A Modest Proposal Concerning Canada

So the latest insanity is apparently Trump talking – how seriously is anybody's guess – about conquering and/or annexing Canada. He is said to have joked(?) with Canadian Premier Justin Trudeau that Canada should become America's 51st state. I have a better idea.

In the couple of decades before the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin made a frantic effort to get everyone to calm down. He agreed entirely with the American colonists that the Westminster Parliament had no just authority over the colonies. But his proposed solution was not just to give the colonies representation in Westminster. For he saw that the greatest strength of the British empire lay in America, first and foremost because America is simply so very big. Rather than assimilating the American dominions into London institutions, then, he proposed creating a new set of institutions that would span the entire empire: an imperial parliament, sitting above both Westminster and the colonial assemblies, with representation from each of the Crown's various dominions. Obviously people ignored him; it's fun to think about how different history might have been had they listened.

In that same spirit, then, I propose that, rather than incorporating Canada into the existing American Constitution as a 51st state (or, more plausibly, as states no. 51-60/63), the union between America and Canada be accomplished through a new constitution altogether. The greatest virtue of this idea is that the federal Constitution of 1789 is badly in need of remaking, and this would provide a nifty excuse for doing just that. Unlike Franklin's proposal, I imagine that this new constitution would supersede the existing national constitutions, creating a single federal union of fifty American and ten Canadian states. We would presumably need to call a constitutional convention, and then submit the new constitution to ratification, perhaps by separate plebiscites in each country.

Who says no?