsing and the Americans no longer have a need to prop it up anymore and Trump or no Trump, this reality is not going away. There simply is not enough young Canadians to keep Canada afloat anymore and too many older Canadians retireing. Canadians really need to start to come to grips with this new reality soon. The writing is on the wall.

Rupert Taylor (author) from Waterloo, Ontario, Canada on December 18, 2018:

Dora - "T'would". Lovely use of the language not often used these days.

Dora Weithers from The Caribbean on December 18, 2018:

T'would be a surprise if this "thought experiment" doesn't remain just that. It might be easier for them to fight their enemy as two friends than as one tangled up nation.

Wesman Todd Shaw from Kaufman, Texas on December 16, 2018:

Mexico is great. I've been there many times, and to a few different areas of the nation. It's not like the places people go when they get off of a cruise ship though.

The problem with Mexico is that it is in part a narco state. The reason for that is US drug laws. I'm fairly sure lots of drugs shipped through, or even produced there wind up in Canada as well.

So we've got a huge hypocrisy thing going. We've got all these laws making all these things people are buying illegal to buy. Then the language barrier is also an issue.

Mexico has about a 50 year window right now, and then they are facing demographic collapse, and a huge economic strain. The birth rate went from seven children per couple a generation ago, down to two.

Eventually Mexico will be begging for immigrants.

Other than that, Mexicans tend to be just like other Texans. They are a pretty conservative people, extremely family centered. I'm being super generalization guy here.

Canadians, were there a union with the US, would likely benefit from more than just US military protection. We've lots of resources here as well. I'm not on the up and up with Canadian oil and natural gas production though.

Rupert Taylor (author) from Waterloo, Ontario, Canada on December 16, 2018:

Liz - Canadians would be livid except for those in Alberta who are currently very angry and blame our federal government for the low price of oil. There are rumblings of separation.

We Canadians tend to be a bit smug about how superior we are when compared with Americans. We have access to great taxpayer-funded health care and we don't kill each other with guns. Also, we don't have an orange doofus running our country. We chuckle when we learn that American backpackers routinely stitch Canadian maple leaf flags on their luggage.

Liz Westwood from UK on December 16, 2018:

Now that's a very brave question to pose! Would that mean that Canada would be taken over by the larger USA? If so, I'm not sure the Canadians would be very happy.

Mr. Happy from Toronto, Canada on December 15, 2018:

"Canada has allowed its armed forces to decline so badly that it is powerless to protect its own sovereignty." - I don't believe in such a scenario for a second but this is coming from a Romanian. We fought against the Roman Empire, the Ottomon Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire ... we survived the Soviet Iron Curtain. No, Canada is not falling pray to Mother Russia, or China, or anyone else.

Now I just remember I didn't finish reading your article from yesterday. I gotta get back to that lol

“Manifest Destiny” - What a bunch of "baloney" that was, to use Joe Biden's words but I don;t think he would agree with me here, haha!

I'll double-down on this: "“I doubt if the average American knows enough about Canada to make a reasoned assessment [of] what the pros and cons might be."

Interesting article but to be fair, join the US and I'll just repatriate myself. If I wanted to be in the US, I'd be there. On the other hand, why doesn't the US join Canada? I might accept that. LOL

Cheers!

Dr Mark from The Atlantic Rain Forest, Brazil on December 15, 2018:

Wesman, if you Texans could join the Union, there is certainly no reason that Canada and the states of Mexico could not also be a part. Trump could even move his wall to the much less expensive border between Mexico and Central America. Imagine how much money that would save.

Great article, Rupert. I would certainly vote for it if I was Canadian.

Wesman Todd Shaw from Kaufman, Texas on December 15, 2018:

I've absolutely had the thought many many times. Of course Canada is like a few different nations in character, but could easily align, I think, with the most of the US. It would be similar to how we in Texas think of ourselves as Texans first and foremost, and US citizens secondly.

The reasons why such a thing would make sense, if it were to ever be speculated on seriously, were presented beautifully. Myself, I'd really just rather be able to visit the place without having to produce all kinds of paperwork.