It's time to flex our muscles and become the glorious nation of Saskatchewan we always knew we could be

This Opinion piece is by James Whittingham, a comic actor and screenwriter in Saskatchewan.

For more information about CBC's Opinion section, please see the FAQ.

I have my doubts about Saskatchewan separating from Canada but a fella can dream, can't he?

What a strong, dignified nation we'd be! A nation within a nation where our chief exports would be watermelon helmets, wildfire smoke and ICU patients.

In the same way Quebec has its distinct language and history, we have our oil and pickup trucks — the two things we seem to spend a lot of time defending.

Earlier this week, Premier Scott Moe said he wants Saskatchewan to be a "nation within a nation" by increasing its autonomy in several areas, including policing, taxation and immigration. Moe said he is "not talking about separation. We are talking about being a Saskatchewan cultural identity within the nation of Canada — but being a nation within a nation."

Unlike Quebec, we can't really claim language is one of the things that makes us distinct.

That said, our men do like to say "the wife" instead of "my wife" for some reason. For example: "My head got stuck in my bunnyhug and I spilled my Pil' down my gotch while the wife was laughing so hard she nearly choked on her jam-buster." 

Nationhood, please.

• Premier Moe wants Saskatchewan to be a 'nation within a nation' by increasing autonomy

We can start by clearly distinguishing ourselves. Chocolate milk will once again be called "Vico." All yellow liquids will be called "Beep."

There's not much point in keeping the licence plate slogan, "Land of Living Skies," if the skies are going to be smoky brown or grey every summer from now on. Let's change the slogan to something vulgar about the prime minister. To pay for the new licence plates, we can double down on our unique-to-Saskatchewan tax on electric vehicles.

A country song will of course be our national anthem as long as it mentions pickup trucks. Don't worry, most of them do.

We'll show everyone we are committed to the environment, not by moving forward with the rest of the world, but by finding ways of keeping the bygone things we love.

The Saskatchewan Parliament can fund research into small-scale carbon capture and sequestration for our pickups and help develop very small modular nuclear reactors to power our combines. None of this might work but it's worth spending the money to find out.

Our new national police force/army will cruise the grids in truck-nutted armoured vehicles looking for rabid deer and lost Ontarians.

By mid-century, tourists the world over will flock to the nation of Saskatchewan for a piece of nostalgia. They'll be clamouring for the sights, sounds and polluted smells of their childhoods. 

Visitors will pay cold hard Bitcoin to go for a ride in a genuine combustion vehicle or drip gasoline onto their sneakers at one of the planet's last functioning gas stations. It'll be like trekking through the jungle to encounter a primitive civilization cut off from the world, but with flush toilets.

Saskatchewan as a distinct nation within a nation would be a utopia regardless of what's happening outside our borders. And if we're uncomfortable with how fast the rest of the world is moving forward, it's okay. There's a big, bad boogie man in Ottawa to block our view. 

I don't claim everything would be perfect. The Saskatchewan Olympic team won't be great due to our small population. And unfortunately we'll have to double the PST just to pay for the uniforms. Nation-building doesn't come cheap.

Naturally, we'll have to keep an eye out for political unrest in our cities. We don't want the kale-sucking, bike-peddling soy-heads in the inner cities to get the idea to start their own country within ours. That would be insulting and we should be ready to move them to Vancouver Island.

Maybe it won't happen but it's certainly a nice distraction.

This column is part of CBC's Opinion section. For more information about this section, please read this editor's blog and our FAQ.

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