Dear editor:
Last week, I asked about how we might handle an invasion, or coercion, resulting in annexation by the United States (“Letter: Difficult questions to consider with Trump’s sovereignty threats,” May 1). But this need not necessarily be resisted by violence. There are more civilized ways.
In this newspaper on April 17, Don Mustill offered us an interesting thought experiment (“Letter: The fallacy of the 51st state“), which showed how the government of a unified North America would turn out to be a huge majority for the Democrats!
Assuming that one way or another, an annexation has occurred, let’s continue from there. What would happen next?
Well, for starters, as Mr. Mustill has pointed out, there would be a very large contingent of Canadians sitting in the House of Representatives. Perhaps they would begin by introducing the Americans to the idea of a safety net to protect the poor people and provide them with the affordable health care they so badly needed. Just an example.
But wait — we may now have made a large percentage of Americans on the right extremely angry, our solution having exacerbated the division between right and left.
Let us leave that possibility aside for now and fast forward a few years, assuming we have the annexation. Along the way, we could show them the real benefits of having a three-party system.
Having only hard right or hard left to choose from when voting is a bit limiting. This is the point where the whole idea might collapse with the left/right division widening.
But, on the other hand, while taking a while to settle, after 15 years or so, the newly enlightened America might have stabilized under three new parties. The population would hopefully have found benefit in the changes.
Some might ponder how they could have spent so many generations focused on the supreme importance of individualism, at the expense of losing compassion for their neighbours.
Fast forward again. Now, with everything stable on an even keel, we Canadians could quietly and gently withdraw north of the 49th parallel.
We would excuse ourselves politely, saying that even though we had much in common, we were in fact different. We might give examples of certain difficulties encountered during our period of shared governance, recognizing and fully accepting that we really were different people, we would now secede and leave them to continue as they might wish.
Having re-established a firm and amicable friendship between the two countries, we would say: “So long, don’t forget to visit.”
Andrew Henwood
NOTL
