Why not?
And yet they don’t, because: [Append all answers except “they don’t need the money” from the previous question]
I think you underestimate the Canadian Armed Forces.
The idea is not unprecedented. Read the history of the Kingdom of Sarawak.
In the 21st Century, I am skeptical than any country could be persuaded to part with their territory.
You can buy land in Canada, but your going to have to go through one of the provinces or territorial govts. If you want to actually set foot on this land, then you have to satisfy Canadian immigration. As to setting up a sovereign entity within Canadian borders, unless you have negotiated with Ottawa , this ain’t gonna happen.
Now as long as your paying your taxes to the Govt(s) then I can see room to play with a couple of different concepts. Either starting a special economic zone, or quietly building your very own Eribor and maybe calling it a theme park with “actors”. But either way, if the RCMP shows up at your door with a search warrant, then your going to let them see what they want.
It’s happened in the recent past. Countries sometimes exchange bits of their territory to make the borders more convenient. Of course, that’s not the same thing as selling off a piece of a country to a non-sovereign entity. But I don’t share your skepticism that such a thing could never happen nowadays. There are plenty of fragile or failed states in the 21st century where some fanatic or warlord with nominal control of the country would agree to part with some territory for a hefty cash infusion, particularly if that territory is occupied by rebels. If the OP is the billionaire in question, maybe he could persuade the internationally recognized leaders of Somalia to sell off a piece of Somaliland, or the UN-regonized but cash-strapped leaders of Libya a piece of the Tobruk-held Sahara.
A few comments.
First, the First Nations and Inuit who live in the sparsely-populated lands would dispute the suggestion that the lands are unused. As well, the Government of Canada has obligations under treaties and aboriginal title to respect those land claims, as well as hunting and fishing rights. There would be major difficulties in trying to do what you’re suggesting.
Second, the reason for the sparse population in much of Canada is that the land is isolated and not suitable for activities like agriculture. It would be very difficult to establish oneself in those areas without relying on the infrastructure provided by the governments. It would also be very difficult to get in and out of those distant lands without using transportation links to the southern parts of Canada, regulated by the Government of Canada (eg air services; internet access; food supplies). Your wannabe billionaire would find that the federal agencies can easily blockade his “territory” and just wait for him to starve himself out.
Third, you’re confusing the sale of land with sovereignty. Buying a tract of land from the Crown doesn’t mean that the Crown has surrendered sovereignty over that land; it just means that the purchaser is now the civil owner of that land. To actually surrender land from Canadian sovereignty would require a constitutional amendment.
There’s nothing in the OP about rejecting any Government and its nasty money.
So, ok, let’s say you have a bank account with, oh, a trillion dollars. Couldn’t you hire enough mercenaries and go depose an already existing country by force? Because ultimately that sounds like what it would take.
You can’t do this to Canada, and especially not in the USA, too powerful a military. Central America sounds promising for this, lots of weak, corrupt nations with weak and corrupt neighbors. Also Africa. Basically if you don’t kill too many people in the process. Basically, once you have enough money you could in theory do this.
One nasty problem: where do you keep a trillion dollars? What stops the UN from just ordering your accounts frozen? Or from other countries deciding not to honor any bonds you own?
If you had the trillion dollars in U.S. treasury bonds, does the U.S. government have a policy of honoring them even if they don’t like you?
Been tried once, worked for a while, and then …
It’s unconstitutional for the US to not honor its debts. Not that any one person is likely to own $1 trillion in US bonds. Generally the richest people have most of their wealth in stocks, mostly of their own company.
LMFAO that is sooo funny! My sides are hurting from laughter! You must be an extremely clever person to come up with such a funny line. Just those two words … “blame Canada” … hahaha so so funny and original! In fact I’m predicting this will become the internet meme of the century, gazillions of juveniles all over the world will post this joke every time Canada is mentioned anywhere. But you know what, this is so clever that even after the gazillionth repeat it’ll still sound as fresh and hilarious as your original post.
Thank you so much for this gift! I shall print a hardcopy and use it to keep me amused during those long winter nights when I’m stuck in my igloo waiting for the snowstorm to blow over.
The US has tried this before, and it never ends in sunshine and rainbows.
I think the answer to the OP can be summarized as: you can go buy some remote land, and as long as you obey local laws and pay your taxes, you will mostly be left alone and can do whatever you want. In functioning countries with low corruption levels, if you break local laws and especially if you don’t pay your taxes, somebody is going to eventually show up, and they won’t care what you call yourself.
The not quite answer to the OP is that if you’re rich enough you can be mostly outside the control of any country, and depending on what you want, you might not even have to defend your compound from local warlords. There are lots of countries that have specifically structured their laws to allow rich people to hide money, and avoid taxes, which is what most of these “declare my front yard sovereign” schemes come down to. If you want to setup your own country so you can marry your 12 year old niece or something, then use your money to get help.
There are also the classic issues of having to pay them to start fighting, and having to pay them even more to stop fighting, and negotiate that tricky moment when, having used their guns to earn your money, they remember they have both the guns and the money and thus no real incentive to be nice to you anymore.
Once the mercs have taken the country and your money, what do they need you for? Why not toss you in a dungeon and torture you until you give up all your Swiss bank account numbers?
It’s a 20 year old pop-culture reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOR38552MJA
Maybe you knew that, but if so your post makes no sense.
Escrow? You wouldn’t have the funds in cash. Escrow means you can’t give up the money under duress. There would also have to be many mercenary companies, simply for numbers reasons - everyone that Blackwater can get for you isn’t enough. You’d need to hire a vast number of mercenaries, you’d need to somehow get the Russians to sell you the good stuff (you want the mercenaries to have modern equipment that is substantially better than whatever the target nation has), it would take a substantial effort.
Anyways, it would be difficult for this many mercenary companies to turn against you, and it’s not like you pay them upfront for the whole campaign, they would receive payments and bonuses for each effort involved.
Haha that’s a pretty decent adaptation of jayjay’s joke. The animation is a bit amateurish though. But as I predicted, “blame Canada” is spreading like wildfire. Google returns 192,000 hits already!
I’m sorry. I’ll be sure to run all of my jokes by you first from now on, just to make sure I’m not posting old ones.
(That was sarcasm, in case that didn’t come across.)
Well, it didn’t go well for Bob Denard despite multiple tries in various countries, esp. The Comoros.
BTW, they aren’t called “mercenaries” anymore. They are called “private armies”. Helps when searching the Dark Web.
We’re gonna need a bigger mattress.
I’ll keep that in mind for when I become a trillionaire. As for Bob Denard…umm…he basically did take over for 11 years, I mean what do you consider “didn’t go that well”? I’d say jointly ruling a small but real country as a right hand man to a dictator is a heck of a lot better than most people can list in their accomplishments. And this is a person without billions or trillions of dollars in resources.