No, Canada is Not the 51st State. Never Will be

But wait, within this, there some things to think about. Hear me out.

Not long ago, a strange idea started jangling around my head about all of this “51st state,” and “Canada is not For Sale” language we’ve been seeing in recent months. In Canada, this has completely upended our political systems, our economy, and our way of thinking. But, what are we dealing with? Is it facing down a colonizer? Is it a call to become self-sufficient? Are we meant to be in emergency mode, expecting the worst?

Now, I know it’s not de rigueur to slow down, stop, and ponder big, yet important things like this. We tend to get caught up in the firestorm of anger and fear. In January of 2025, Trump said at a press conference that he’d use "economic force" to annex Canada. He’s called the border between the US and Canada an “artificially drawn line.” He’s said that the US “doesn’t need Canada.” and has been playing wack-a-mole with tariffs. One never seems to tell what’s next with this guy, or if it was all a big joke.

Of course, for us Canadians, there’s a groundswell of patriotic rhetoric coming from just about every direction and politician. The consensus in Canada is that some 85% of Canadians reject the notion of becoming the US’ next state. Heck, just the mere notion of this creates a deeply unpleasant feeling in me. As I would imagine the young kids saying “it’s giving major ick.” Our Premiere in Ontario has been on every major news outlet saying he wants to “create and AMCAN fortress” and work with the US, not fight with them.

Okay, so this is it the point where I ask you to hear me out. What if some of this is good? I know what you’re thinking, “How could you Kevin!” But, just hear me out. Consider first that the message of annexation is being delivered by bankruptcy-loving felon and orange Cheeto, Donald Trump. Imagine this message was delivered by a sane person? Seems hard, I know.

Then, consider that we Canadians negotiate the elements of these ideas that we like, and the parts we don’t (for our own best interest). We would never give up sovereignty or become the 51st state, which in the USA is not a cakewalk anyway. What parts could we possibly like?

Removing our border, for example. Borders are ideas created by humans, and imagine the pure, free-flowing trade of no border or friction between Canada and the US. We might like that. We certainly hate tariffs and rude TSA agents. Now consider we stay Canada, a sovereign country. We may have created an environment similar to the Schengen Area in Europe. If you’ve been to Europe, you know how great that is. Each country is their own thing, but people and goods move freely.

Less appealing, but maybe we could come around to is the idea of “dollarizing.” This would be, again, staying Canada, but switching our currency to the US Dollar or some new thing. There’s a ton of complicated ramifications to doing this, but likely it would equal more purchasing power for us. Countries like Panama have done this, and they’re still Panama. Coming back to Europe, the currency is Euro (a new currency), but by using the Euro, Italy didn’t lose its sovereignty.

Having the Orange King send these messages is unfortunate, but if we think about some of them, they could be advantageous if negotiated the right way. Underneath all the bluster, Trump has said he would not try to take us by force, so that’s incredibly unlikely. But, even the “AMCAN fortress” that Doug Ford talks about is only doable with radical changes. It may be time to think of these things a little differently and make them work for us, as crazy as that sounds.

Just something to think about.