Quite some time back, it struck me that Canada is a tenuous construct. The occasion for that insight was realizing that what I like most about Canada as a “state” is the fact of its precarity. The wobbly prop at the prominent corner is Quebec. No a mari usque ad mare without getting across Quebec! Therefore no need to suffer rot about one nation indivisible. The wobbly prop at another corner is that weird opening to the anthem: O Canada, our home on native land [subtly emended in the interests of truthtelling].
This is all preamble to a pointer to a book review with a map that suggests how messy North America is, how artificial that 49th parallel is, and how fabricated the 145-year-old northern ex-colony is. Provocative, n’est-ce pas?
Never forget that all Canada has done for US extraterritorials is to reread the tax treaty and to reiterate what already happens to be there. Sort of like most of what the IRS manages to come up with after the ambassador tells grannies to sit tight.
*I am not really sure I agree with proposition of this map. Ontario for one is not a single monolithic bloc politically nor would I argue that Alberta necessarily shares the same values as the American West. Someone like a Randy Hillier is far different politics than those who represent the GTA. Hell I believe Hillier’s riding directly borders Dalton McGuinty’s but yet have totally different constituencies. In terms of FATCA I am not sure there is per say a pro FATCA camp politically and an anti FATCA camp. Most of those involved with FATCA on the US side were not really politicians so much as behind the scenes people such a J. Richard Harvey and Mary Burke Baker. To the extent there was political driver behind FATCA is was Senator Max Baucus from Montana who has very long history of fighting with Canada and particularily Alberta and BC.
If Canada doesn’t exist then neither does the US. PROBLEM SOLVED! Thanks usxcanada!
The ultimate state is state of mind.
I am strong believer in confederacy as a form of government. Sovereignty should be pushed all the way down to the individual. A North American Confederation (not Union) of free states where I could reclaim my state citizenship and visit my family once again would suit me just fine.
The problem is that the first thing the feminists would want when they got power in one state is to force free abortion and free birth control across the confederacy. Once the gays had power in one state, they would demand gay marriage be accepted every where too. Then the first handicap state would demand special access and access ramps wherever they traveled in the confederacy.
*Yeah, CH… just you wait until Louisiana and Quebec get together and start demanding Francophone rights. That’ll be a nightmre and a half. And you’ll find the Francophone population of Maine and New Brunswick squawking about handouts too.