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?
I don’t see it happening anytime soon. As close as Canadians are to Americans geographically, economically, and culturally, Canadians love to view themselves as culturally superior to Americans - being more refined, more polite, more inclusive, more progressive, etc. Many Canadians also still simp very hard for Britian and the monarchy, so I doubt they’ll want to sever those ties as well.
I’ve lived in Canada all my life so I feel like my confidence is a bit warranted:
Absolutely not. Unless the US forcefully invades or the Canadian Government does so without the consent of the people, annexation will not happen. Canadians would never allow it. We have systems in place to make sure most of our media is Canadian made as it would get severely drowned out by American media outlets and sources. There’s also a lot of effort from Canadians to separate themselves from Americans culturally as we tend to get mixed up with them a lot. Some will even be offended if someone thinks they’re from the US. Even though they are geographically linked and have similarities, there are meaningful differences that most Canadians hold dear. We tend to have pride in our environment, natural landscapes, and healthcare even though people will still vote for leaders that seek to destroy the things they brag about. It’s contradictory but not enough for most to be in favour of becoming part of the US.
We have a very pro-US and separatist Premier here in Alberta, that nobody voted for, and she is facing severe backlash for her wanting Alberta to separate from Canada completely and become a part of the US. While there are pro-USA citizens, they are definitely not the majority. I think the bourgeoisie would have to spend decades producing propaganda to get enough people on board and even then I don’t think it’s likely.
In terms of international communist movements if Canada was annexed, I have no idea. We have communists here, official parties too that I have yet to join, but I feel like we’re held back from being louder and more revolutionary due to our close proximity to the US. But even so, because of these historic times; Canadians seem to be making sharper turns politically than they would have before. I can’t say if people are gaining class consciousness, but they are getting restless.
Absolutely not. Unless the US forcefully invades or the Canadian Government does so without the consent of the people, annexation will not happen.
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.
I feel like the United States has little to gain from such a union that they don’t already have. If anything I would say politically we are moving further away from such a union being desired or possible. For example, it used to be you could travel across the border with only a driver’s license or ID card, however you now require a passport.
The US already has access essentially to whatever resources or labor capabilities Canada has. They are able to push us around politically too, as exemplified by the Meng Wangzhou fiasco. I don’t think it makes much sense economically or politically for them to annex Canada.
I also believe there would be very significant pushback from most of Canada on such a union as well. The last thing people here would want are even less barriers for US capital to swallow up our resources, industries and real estate. The working class would have little to gain and most of the national bourgeoisie would have even less to gain.
In an EU style relationship I’d wager there’d either be millions of “medical tourists” fleeing to Canada nigh immediately and clogging up that bureaucratic nightmare of a healthcare system up even more, the U.S. would demand that Canada privatize its healthcare much more akin to the U.S. standard, or Canada would implement price-gouging for Amerikan citizens.
Yes, unfortunately while Canadians brag about our healthcare, they still complain about it and then vote for people who purposefully cut healthcare funding to manufacture a crisis to convince the population that we need privatization.
It would be an easier fix if we focused funding on our healthcare systems (and education, housing, etc.) rather than prioritizing the oil industry and corpos. But too many Canadians are paranoid about that.
Annexation of Canada is certainly not the modus operandi of USA imperialism. It seems to me that USA is in a much more comfortable position having Canada as a vassal state, rather than dealing with the hassle of annexing a new population to the Union. Maybe a strong cooperation union of economies, like the EU, is more likely to happen. Both countries keep their autonomy in paper, and USA can have better control of Canada economy (just like Germany and France have on the countries of the EU).
Annexation of Canada is certainly not the modus operandi of USA imperialism.
This isn’t strictly the case. Both Hawai’i and Puerto Rico are examples of US annexations. The former even became a state. Beyond this, there are US overseas territories such as Guam, Wake Island, American Samoa, the Virgin Islands etc. At one point the Philippines were also an American colonial possession. Looking even further back, the US government has been more than happy to annex huge swathes of land if the situation called for it; the Louisiana purchase for example resulted in 828,000 square miles of land falling under the aegis of American state control. More than 55% of Mexico’s territory was likewise seized by force after they lost the Mexican-American war; substantial territories including California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Texas, all presently US states. In this sense, potential annexation of Canada isn’t without a historical precedent.
On top of this, I’d argue that the US has no strict doctrine when it comes to imperialism. The American bourgeoisie will ultimately pursue whatever policy it deems necessary to ensure its continued global hegemony. At present, it is clearly sufficient for the US to only dominate Canada in an almost semi-colonial manner. Would this remain the case if their economic domination of Canada were challenged by its international rivals like China, however? If that sort of situation arose, there would eventually come a point where the US might be forced to ensure its Canadian interests more directly; by bringing it under the direct administrative, military and legal oversight of the US state.
whose population share a common linguistic and cultural base
forgot about 7 million francophones there, comrade (~20% of Canada’s population)
No.
Why not?
Canada likes being independent. I could see this happening if there was some kind of world ending plague or other civilization ending disaster.
So basically it won’t happen unless the lore of the Fallout universe becomes real life. In that case it would probably happen with invasion.
