United States of America + Canada?

[allenmaher]

Adinnieken said:

allenmaher said:
Speaking as a Canadian, I am 100% opposed to any union or annexation into the US. While on the surface the two countries may seem similar there are very profound differences. For one, not all of Canada is English speaking, we have two official languages French and English, which would not likely be carried forward into any sort of union of Canada and the US. This would further exacerbate Quebec tensions and lead to further independence talk. While some parts of Canada would blend in rather seamlessly, such as the prairie provinces, other regions would not find the transition easy, or to their liking. Ontario was settled by United Empire Loyalists the disaffected and displaced of the American revolution, and tends toward anti-Americanism. The east coast provinces have more in common with UK culture than american culture.

Americans would also not likely welcome 10 new states that in american political terms would give the Democrats a virtual lock on the senate and shift the balance of power in the house perpetually in the democrats favour (80% of Canadians would vote democrat in a two party system if they had to choose when asked in a survey). Gay marriage is legal here and has been for a decade, prostitution laws were recently struck down, and women have the right to go topless. The current conservative government is in their last term in office following which decriminalization of marijuana is almost assured as well as many other liberal reforms that would unnerve much of the US. Then take into account universal health care, well funded public schools, gun control, and other differences that most of the US is not prepared to deal with.

The US is great, I have travelled and worked in most of the continental US over the years. A very friendly people almost without exception... but I think we are better off as friends and neighbours. Do you really want a country with an officially socialist official opposition party (the party that got the second most votes in the last election, yes I am a member of that party) as part of your political milieux?

You forget about Lousianna.  French territory that integrated into the US without a problem.  The French in Lousianna just said "Fuck it!" and created Creole.  Possibly just to spite the English speaking American's.  "You want us to speak English?  No.  We'll speak English and French together at the same time."  If you only know English, you won't understand it.  If you sort of know French, you won't get it.  If you only know French, you too won't understand, but you'll understand more than those English.

As well, we have communities of Amish (Germans) across the country that live in relative isolation speaking only German.  We buy up Amish stuff like crazy all the time.  Amish goods are a cottage industry.  Heck, if you believe the bullshit marketing by some companies, they're even responsible for making super fancy electric space heaters.

So, despite displacing and killing off thousands of Native Americans, I'm sure if the US and Canada integrated together, millions of French Canadians would have nothing to fear.  I mean, how fertile is Quebec anyway?  How long is the growing season?  Are the French Canadian's absolutely opposed to moving to Alberta?  I hear it's a wonderful place to live visit in the Summer.

While the American integration of the old centers of Nouvelle France was fairly problem free.  Most people forget that Detroit was Fort Ponchartrain du Détroit but at the time of assimilation it was only at best a few thousand settlers who were quickly outnumbered by new setler groups. Nouvelle-Orléans passed through multiple hands including Spain along the way to becoming a part of the US.  Quebec is a very large population of predominantly french speaking and nationalistic people, about 8 million (aprox 80% french) nearly half of which voted for separation to create an independant nation in 1995 (I lived there and voted at the time). They have a sovereigtist government right now in an officially bilingual country.  In a unilingual country like a US Canada union... they would vote to separate in a heartbeat.  Thier biggest fear is cultural assimilation in an overwhelmingly english speaking North America (listen to any Parti Quebecquois speaches in the last few decades).

For the record Quebec has a very active agricultural base, and has since the early 1600's.