Trump desires to make Canada a part of the US. Some Canadians have an interest | EUROtoday

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Diane Francis didn’t transfer to Canada to trigger controversy. She crossed the border from her native U.S. with one thing totally completely different in thoughts: “I immigrated with a draft dodger during the Vietnam War.”

Long after the conflict was over, she stayed, she gained Canadian citizenship, she raised her youngsters in her adopted nation. And then she wrote the e book that had her “blacklisted” from some media circles and frozen out from others.

“A lot of Canadians hated the book,” she says, in a video interview from her luxurious condominium in Toronto. “They hated the idea that someone would even write the book.” Though it bought properly in a variety of international locations, it was barely reviewed inside Canada: folks didn’t wish to speak in regards to the elephant within the room, she believes. Francis’s Canadian children “did not like it,” both.

Then, 12 years later, Donald Trump mentioned Canada ought to turn out to be America’s 51st state. And folks began to whisper about whether or not Francis may need been proper all alongside.

The e book in query was The Merger of the Century: Why Canada and America Should Become One Country. Published in 2013, it wasn’t totally obtained as Francis supposed.

Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau once enjoyed a more cordial relationship

Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau as soon as loved a extra cordial relationship (AP)

“It was really a warning,” she tells me. “Okay, get yourself organized, guys. You’ve got a great country — we’ve got a great country here, and you know, frankly, we don’t want their gun laws and we don’t want their lousy healthcare system, their crime rates, blah, blah. So let’s do something about it. Or — and I said this very clearly — they’re gonna make a takeover bid, and they’re gonna gobble us up.”

Francis understands why Canadians would bristle on the suggestion (certainly, a current research discovered 94 % of Canadians are against changing into a part of the U.S.). She herself discovered Trump’s remark about Canada changing into America’s 51st state offensive. But it was clearly simply “trash talk,” she says. “It was insulting. But I don’t criticize Trump for that, because frankly — and I’m saying this as an American citizen, and I love the place — they’re very ignorant about other countries.”

Nevertheless, there’s one thing professional there to open a negotiation, she provides. “If I were the prime minister of Canada tomorrow, I’d go down and say: ‘Look, President Trump, totally understand your M.O., I get it. You’re right. I wrote a book about it. We haven’t been pulling our weight. Here’s what we propose. We will double the amount we spend on the military. We will procure everything from pencils to tanks from U.S. suppliers — that will help with the trade deficit. And that’s my pledge.’ For him, that’s a big win.”

“I’d just say, you know, we can’t take a tariff,” she provides, of Trump’s current threats to impose sweeping 25 % tariffs on items from Canada. “That’ll cause trouble for you guys too. And so, would you please rethink the tariff if we do those things? And what else would you like us to do? We’ll consider.”

Diane Francis wrote her prescient book 12 years before a U.S.-Canada merger became a mainstream political discussion

Diane Francis wrote her prescient e book 12 years earlier than a U.S.-Canada merger turned a mainstream political dialogue (Diane Francis)

Francis has been saying for some time that the merging of Canada and the U.S. is “inevitable,” and that one of the best ways Canadians can reply to that inevitability is by working critically on the deal. In one of many thought experiments she put ahead prior to now, she urged that promising free healthcare for all times would soften the blow for Canadians cautious of a completely merged Canada-U.S.

These days, nonetheless, she thinks that if Canada and the U.S. did turn out to be one nation, their political programs must stay separated. Although she factors out that many northern American states — reminiscent of Vermont, Washington, New York, Oregon, or Maine — are likely to have legal guidelines very related, or much more progressive, than Canada itself, she accepts that different states have moved additional aside from their Canadian neighbors on points like abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment and gun management since she wrote the e book. That would imply a much less straightforward, although nonetheless workable, union, the place politics are devolved.

Considering that it’s already very straightforward for Americans and Canadians to reside and work in every others’ international locations, a completely open border wouldn’t be seen as a optimistic today, both — by Americans or Canadians. Canada — whose well being care system is “far superior,” Francis factors out — might turn out to be “deluged with health care refugees.” Either the U.S. adjustments its method to well being care (which she thinks is coming, particularly after the outpouring of anger following the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York) or the border ought to have some controls retained round it. That’s possible what Americans need proper now, as properly, contemplating the anti-immigration bent of Trump’s second time period.

Canadian author Don Tapscott has agreed there could be distinct economic advantages for the U.S. and Canada if they were to become one big, happy country

Canadian writer Don Tapscott has agreed there might be distinct financial benefits for the U.S. and Canada in the event that they have been to turn out to be one massive, completely satisfied nation (AP)

By working to merge in an clever and nuanced method, nonetheless, the international locations might nonetheless work collectively to reap the benefits of Canada’s huge pure assets, she says. That doesn’t imply the U.S. merely making an attempt to grab Canada’s property for its personal (“I don’t think the Americans realize how much it would cost them. The calculation I made was 17 trillion [dollars]. That’s half a million per person in Canada. That’s a lot of money. And why do it unless you have to? They don’t have to.”).

But it does imply that “Canada could say: ‘Yeah, you know, you’re right about the Arctic, but we have a small population. We’ll build military bases up there to help and you can partner in resource development, but we don’t have any infrastructure up there. So, we’ll do some of that. That’s how it could be structured.” Indeed, Francis is a real pragmatist, who isn’t keen on being dragged into the confrontation she sees escalating between American and Canadian politicians proper now: “The grandstanding is amusing to me.”

In a current op-ed for Fortune, Canadian writer Don Tapscott laid out his personal imaginative and prescient for a United States of Canamerica. In it, he agreed there might be distinct financial benefits for the U.S. and Canada in the event that they have been to turn out to be one massive, completely satisfied nation — however added that there could be some stipulations Canadians could be unwilling to rethink. Like Francis, he was notably involved by the well being care problem: “Canadians also live six years longer than their American counterparts and perform better on virtually every other health measure, from infant mortality to obesity and mental health,” he wrote. Nationalized healthcare would make sense each from a quality-of-life perspective and a monetary perspective, contemplating Canada spends simply 11 % of its GDP on well being care (in comparison with the U.S.’s 19 %) and manages to cowl each citizen.

Climate change, too, must get again on the agenda, Tapscott added. “True, we’ve historically benefited from fossil fuels, but we play our role in the green economy through government investments, entrepreneurship, and yes, carbon taxation,” he mentioned.

Allowing in additional refugees, standardizing Ok-12 training, and bringing in strict political marketing campaign financing legal guidelines additionally made Tapscott’s record. Needless to say, these are all pretty unlikely to make Republican hearts sing south of the Canadian border.

Francis mentioned 10 years in the past that she embraced the controversy her ideas had triggered. She stands by that now

However, Rupa Supramanya, an Ottawa-based journalist for American on-line information outlet The Free Press, discovered a heat reception for the thought of a CanAmerica merger in her metropolis — particularly amongst folks of their 20s and 30s.

Over e mail, Supramanya advised me she wasn’t shocked. “Put simply, they see better opportunities if Canada is attached to a more dynamic economy,” she advised me.

It isn’t simply the financial system that Canadians envy. It’s additionally, Supramanya believes, the truth that Americans have a stronger sense of their very own id. “Americans have a positive sense of who they are centered around their culture and history,” she says, with a popular culture output that “dominates the world.” On the opposite aspect of the border, “many Canadians, especially on the left, identify themselves as non-American. In other words, Canadian identity is ‘we’re not American,’ which is a negative and fragile sense of who they are.”

Supramanya believes there might be an EU-style settlement between the U.S. and Canada on the horizon, “especially if the Canadian economy continues to underperform the US.” But with a lame duck prime minister, a prorogued parliament and “an ongoing liberal party leadership contest that will not be resolved until March,” Justin Trudeau has “an extremely weak hand” to play towards Trump, she provides.

Diane Francis agrees: Canada wants somebody higher than Trudeau to barter phrases, she mentioned in a current YouTube video, as a result of Trump is “eating him alive already.” During our interview, I counsel that perhaps Mar-a-Lago will come calling for her as an alternative, contemplating her lengthy historical past of taking a merger critically.

She smiles. “The team has my book — I know this. I’ve gotten calls.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-canada-tariffs-51st-state-trudeau-b2691325.html