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Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

The thing I don't get is that if Canada became part of the US, Republicans would never hold power again. Don't they know that?

That makes me think this is all asinine rhetoric to

(1) squeeze Canada, Europe, and other allies of the trade deficit goodwill for a quick buck. That stuff America used to maintain global soft power and hegemony - cashing it in for a quick buck.

(2) run quick and chaotic pump and dumps where donors get to make enormous alpha on the market volatility (this could seriously just be market manipulation games?), and/or

(3) satisfy the geopolitical powers that may or may not be underwriting Trump, Musk, Gabbard, et al. Saudis, Russians, and Chinese. Several of this gang are politically exposed persons, possibly with exposure or debts to all three groups.

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You assume free and democratic elections will exist in a United States that invaded and conquered its closest ally?

Well, Republicans seem to believe that Russia is a democracy.

They will claim the same for the US when it stops being the case.

Totally off-topic, but is the "closest ally" thing a Canadian talking point? I am pretty sure from the way the US has acted in the last 10 years that Israel is its closest ally. I have also pretty much never heard it from a US person about Canada. It's amusing for Trump to have taken 8 weeks to go from "closest ally" in Canada to "no thanks."

Won't find the source, but apparently there was a study showing that about 30% of "best friends" are mutual.

If Canada became part of the US, we (Canadians) would not be equal citizens.

I am trying to put into words something here, and forgive me if I fail, but this discussion about what internal politics would look like in a hypothetical US that included Canada feels quite disrespectful to me. I think it's because it reads like an attempt to normalize the rhetoric, even when it isn't (based on the rest of your post).

More like the enemy from within.

Canadians are under no illusions that we will ever be a US state. If we ever were to be annexed, we would almost certainly be a territory without voting rights like Puerto Rico.

US states are almost always added in pairs so that the number of Republican and Democratic states increase at the same rate. It's why Alaska & Hawaii came in the same year, why we have oddities such as the split between North & South Dakota, et cetera.

So if Canada were to join as states, it would be something like a Republican Western Canada and a Democratic Eastern Canada. Or some sort of strange split that gives 2+2. Definitely not the existing boundaries, because that'd likely be an 8/2 Democratic/Republican split.

You’re saying this like it’d be a choice and not an invasion.

Yes, any considerations like this would be part of a post-invasion peace treaty.

2 states or 10 the house and the office of the president would never be in republican hands. The largest population in western part is more left than California and nevermind the Canadian right is left of the Democrats believing in universal healthcare and other safety nets.

If annexed and somehow given democratic rights, I suspect Canadians would form a protest party with the goal of budgetary shutdowns in the House of Representatives...

Zero support for any legislation other than Canadian Separation. Be a poison pill.

And that's the non-violent response.

Yep, all the US pundits talking about Canada voting mostly Democratic with a few Republican districts have it completely wrong. Canada would vote overwhelmingly for the Bloc Canadien.

Americans are incapable of thinking that another political party could ever exist.

The Quebec separatists would be particularly funny in Congress.

I think if there were ever any real annexation of Canada, the northern states would be extended about 50 miles (annexing the majority of the population into existing states), and the rest would become "territory."

Americans don't want states, they want colonies. They already have territories (Guam, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, DC, etc) with no representation, why would they let Canadians vote?

They would not grant such a state full democratic representation.

It's also not a coherent proposal at any level, how the hell does all of Quebec join the US, a country which is unilingual English by policy?

They might just carve out conservative-leaning and resource rich Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan to keep liberal city voters out.

Canadian conservatives are very left compared to Democrats.

That's a pretty broad stroke.

I come originally from Alberta, and I have certainly met my share of people whose opinions would not be anywhere close to the centre of American politics.

Broadly the conservative right in Canada tolerates socialized medicare. They'd gladly and instantly throw it under the bus the moment it being politically possible to do it. But for now at least it's still poisonous to make those opinions known.

Former PM Stephen Harper worked for the National Citizens Coalition for a period of time, and that organization was explicitly founded in the late 70s to oppose and try to stop/end public healthcare and the Canada Health Act.

I suspect if you get them in private and off the record, most Conservative leaders would admit to desiring to see change here.

> a country which is unilingual English by policy?

To be clear the US only has a unilingual policy because Trump signed an executive order this year (and I believe even this SCOTUS would strike the order down as unconstitutional if anyone had standing to sue over it).

The US has always been de facto unilingual, but de jure we don't have an official language since Trump has no legal authority to establish that. The "policy" is political and legally empty.

The former de facto status of the US unilingual nature, even with its soft acceptance of Spanish here and there, is so far from Canada's official bilingualism it's not even in the realm of comparison.

And not anywhere close to what would be tolerable for Canada's francophone population, and especially Quebec which would simply immediately begin separation.

I am not disputing any of that, nor am I trying to put a positive spin on anything coming out of Trump. My only point was that it's misinformation to say that the US is unilingual by policy - that only became partially true in March 2025 via a toothless (and blatantly unconstitutional) executive order.

And it's not "soft acceptance of Spanish here and there," all levels of government are legally required to print official documents in whatever languages their community speaks; cities usually have ballots in dozens of languages. This is a constitutional requirement, bolstered by the Voting Rights Act, and Trump has not yet done enough damage to make those legal requirements go away via diktat.

Sure, I get it. But in Canada:

All federally managed things & services, including travel on airlines, airporst etc, fully bilingual. All packaging of goods, across the whole country. Access to legal services, no matter where, bilingual. Highway signs, etc. The list goes on.

Here in Ontario, at least, right to full public school education in French, in the French system, if you come from a Francophone family.

The idea being that even in areas of the country that are not Quebecois or predominantly Francophone there are rights granted because of the French being part of the founding of the nation.

You genuinely do not understand the level of personal freedom we have restricted in Québec to protect our language. As a francophone, I am forbidden by law to send my children to English school. Any public signage MUST have French predominantly displayed. Any company of a certain size MUST allow its workers to work in French. Any immigrant can receive government services for six months in a language other than French.

We are not kidding when we say that the American way of life and the Quebec one are incompatible. But this is all moot, the Canadian constitution would require a referendum to decapitate Canada, and that would never get the 50% vote per province that is required. Right now they'd get at most 10%.

Can a House representative stand up, do a whole speech in Spanish, and have an anglophone colleague answer their speech in English?

The US is de facto unilingual English since its founding. Trump's EO did not change that.

> The US has always been de facto unilingual

Even that is not really true.

> The thing I don't get is that if Canada became part of the US, Republicans would never hold power again. Don't they know that?

Trump was asked[0] about that and gave a rambling answer about artificial borders, beautiful landmasses, and conservative candidates, without answering the question.

I think the truth is that he doesn't know how the world works, and he has gotten away with being a bs artist failing upwards his whole life.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJw9hhnjKI0

>The thing I don't get is that if Canada became part of the US, Republicans would never hold power again.

That depends, really. All of Canada? In what pieces and shapes? Alberta, for instance, might become a state, and I'm somewhat certain it could end up red. All of Canada as a single state? That's a little different. If Toronto and Ontario in general are carved up correctly, there's little worry of this backfiring. Hell, maybe they even end up offering Quebec independence... which would certainly make Canadian patriotism dry up quickly in those parts.

You're assuming that a subjugated territory would have voting rights (and that voting rights will matter going forward.)

That is an interesting assumption.

Is any serious person thinking that the U.S. would or wants to annex Canada. It’s absurd on its face. Trump was just trolling the PM.

Imagine how chaotic the world would be if all world leaders behaved like this.

President Xi: "we're going to take Hawaii and nuke Texas. JK jk. Or maybe not lol".

That's the timeline where everything turns to glass.

It goes further, too. The Canada-annex stuff has been repeated by non-Trump figures, in official diplomatic capacity. Sometimes they try to walk it back in tone, but never in substance.

Were it not for the brutal disparity of power, the American ambassador would already be expelled. That's what would happen if this kind of thing were happening between any other two nations.

Anyone here old enough to remember Reagan's "We start bombing in 5 minutes" joke?

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Even if Trump started out saying he wants to annex Canada for those reasons, his mental state is such that by repeating it he will convince himself to support it for its own sake.

Trump clearly loves bluffing and bullying, but he's also literally crazy. So you can't rule out any of his threats as just a bluff. You must assume the worst.

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