The constitutional problems preventing Canada from becoming the 51st state are so intractable that the idea is less practical than building a Mediterranean Riviera in Gaza.
For Canada to dissolve itself would require a constitutional amendment that would need the agreement of the House of Commons, the Senate and every province, not to mention First Nations.
On the U.S. side, President Donald Trump could present Congress with a treaty similar to the one that ended the Mexican-American War in 1847 that added nine states, including California.
But it would require two-thirds majority support in the Senate, which Trump doesn’t have. Even Republicans would be nervous about Canada diluting the weight of their states in the republic.
The U.S. could send an invasion force north, as was proposed in the 1930 War Plan Red, that envisaged the Americans launching a poison gas attack on Halifax, before sweeping west.
But as a revealing podcast interview by Postmedia’s Brian Lilley with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon suggests, the president’s “obsession” with Canada is based on a geostrategic imperative to keep America safe from attack. Inciting an insurgency on the northern border would not appear to accord with the idea of defending Americans from evil foreigners.
In the Full Comment podcast, Bannon offered an insightful glimpse behind the curtain — and by the inadvertent reference to the first-person plural pronoun (“we”), it did not sound as if it was wild speculation from someone removed from the action.
He said Trump’s references to Panama, Greenland and Canada are not coincidental: they are part of a grand naval strategy to contain the Russian and Chinese navies.
America would “take back” the Panama Canal to ensure the Chinese and Russian navies could never hook up in the Caribbean, he said.
Control of Greenland would allow the U.S. to close the sea lanes against fast-attack and ballistic missile carrying Russian submarines coming out of Murmansk and Archangel, he said.
The aim is to “hermetically seal” the U.S. from attack.
Canada has no deep affinity for Moscow or Beijing and is a natural ally of the U.S. in continental defence
He said Canada’s role is in the Arctic, where a new Great Game is playing out between the Americans, Chinese and Russians (the original Great Game was in the 19th century between Britain and Russia for control of the routes to India).
Bannon said Canada’s Arctic border is the “new soft underbelly” of the continent and is America’s greatest vulnerability.
The territorial integrity and sovereignty of Canada is going to be tested, and potentially lost, in the North, he said.
“The last couple of decades (for Canada) has been so much small ball. Now huge questions about the future of the country and the 21st century are before you,” he said. “Trump is not trolling people on this. This is serious…People should take it as a papal bull because there’s an opportunity cost. (Trump) could be talking about other things. I don’t know if he’s got a higher priority than hemispheric defence.”
The obvious question, which Lilley then asked, is: Does this mean the U.S. has to “absorb” Canada, as Trump has suggested?
“The form of that has to be determined,” said Bannon.
But he would say that. If it’s near impossible to join the two constitutionally, and invasion is an unpalatable option, the conclusion is that no, Canada could play its part in a hemispheric defence plan while remaining a sovereign nation. After all, Ottawa does not want Chinese or Russian ships menacing the continent any more than Washington does.
Bannon said Trump is “quite frankly, very obsessed” with the issue of Canada and is waiting to see how the upcoming federal election here plays out.
He said that Trump is also musing about an “iron dome” of ballistic missile interceptors “that Canada would participate in,” which may be presumptuous given this country’s history of refusing to take part in missile defence programs.
“My strongest recommendation is that you should have a national conversation and the Canadian people should make their minds up about who they want to be affiliated with,” Bannon said.
But that decision was made long ago — or at least it was before Trump started issuing his papal bulls about the 51st state, like a male bovine who travels with his own china shop.
Canada has no deep affinity for Moscow or Beijing and is a natural ally of the U.S. in continental defence.
It sounds like the men who would be the next prime minister (and it is likely to be a man) need to start talking more about Arctic defence to get the president’s attention.
To Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s credit, he was in the Arctic last week, where he promised to build a permanent military base in Iqaluit and order two more heavy icebreakers.
The apparent Liberal leadership frontrunner, Mark Carney, has said little about the Arctic or defence (beyond a commitment to meet the two per cent of GDP NATO spending target by 2030) but he did say last week that he will listen to what the Americans want and respond in ways that are best for Canada.
Both have made clear that their bottom line is that Canada will never, ever be part of the U.S.
Canada’s hold on its Arctic may be “tenuous,” in the words of former chief of the defence staff Wayne Eyre, but Ottawa has belatedly prioritized defence of the homeland over expeditionary capabilities as part of NATO. The “Our North Strong and Free” defence policy, released last May, was a major culture shift for a military that for decades was geared to sending forces overseas as part of NATO missions.
In addition to earmarking $30 billion for NORAD modernization that will see new Arctic radar installations and infrastructure to house Canada’s new F-35 fleet in the North, the government has committed to buying 12 new submarines that will be capable of patrolling under the northern ice.
Canada’s commitment to NATO is irrelevant to Trump. As Bannon put it, Europe is not a priority anymore and the Russian army is a problem for the Germans, the French and the Poles.
But the Arctic is seen as a vital national security interest by the Trump administration.
Whoever wins the next election could go a long way to normalizing relations with Washington by making clear that Canada will be vigorous in defence of its own sovereignty in the north.
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