U.S. President Donald Trump salutes during the playing of the American national anthem ahead of a state dinner at the Lusail Palace in Doha, Qatar, on May 14.BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images
Drew Hayden Taylor is an Anishnawbe playwright and humorist.
Ever since Donald Trump became U.S. President again, he’s been talking smack about making Canada the 51st state. It even came up when Mr. Trump met Prime Minister Mark Carney in the Oval Office last week.
Speaking as an Indigenous person, this isn’t the first time somebody from far away has cast covetous eyes upon the land we call home. If we had a nickel for every time we’ve heard somebody say “Trust us, it‘s for your own good,” well, we’d be able to afford better housing. The difference here, of course, is those people were usually white, not orange.
Needless to say, the response in all 10 provinces and three territories has been less than enthusiastic. The Simpsons once called Canada “America Junior,” but truth be told, we prefer to think of ourselves as a healthier version of the States. We tend to chicken-fry fewer things, for instance – though we do have a habit of covering things with gravy and cheese. Maybe we should call that Canadian-goose-frying.
I would like to humbly offer up an alternative suggestion – a modest proposal, if you will. It seems like it would make better sense if – conceivably, maybe, just hear me out – we make America Canada’s 11th province.
Look at it logically. Our country is bigger. I’ve always been told – and why, I’m not sure – that size does matter. Canada is a whole 1.6-per-cent larger than our southern neighbours. You can do a lot with 1.6 per cent – especially when you put our respective populations into the formula. America holds 340 million souls, while Canada is home to substantially fewer, at 41.1 million people, all equally divided into regions according to their allegiance to a hockey team. The difference in population means the average American, living in their crowded cities, could easily afford a split-level duplex in Flin Flon, Man., that has a front yard extending practically to the horizon. Moose included.
Add to that the fact we have an unlimited (in theory) supply of fresh water, and a substantially larger amount of natural resources of all types. Who wouldn’t want that? Ah, I have such fond memories of harvesting, with my family, the bounty of the land, coming home with bushels full of butter tarts and ketchup chips. America will never have that without us.
Somebody down south once asked me what a Nanaimo bar was. I told him it was a chain of bars that only served Caesars, Canadian Club, screech, Molson Golden beer and basically any drink that has a human toe in it (ever been to Dawson City?). I told them, “It‘s a Canadian thing,” and they believed me. This is why they need us.
I casually mentioned the proposal on X, and the response was pretty much uniform: No Americans allowed, unless they are fleeing some Asian land war. Some followers floated the idea of keeping California; a few mentioned Hawaii. Others admitted a fondness for New Orleans or Key West. Evidently the parts were greater than the whole.
It should be pointed out here that from an Indigenous perspective, there never was a border. If you ever get the chance to glance at a map of North America designed by the Indigenous community, you’ll notice there is a very definite turtle shape to the continent: One bottom leg is Florida, the other is California, and the top arms and head are Canada, with the bulk of the shell being America.
Interestingly enough, it has roughly the same shape as the North American tectonic plate. Ancient Aliens theorists may not believe Indigenous people were capable of building our own large stone edifices, and needed extraterrestrial help in designing a dreamcatcher, but I think our ancestors knew a tectonic plate when they saw one.
Regardless, that is why many First Nation communities refer to this continent as Turtle Island. Within the cosmology of many Aboriginal cultures, specifically the Haudenosaunee, North America rests on the back of a giant turtle where Sky Woman landed from a hole in the sky, and then proceeded to create the land, the trees, the mountains, and the first casinos. Borders came later, with colonization.
For proper annexation, we could augment the Catholic Church’s Doctrine of Discovery, which provided legal and religious justification to Christian explorers and colonizers claiming ownership of lands and territories they “discovered” outside of Europe. Essentially, it argued these lands were effectively “empty” or available for Christian powers to claim because they were not inhabited by Christians. With a little tweaking, Europe could become Canada, and Christians could be changed to Canadians.
Granted, it‘s a stretch. But greater travesties have been committed with much less rationale.