America and Canada are extremely close economically, culturally and politically. The US and Canada are far and away each other’s largest trade partners, accounting for almost 7 times the total trade of Canada’s next largest partner, the EU. 51.9% of foreign owned companies based in Canada are American owned. On top of this, Canada is demographically dwarfed by its southern neighbour, whose population share a common linguistic and cultural base. This demographic gap has prompted the Canadian government to pursue a natalist policy goal of achieving a population of 100 million people by the end of the century, likely a project pursued by Canada’s national bourgeoisie in an effort to prevent themselves from being subsumed by the juggernaut to the south.
Two previous Canadian prime ministers have in the past considered pursuing political union with the US, who would stand to benefit enormously from Canada’s substantial natural resources and strategic position in the North. Annexation of Canada would likewise benefit the American state by eliminating the largest land border in the world, administration of which currently costs the Canadian state 1.5% of its GDP. Moreover, this would finally connect America’s strategically important territory of Alaska to the US’ territorial mainland and thus render continental north America a single contiguous political territory, more easily administered and defended.
With all this in mind, do you think that America is likely to integrate Canada into its territory in the future? If so, long do you suspect it will take for this to occur? What implications would such an enormous development have for the international communist movement?
In the event of an Anschluss style takeover, complete with a non-secret ballot determined via voter intimidation, do you anticipate that Canadians would care enough to fight the US armed forces?
Interesting question!
It’s hard to say, honestly. If you had asked me this years before COVID or even before Justin Trudeau was ever elected, I’d say not in a million years. Before these historic times Canadians were fairly complacent and enjoyed the status quo, never making too much noise and condemning those who did. If they weren’t a minority, especially Indigenous Peoples, then they didn’t see a problem with what was happening around them. They would probably put up a fuss but I don’t think they’d fight back physically, just complain like usual. This is just from my personal experience being born and raised in Alberta, so take it with a grain of salt, the provinces are pretty distinct from each other. The only people I’ve seen actively pushing against the government, since before the mandates, are Indigenous Peoples.
If I’m being optimistic I could potentially see Canadian fighting back; with the events of the Convoy and Emergency Act, I don’t think Canadians would be too fond of being complacent. Seems like more and more people are turning against the government now, for good and bad reasons, so I could definitely see a decent size of the population putting up resistance.
Add in a bit more optimism and I could potentially imagine the CAF revolting against the government. I know the military is controlled by the feds but that hasn’t stopped them from being involved in revolutions, or even leading them; not the Canadian military, but Portugal did that in the 70s. Back during WWI and WWII there were mass protests against conscription, mostly by French Canadians. So if something like Anschluss happened here then Quebec would probably be a huge player in fighting back.
Even if the people fought back against the US military, even with the CAF, I don’t think we’d win. While I wouldn’t say we don’t have military worship here; people love their Mounties; it’s definitely not as glorified as it is the the US, or at least it wasn’t… Recently the federal government’s Budget 2022 “announced over $8 billion over five years to bolster the capacity of the Canadian Armed Forces, support our members, and promote culture change. This includes $7.4 billion on a cash basis to increase defence capabilities, improve continental defence, and support commitments to our allies.” So yeah, who knows. Maybe we’d be okay or maybe we wouldn’t.
Again, it’s hard for me to take a hard stance on this, maybe another Canadian can give their perspective.