Like we did between provinces. No, wait…
Sadly, the Atlantic article is paywalled (and initially not even linked) so I could only surmise what Frum was on about. US-Canada mergers have been hypothesized in the past. That’s what I was addressing. I agree that in principle stronger – indeed much stronger – Canada-US trade relationships are mutually beneficial, as long as Canada retains its sociopolitical autonomy.
Eliminate cross-border tariffs? Sure! I’ve always been all for it!
Require Canada to impose outrageous pharmaceutical costs to mirror those of the US? Allow US health insurers to create a second-tier health care system in Canada for medically necessary procedures, and roll back 60 years of progress? No thanks!
The article is just about Brexit. Everything Frum said about Canada is in the first post. I didn’t link to the article because I am disputing only his throwaway idea Canada would clearly be “more prosperous” if it merged with the US, mentioned in passing as a way of partially defending (by analogy) the terrible choice to leave the EU. This is not obvious to me. The US has a higher GDP and average income, of course. This has not much helped, say, puertoriqueños. Of course there are many ways to define prosperity.
For the infinite number of interpretations of what “merged” means, which is the problem here in trying to mount a rational discussion.
As I said, I’m all in favour of a stronger economic union. I’m vehemently opposed to any sort of political merger. This is a case where you really need to define your terms.
Frum seems to play the idiot here.
If one assumes the Canadian government simply dissolves and the former provinces become US states then clearly within a small number of years the total GDP of the former provinces will rise to near US per capita levels. Duh.
As many Canadians have said in this thread, that will not represent anything close to improvement in most former-Canadians’ lives.
A few Canadian fatcats will be made very happy. Arguably most of the Albertans will feel politically vindicated. Everybody else will be wondering where their civilization went and they didn’t even get any money to ease the pain of their loss.
It’s not even all that great an analogy for Brexit in any event.
Not choosing to become part of a union in the first place is not, as Frum analogizes, anything near the same as fundamentally changing/destroying the terms of an existing decades long relationship
In Canada, the constitution is about “peace, order and good government” whereas the US is based in “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. In my view, those are fundamental differences.
For example, in Canada we think nothing of the government intervening in the economy even setting up “crown corporations” which directly compete in the marketplace to benefit the consumer by hopefully limiting gouging. We have a universal medicare system that has been discussed ad nauseum in other threads. Everyone has at least basic medical services. These are viewed in trade talks with the US as “unfair subsidies” by US trade interests.
My son’s ex-wife is an american and her family is rather “left” (lifelong Democrat supporters) but in a very “American” way. They think Canada’s “system” or much of any government involvement in the marketplace is not the proper way to go. It’s all about “free enterprise” even if the average person is worse off. We still have contact with them as my son and his ex have two adult children together and we’re very close with those grands. His ex’s family are very good people they just think differently. Sure, there are those in Canada that love “American ideals” but they tend to be “truckers rally protester” types. Mostly made up of a minority of Western malcontents with some loose connections to MAGA Republicans.
No way there’s any form of Canada-US merger, IMHO, even if limited to the bluest states.
For what it’s worth, a large amount of northern Canada is very rocky with only a thin layer of soil.
The U.S. Constitution doesn’t say that. It does say quite explicitly what its purpose is: “… in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…” It’s closer to the Canadian purpose than people often realize.
I was thinking of the “theme” as opposed to the actual language.
A merger isn’t very feasible for all of the reasons stated in this thread. However, I think the electorates of 30-40 years from now may have different perspectives; what kinds depend on how badly we destroy US democracy in the short term or how well we repair it instead. That point in history is fast approaching.
Canadian democracy could also use a few tweaks.
The words may say that, but the execution is much closer to the words of the Declaration of Independence. @Mallard is right in identifying a very fundamental difference between American and Canadian values.
Canadian values are more closely aligned with traditional European ones and, in particular, with the social democracies of Scandinavian countries, though certainly not to nearly the same extent. American values derive from an entirely new invention, premised on individual freedoms above all else, regardless of consequences, even when those consequences counterfactually intrude on those freedoms. Putting aside the history of slavery, since at least the 60s and the Vietnam era, the US has endured demonstrations, protests, and political divisiveness never seen in Canada. And the pursuit of the Almighty Dollar above all else is just another one of the consequences leading to social instability.
A “North American Union” wouldn’t necessarily mean Canada has to lose significant sovereignty or self-rule to the US – we’d have to work something out for health care and perhaps other services (maybe American citizens who live in Canada have to pay additional tax to access health care more than once per year, or something like that), but presuming a deal could be worked out that didn’t sink Canada’s health care and other service systems, it could be much like the EU. Americans could go to Canada to live and work, and vice versa, without barriers and borders, but Canada keeps its own government, military, etc.
I am US born, but have been living in Canada for nearly 55 years. I am retired and could move to the US anytime and my pensions would follow. The only reason I am even mildly tempted is that my three kids all live there. My taxes would go way down. But then I would have to struggle with Medicare. And gun violence. And total political dysfunction. No thanks.
I’m curious whether that’s largely a function of the fact that you live in Quebec. My general impression of US vs Canada taxation is that comparisons are difficult because the systems are so different, even just regarding income tax alone, but that by and large the actual rates of taxation are not all that different and in many common scenarios Canadians actually pay less tax, or similar tax but with greater monetary benefits such as health care. Wealthy Americans are actually assessed a higher maximum federal tax rate (37%) than Canadians (33%) but the former have access to more deductions/loopholes.
Look at all of the energy resources in Canada; oil, natural gas, hydro, uranium. If Canada joined the United States, all of those resources would obviously make America more prosperous. How does that benefit Canada? They’re part of the United States now! Everyone wins!
Absolutely! And American health insurers would get 39 million more customers, and American gun manufacturers would get 10 or 20 million more customers. Funeral directors would also have more business as both untreated diseases and shootings proliferated across Canada and average life expectancy plummeted to US levels. Win-win all around! 
I would rather call them concessions. The state graciously concedes some rights, until they are revoqued, of course. (See: emergency state, state of war, sedition, revolution).
Well, yes, up to a certain point, we are. Of course. When so called socialist countries claimed that they conceded more and further reaching rights than capitalist countries did, they had a ground to argue that: they meant that societal rights were more important than individual rights. This was mendatious and highly hypocritical then, of course, but so was the West’s counter argument. And still is. The same is still true today WRT Russia, China, North Korea etc., and when in his usual exercise of whataboutism Putin has criticised the West again and again in the last 20 years he had a point, though a cynical one.
You are probably right about Quebec. I calculate my federal tax, then take 15% off for taxes transferred to Quebec, then calculate Quebec taxes and they are always larger than the net federal tax.
Classically, there are two kinds of rights. Political rights, and inalienable rights. Political rights are those rights that can be horse-traded, regulated, etc. Inalienable rights are those rights that are yours intrinsically and cannot be taken away by government. Life, Liberty, etc. No one can decide to write a bill that trades the lives of one group for another, or enslaves one group to benefit another.
The founders talked about rights being ‘God-granted’, but that was just a way of saying that they are universal and not subject to the whim of government. Government doesn’t grant inalienable rights - they are yours, and you are born with them. And the constitution codifies them to ensure that government doesn’t try to take them away.
The other thing about rights is that they can not be granted at the expense of others. You have no ‘right’ to something that would require someone else to be forced to give it to you, violating their rights. So you can have a right to pursue happiness (live for your own goals), but you have NO right to a specific outcome or to free things or anything else that requires others to provide it. Anything that requires others to provide it is a privilege.