I have American friends. I have Canadian friends who live and work in the U.S. and/or who have married Americans, and American friends who live and work in Canada and/or who have married Canadians. I have American relatives, including an aunt and first cousins. Dual passports abound.
Many of them are probably wondering right now why Canadians wouldn’t want to join the America they love as its “cherished” 51st state and may be a little offended by how vigorously we’re protesting the idea. I imagine it’s a little like imagining you’re a perfect 10, asking someone you consider a six out on a date and being told “eww…”
For a president who prides himself on making deals, it really is a terrible offer.
Canada is about 15 times larger than the state of Texas but as the 51st state we’d get all of two lousy senators and a handful of reps in Congress.
You could argue our relatively small population doesn’t justify any more seats, that we’re only slightly more populated than the state of California. But California is also getting screwed by America’s unrepresentative system and is very aware of that fact.
Canada has a larger population than the combined—combined!—populations of the states of Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware, Rhode Island, Montana, Maine, New Hampshire, Hawaii, West Virginia, Idaho, Nebraska, New Mexico, Mississippi, Kansas, Arkansas, Iowa, Nevada, Utah and Connecticut. That’s 22 states with 44 senators—almost half the senate—who can pass bills, appoint judges, vet cabinet picks, and generally call the shots. America has become a tyranny of the rural minority, not a vibrant democratic nation where votes are even close to being equal.
Giving Canada any less than 20 senators and a fifth of the seats in congress would massively disenfranchise us—the same way large states like California, New York, Texas and Florida are horribly disenfranchised by the system.
If he were truly serious about making Canada part of the U.S., Trump would offer us something approaching fair representation—in which case we’d effectively have the votes to turn America into Canada rather than the other way around. But they—all the little red have-not states that call the shots—would never allow that. We would be given token representation at best, the least they could offer to maintain the illusion of democracy.
Aside from the issue of representation, there are countless reasons why no sane Canadian would ever want to switch passports, from the wretched private health-care system that drives millions into bankruptcy to the fact that Americans are 20 times more likely to be killed by a firearm. America ranks below Canada in pretty much every measure of social development that matters to the average person, from child mortality to average lifespan.
Canadians have responded to the attacks on our economy and sovereignty by boycotting American products and travel to the U.S.
It’s not easy. Canada and the U.S. have two of the most integrated economies in the world, and sometimes products will cross the border a few times before being sold. Globalization also means Americans own a lot of the businesses we rely on in all kinds of ways.
Americans own Whistler Blackcomb and a lot of our hotels, for example. Almost everyone I know has an iPhone or subscribes to Netflix or Disney+. Many drive American cars. Almost all of our daily newspapers are owned by Postmedia, which is two-thirds owned by a pro-Trump hedge fund. This column was written on Microsoft Word on an American-made Dell laptop.
But while it’s hard to go elbows up over everything, everyone can be part of the boycott in some way. We can choose where we travel, for example—I passed on my annual mountain bike trip to Bellingham. I won’t be going to the U.S. again until Trump is out of office and/or some kind of sanity is restored.
I also pretty much stopped using Amazon and I read labels every time I go shopping. There are a number of useful websites and social media pages to help people find Canadian products and alternatives to American products, as well as apps like O SCANada, Shop Canadian, Buy Beaver and Maple Scan where you can scan barcodes to find out where products are being made. On that front I was pleased to find out MEC is now back in Canadian hands again.
This whole situation is ridiculous. The reality is if you leave oil and gas out of the equation then the trade imbalance is actually tilted in the other direction—we buy more than $50 billion more U.S. products and services than Americans buy from Canada.
Which means we really do have a huge amount of power in this. We imported more than $683 billion in American products in 2024. Canadians also spend more than $20 billion on travel to the U.S. every year—a lot of that going to Trump-supporting red states like Florida and Nevada.
But while Canadians came out strong and arms are getting tired, we have to keep our elbows up. The effects of Trump’s tariffs are starting to be felt here, especially in our automotive and manufacturing industries. Canadians are already losing jobs. If anything, we need to hold our elbows higher.
We will never be the 51st state. But if there’s one good thing that’s come out of the idea it’s to remind us that we’re one country.
