View from the North 40: Maybe learn Canadian as a Second Language

Ian Hammond, which sounds like an actual name and not a user name, started as a joke an online petition to sell Montana to Canada for $1 trillion to help pay down the U.S. debt, arguing that: “We have too much debt and Montana is useless. Just tell them it has beavers or something.”

As of 11:30 p.m. Thursday the petition had just under 5,000 signers.

This is not any kind of real petition with aspirations of getting legislation changes on a ballot. It’s just a whimsical suggestion on Change.org, a website with the aspiration of creating social change through opinion polls started by its members.

The comments on this particular poll span from a general “Sure, let’s go” and “No, Canada sucks. If you’re so keen to leave, just go” to “Sure, we’ll have ya” and “Good gawd, we don’t want to ruin Canada that way.” Some people took him seriously and flew into a comment rage.

While Hammond’s proposal is intriguing, he falls well short of what should be done, and I know I’ve proposed this in my column before, but I think it bears repeating in light of this petition: We join the Canada and the U.S. into one country, then redivide it north-south rather than east-west.

It makes sense when you consider similarities between our two countries. They both have heavily populated eastern states/provinces which also have a higher concentration of wealth and power, and include our current capitals. The central and western regions are highly agricultural, logging and mining oriented with lots of national parks and some wealthy populations on the west coast.

Also, the east doesn’t understand a thing about the west, but the west doesn’t value the east so we have a balance.

I say we start the division along the Mississippi River, follow the Minnesota-Wisconsin border to the current border with Canada, then jog west to Manitoba and follow that province’s border with Ontario up to the Hudson Bay. West Canusa takes all the western states and provinces, including all of Nunavut even though the province’s land stretches east over the top of the bay.

East Canusa can have Puerto Rico, though I hope they free it to allow it room to heal its own wounds and make something of itself. When you love something, East Canusa, you set it free. If it comes back to you, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it’s still really pissed about that ongoing hurricane recovery debacle.

I know it seems like we should be keeping all our assets in times of change, but I just think we don’t need to waste our time and energy squabbling over who gets this territory when, frankly, we’re probably going to have to use our other territories to buy Canada’s freedom from England.

We former United States of Americans are going to have to step up our game to be more civilized, and the former Canadians are going to have to get in touch with their inner cowboy. I think that together we can forge a union that overcomes our differences like socialized health care, legalized gun ownership and legalized marijuana smokership, as well as that thing about warm beer.

We just need to remember that we have a wealth of cultural similarities that tie us together, most notably our connection to the land as both an integral part of our economy and a responsibility requiring diligent stewardship.

I suggest as a starting point we have socialized health care, legal gun ownership and legal weed, but no health care at all for people who illegally shoot other people and animals or for people involved in the illegal transport and sale of any other drugs, including pharmaceuticals.

As for the warm beer, I do not propose making it illegal, but I think money should be set aside in the West Canusa federal budget for a public service campaign in favor of cold beer, along with funding for language skills to teach southern West Canusa to speak Canadian ”aboot as good as any hoser, eh.”

——

I just hope the north doesn’t try to secede from the union. That would be embarrassing at http://www.facebook.com/viewfromthenorth40.com/.