U.S.-eh? Who are the Canadians who would support a 51st state?
Fringe groups support the notion of joining the United States in the face of Trump's threats
It may surprise and even enrage many people to know there are Canadians out there who wouldn't mind this country becoming the 51st state of the U.S.
It's a small number, to be sure: About 10 per cent of Canadians say they would support Canada joining the U.S., according to a poll by the Angus Reid Institute, completed in January.
Ryan Hemsley, who lives in Victoria, sees himself in that camp.
"It would mean access to jobs, access to wealth, access to a piece of land that I don't necessarily have access to right now," he said.
There is a far more impressive but less surprising number in that poll — a huge 90 per cent of Canadians totally oppose the idea. That some Canadians would actually consider joining our neighbour to the south sparks rage in the face of newly ignited nationalism. When CBC Radio's Cross Country Checkup held a call-in show around the idea, there was massive outcry.
Protesters showed up when Saskatchewan's Buffalo Party held a fundraiser where the concept was discussed. The venue received threats and security had to be hired — a sign of just how dramatic and intense even entertaining such a debate can be. But that's not stopping a small minority of Canadians who look south and see opportunity and personal gain.
Avoiding tariffs
The impetus for the Angus Reid poll is, of course, U.S. President Donald Trump's repeated comments about Canada becoming the 51st state. It's a solution, he says, to Canada avoiding his steep tariffs on most goods.
The quip first came out of a December Mar-a-Lago meeting with Trump, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and then-public safety minister Dominic LeBlanc, who on his return to Ottawa reassured reporters that "the president was teasing us." It may have been treated like a joke then, but coupled with a devastating trade war, it's becoming infuriating to Canadians and the Danes, with Greenland also targeted by Trump.
Becoming an American state, or supporting some kind of economic union with the United States, is the latest campaign for people on the "margins and fringes and feeling underserved" by Canada's political landscape, said Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute.
It was triggered by longstanding grievances. Many who side with the president also took issue with Canada's vaccine mandates, or don't like the British monarchy — or they want the Western provinces to secede from the country.
The small number of Canadians who feel this way are getting attention south of the border, including in a segment on Fox News, which featured Hemsley in late December, and in an Oval Office news conference on Feb. 25, when a pro-Trump media personality asked Trump about a "movement" of Canadians who want to join the U.S.
"It's true," Trump responded. (It's not true on any significant scale.)
That so-called "movement" is more like a "fringe minority," says Jared Wesley, a political science professor with the University of Alberta.
Angus Reid data shows people who support the idea are more likely to live in Alberta or Saskatchewan and less likely to support a major political party, said Kurl. But she stresses that they could really come from anywhere, with any kind of political leaning.
Looking to the U.S.
Like Hemsley, who is 33 and originally from Ottawa. He moved to Vancouver Island to escape bitter winters, and now sells cars. But the relocation also means that on a clear day, he can ogle the U.S., just 25 kilometres away, straight across the Salish Sea.
There, he says he sees the potential to be more successful, in a way that he says hasn't been possible for him in Canada.
"I know that just based on my work ethic, how hard I work, I know that if I were to pay less taxes and have more access to trade and business opportunities ... I would be able to make more money," he said.
On top of that, Hemsley says he struggles to access Canada's in-crisis health-care system and he's unvaccinated for COVID-19, which he says has made finding work difficult.
But erasing a border is not an instant recipe for prosperity, said Jim Stanford, an economist and director at the Centre for Future Work, a Vancouver-based think-tank. It's a common misconception that the U.S.'s higher GDP per capita means Americans are wealthier than Canadians, he said — Americans don't get paid in per capita; they get paid in wages.
"Our workers are paid more and at the median, the average person, they pay less tax, even though we get health care for free and other public benefits," said Stanford. "So the idea that Americans somehow have a land of opportunity that we're denied in Canada? Absolutely false."
Is the grass greener?
The perceived economic benefit is a common reason for Canadians to support the idea of joining the U.S., said Kurl.
Another poll by Ipsos, also in January, found three in 10 Canadians would consider annexation if they were offered U.S. citizenship and conversion of Canadian assets to U.S. dollars.
However, Stanford says, if this were ever made reality, it would dramatically undermine Canada's economy, said Stanford.
"Because suddenly everything in Canada, including our wages and our workers, would look much, much more expensive. Too expensive and Canada would become a depressed backwater," he said.
But there are other 51st-state supporters who have long held onto the idea of some kind of secession from Canada, like Peter Downing.
He's most known for being the founder of Wexit, a political party that advocated for Western Canada to split off from the rest of the country. He's now one of the people behind a giant billboard in Bowden, Alta., featuring a picture of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith next to Donald Trump with the line "Let's join the USA!"
"Everybody envies the power of the Americans, the freedom of the Americans, the accomplishments of the Americans," said Downing.
Defending Canada
Security in a changing world is also a big part of Downing's desire to join the U.S. He sees threats from China and Russia and to Canada's coveted Northwest Passage as good reasons, since Trump began taunting his northern neighbour's relative lack of military strength.
"They think we're going to ... protect them with our military, which is unfair," Trump said in the Oval Office on Feb. 13.
Asked about the Bowden billboard on Feb. 24, Alberta's Premier Smith said she has seen "no enthusiasm for that notion"; in fact, all Canadian politicians have soundly rejected any form of union with the U.S.
"No major policy initiative, let alone some form of annexation, is going to see the light of day unless mainstream political leaders start to advocate in favour of it," said Wesley, from the University of Alberta.
Misunderstandings of the reality and mechanics of becoming a U.S. state are common in polls like this, said Wesley, noting a small number of people often vote in a way that expresses their frustration with the government or status quo in Canada.
"Most folks that have expressed this in polls to us have not really thought through the implications of it, and when tested on it, usually back away from those types of opinions."
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