Invite Canada’s Conservatives to Join America
The president should incorporate America’s northern neighbor—but not all of it.
President Donald Trump, in his inaugural address, said that the U.S. under his leadership would “consider itself a growing nation” that “expands our territory.” Canadians surely took note of that line. The new U.S. president had already threatened, in the weeks leading up to his inauguration, to annex Canada via “economic force.”
Canadians initially saw Trump’s comments as a troll, then as a negotiating tactic. Perhaps, they thought (or maybe hoped), he’s only pretending to want the farm so that he can get a few cows, not the land itself. But an uncomfortable question arose: What cattle does Trump hope to rustle? Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, for his part, was overheard saying Trump’s plan to make Canada America’s 51st state is a “real thing.” Only Trump knows for certain if Trudeau is right, but the proposal has notably remained a regular talking point.
What I, as an American-loving Canadian, know for certain is that the president, if he genuinely wants to annex my country, shouldn’t aim to get all of it. Absorbing the whole of Canada would be kryptonite to U.S. conservatism and neuter the MAGA movement. Instead, Trump should invite into the American family those Canadians who hold conservative values.
At first blush, it seems there aren’t many such Canadians. These days, Canada’s political spectrum makes American lefties look like sober moderates. Its Liberal Party, once akin to the center of the Democratic Party, increasingly has resembled the socialist New Democrats and radical Greens. Members of all three parties would feel at home in the company of Senator Bernie Sanders, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and their far-left ilk.
Even Canada’s Conservative Party and provincial factions with “conservative” in their name are more similar to moderate Democrats than MAGA Republicans, and are openly dismissive of social conservatism.
Annexing Canada would be like importing a slightly more populous California. Suddenly, policies championing radical gender ideology, universal healthcare, stricter gun control, open borders, and climate alarmism would find much stronger support in the U.S. Congress.
That, at least, is what buying the whole farm would mean. But among the sprawling homestead that is Canada—the world’s fourth-largest country by land area—there are some fatted calves worth rustling, or maybe rescuing, depending on your perspective. While Canadians have broadly resisted and resented Trump’s annexation proposal, Albertans just might be persuadable.
Alberta’s residents exhibit a cultural affinity to the Montanans just across the border. They value ranching, farming, and a pioneering spirit. Apart from a few urban areas, they consistently elect right-wing politicians at all levels of government. Albertans, if they joined the United States, might come to appreciate having national leaders unashamed to advance their worldview and agendas. In their current relationship with Ottawa, they feel a lot of take but very little give.
Each year—through federally mandated “equalization payments”—Ottawa removes billions from Alberta’s coffers and redistributes the funds to underperforming provinces (which is most of them). Worse, those coffers are already less full than they would be absent onerous progressive policies that Albertans never voted for.
Alberta’s fossil-fuelled economy has for years been at odds with federal green policies that have damaged livelihoods through carbon taxes, inefficient regulatory processes, and pipeline rejections. Sitting on the third-largest oil reserves in the world, the province’s workers would see the wisdom in Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” approach. Meanwhile, Team Trump, if Alberta became a state, would welcome decreased reliance on foreign oil. On both sides of the border, union would bring increased profits from the elimination of trade barriers.
In a December survey, 30 percent of Albertans said their province would benefit from exchanging the Maple Leaf for the Star and Stripes, higher than in other provinces. Though not a majority, that figure is something to work with for America’s dealmaker-in-chief. He might start by playing on longstanding sentiments in Alberta, whose history features separatist movements that sought to free the province from Ottawa’s shackles.
If Albertans were receptive to Trump’s overtures, they wouldn’t need permission from Ottawa to pack up and leave. Unlike in America, where a state’s secession is unconstitutional, Canada’s Clarity Act, passed in 2000, provides a legal pathway for a province to exit if a bare majority of its citizens vote to do so.
To be sure, Alberta’s political leaders don’t seem inclined to head for the exits. Moreover, convincing another 21 percent of Albertans to support American annexation could prove a tall task even for Trump. Fortunately, if the Alberta Option failed, there’s a Plan B: Rather than incorporate some of Canada’s land, invite some of its people. Specifically, invite the kinds of Canadians whose presence in America would strengthen U.S. conservatism.
There exists in Canada a loose community of right-leaning citizens who call themselves the “freedom movement.” Trudeau has used less lofty language to describe them: “a small fringe minority… with unacceptable views.” That description isn’t just dismissive, but inaccurate. A 2022 Canadian government report found that “sympathy with Freedom Movement captures somewhere between a quarter and a third of Canadians; the movement represents a minority, but not a fringe.”
What Trudeau called the movement’s “unacceptable views” mirror ideas and values held by Trump’s staunchest American supporters. The most active members of Canada’s freedom movement have fought against Covid-19 mandates, DEI intimidation, radical gender ideology, and out-of-control immigration. Many have suffered hardship for their activism, and Canada’s center-right parties have tended to ignore or even berate them.
If the president were to create an expedited path to U.S. citizenship for Canadians belonging to the freedom movement, many might take the offer. These new citizens would arrive already cherishing Western culture.
The United States already expedites the naturalization process for those who can prove persecution. The same can be done for Canadians who demonstrate their antipathy to the authoritarian liberalism emanating from Ottawa. Many applicants could produce notices of firing from work or expulsion from school for refusing a Covid jab. (Tens of thousands of Canadian nurses were fired for insisting on their bodily autonomy.) Others could show evidence of job loss, jail time, court costs, demotions, exclusion from employment, slanderous news articles, or denial of government funding experienced as a result of holding a conservative worldview.
Of course, not all of Canada’s conservatives would pull up stakes to become U.S. citizens. They have shown themselves to be natural-born political warriors, and many would choose to keep fighting for greater liberty in their native land.
But I know from my personal experience networking in these circles, speaking at rallies, working on campaigns, and crafting material for court cases that many have come to see the fight for Canada’s future as a lost cause—and for good reason.
Besides a political climate and political class that leans left, the Canadian Constitution and its Charter of Rights and Freedoms has been rigged against personal rights, meritocracy, and the sustaining of Western culture. For many in the freedom movement, the chance to exchange these impotent documents for the more robust U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights would be another pull south.
There are some Canadian cows looking for greener grass. It might not take much for an American cowboy to corral them.
The post Invite Canada’s Conservatives to Join America appeared first on The American Conservative.
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