A Commentary by Doug Draper, Publisher, Niagara At Large
As I was about to cross the Canada-U.S. border this September 30 to pick up my wife at the Buffalo Airport, a CBC radio host was interviewing a Canadian newspaper columnist who believes that a merging of the two countries would be a great idea.
In her just-released book titled ‘Merger of the Century: Why Canada and America Should Become One Country’, National Post business columnist Diane Francis argued that such a merger would make Canada and the United States more competitive in a world of rising economic giants like India and China.
All I could do as I listened to Francis, who is a dual (Canadian/ U.S.) citizen, is say; ‘Surely you are kidding? This has got to be a gimmick to sell books.’
As I listened to Francis, who made clear she was serious about this idea as she went on to back it up with all kinds of facts and figures, the hopelessly fractured and dysfunctional government forces in Washington, D.C. were only hours away from shutting down most of their federal services and leave hundreds of thousands of civil servants, from coast to coast without a pay cheque for however long the doors and gates to where they worked are padlocked.
All of this, including the suspension of assistance programs for everyone from war veterans to families in need of food stamps and cancer patients, has been accomplished by a faction of Tea Party and libertarian zealots in the Republican Party who see President Barrack Obama’s plan – now the law of the land by the way, backed up more than a year ago in a ruling by a decidedly conservative bench of Supreme Court justices – to bring affordable health care to some 40 million Americans who have no health care insurance at all as some kind of socialist plague that is going to destroy the economy of the country.
This October 1st front page of the New York Daily News says alot about the current state of politics in Washington, D.C. You can click on the photo to blow it up to a larger size.
Now I don’t know about you but as much as I have a lot of good American friends and as there are things I admire about the country, I’ll take Canada, with all of the problems we have to deal with these days, over this circus, which isn’t going away any time soon, even if this shutdown ends tomorrow. And I know that many of my American friends, some of whom have bought second homes in Canada and love the time they spend here, would understand my point of view.
As much as our current Canadian government under Stephen Harper seems bent on moving us closer to the American way around more focus on the military, a lock ‘em up mentality when it comes to those who stray from the law (with the exception of white collar criminals, of course) and more privatizing of health care and other needed services, I’d rather stand up for what are left of our values than see us become another star on the American flag.
Communities on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border have been observing the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 with an ongoing schedule of events the organizers say are a way to celebrate two centuries of peace and friendship between the two nations since that conflict came to an end.
I truly believe it is a friendship worth celebrating but I also like a line American film maker Woody Allen once said he lives when it comes to many relationships: ‘Friendly but not too familiar.’ I think it is a good line to apply to the relationship between our two countries.
What do you think? Share your views below, remembering that Niagara At Large only posts comments by individuals who identify themselves by their real first and last name.
Niagara At Large 
Would you really want to link yourself up a RAT RACE? That’s what the USA is.It’s TOO FAST!
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I was just talking to a friend about this bizarre interview with Francis. Apparently, she has completely lost her mind.
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I’m with you Doug. My wife and I have family that are Americans. On the whole, Americans are fine people. However, their concept of a society is warped and bent out of shape. They have yet to figure out freedom, responsibility and pulling together. They live in a dream world that dreams the American dream only to find that upon waking they are really living a life of horror. They believe in what the corporate world tells them to believe. They are the wealthiest nation of all OEDC countries yet have to poorest eduction, health care, mortality rates. They have the highest percentage of people in jail. The disparity between rich and poor is the highest of all OECD countries. They are the least democratic country of all OECD countries since wealth means a greater chance policies and regulations will go you way. Why would anyone want to join them?
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I have read this Very Right Wing columnists rhapsody of utter crap for more years than I care to admit and she has never ceased to cause nausea to this elderly gentleman.. which is why I never bother to read MacLean’s magazines in a Doctors office even if there is nothing else to help pass the time. She rants like a “Tea Party” Republican who thinks she has the right to change the world…..She Doesn’t!!!!!!.
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Nobody take Diane Francis or her thesis seriously, We should not get worked up over her clever grab for attention. She’ll do the paid interview cicuit, the Empire Club paid luncheon series, get paid to write articles for the Enterprise Institute … then she’ll disappear and become just a footnote somewhere.
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How incredibly idiotic of Diane Francis! But it will likely put quite a bit of money in her pocket.
As an immigrant to Canada, I would strongly fight against any kind of merger with the US. I have no problems with most Americans – as a matter of fact, two of my kids now live in the US. I just feel that our way of life here in Canada would be horribly disrupted if we were to merge.
You can bet your bottom dollar that our health and pension plans would be the first to be destroyed.
We would not be able to retain our identity in any way – we would be completely assimilated within two or three years, simply by numbers – Americans outnumber Canadians about 10 to 1.
What would we gain? Nothing of value that I can see.
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It appears that financially mechanisms are in place that bind us more and more to Americans everyday.
I will tell my kids about how our neighbours used to work in manufacturing at a place that used Nortel as their phone network, I could check my emails on a BlackBerry on my way to Zellers, and she will poo poo me because she has her face buried in her iPhone reading an American social media sight on her way to work part time at Walmart.
Even this sight wants to tell me that “neighbours” is spelled incorrectly with a little squiggly line. This Francis may be bogus, but sometimes it would be nice to see more assurance that the cultures aren’t melding before our very eyes, as they have been for a few generations now.
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That would be like strapping yourself to a funnel on the Titanic. God forbid!!!!
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Have lived in America, had a son born there (now with three citizenships — American born of Canadian parents and choosing to become British) and we have good friends and like some of the above, relatives, who have become Americans. Visiinig with both American friends and relatives in the North East later this month. Everyone on this NAL site should read the Globe and Mail and other media outlets about the billionaire who is suggesting that Harper this week has actually been part of the larger plan to shut down the American govt partly by holding the U.S. hostage to Harper’s beloved Keystone pipeline. Harper told the U.S. Canada would not take ‘No’ for an answer to Keystone. Easily found, try any mainstream media.
Scary stuff, and it is not even Halloween.
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Born in Iowa, educated in Minnesota, served in the U.S. military, in Canada 38 years……. When I visit I feel uncomfortable with the “exceptional” and have a sense of relief when crossing back over the border. Where would I go if there were a merger?
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Dick Halverson has replicated my feeling as I would cross the border back to Canada in the 60’s and years beyond. Actually a sense of relief would overcome me. We could have stayed in the States, but I asked my husband to just get us home, and I didn’t care where, anywhere in Canada. This was during the stressful Vietnam War and coming of Nixon days. So glad we returned.
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