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This is politically impossible. Canadians have a very strong national identity which is based at its core - and on little else - on not being American. Remember, it's the only country in the world that was actually founded in direct opposition to the principles on which the US was founded. The entire point of Canada, for its entire history, has been to not be part of the United States. Furthermore, the Canadian population has been heavily selected over 250 years for people who don't want to be Americans. So despite the cultural similarities, most Canadians very much don't want to be part of the United States.
Most Canadians don't appreciate how much richer the US is, and those who do, mostly think it's only the very richest who are better off. They falsely believe that the average person is richer in Canada.
There are also constitutional issues. Quebec's language laws would violate the first amendment, and nothing is more important to French speaking Quebeckers than protecting their language. They would far sooner become independent than give up control over what language speak in order to join the US.
Our gun control laws would violate the second amendment, and most Canadians have no interest in giving up their safety in order to have that right. There are lots of Canadians who like to hunt and are upset and some of the recent changes to the gun laws, but there is nothing like the broad support that the second amendment has among American conservatives. The gun situation in the US is seen by most Canadians as crazy. and it would be top of mind in any discussion about joining the US.
Most Canadians wouldn't see this as a good thing and would prefer to keep them here where they can support our local industry.
Is there something preventing them from doing this now? The environmentalist movement is very strong in Canada, and outside Alberta, most people don't actually want the oil industry to be further developed.
Quebec isn't persecuted in any way and has much more autonomy than it would as part of the United States, in particular, regarding laws on language usage and immigration. It would also face more pressure to assimilate into anglophone culture. Canada has a lot of federal laws enforcing bilingualism in the rest of the country. These wouldn't exist if it were part of the US, and Quebec's exposure to anglophone culture would increase. Quebec also receives large subsidies from the richer parts of the country as part of Canada's equalization payment system, which the US doesn't have.
It would also lose its ability to separate. US states don't have the right to secede, whereas in Canada, it is not clear, but they likely can if there is enough support among the province's residents. Quebec separatism may be dormant, but francophone Quebeckers do not really see themselves as Canadian and it's quite possible Quebec will try to separate again in the future if it's relationship with the rest of Canada worsens. It would not want to give up that option.
What does this mean?
For most of history, Canadians could just move to the US. There were no immigration restrictions. And even today, it's one of the easier countries to move to the US from. It also used to be easier and more attractive to move to the US than to move to Canada. So most Canadians are descended from people who either chose to move to Canada over the US or chose to stay in Canada and not move to the US, generation after generation, despite the worse weather and the worse economy.
It also might be worth noting that tens of thousands of loyalists from the 13 colonies moved to Canada during the American Revolutionary War, and this was at a time when the population of what is now Canada was only about 150,000 or so. So a non-trivial fraction of Canada's founding stock were people who fled what ended up becoming the United States for political reasons, sometimes because of well-justified fears of violent repression from the revolutionaries.
Yes, that's part of what I was referring to. In fact, most of the population was French when the loyalists came. The loyalists basically were the founding stock of English Canada, while the French had their own reasons for not joining the US in their rebellion.
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By this logic, shouldn't they still be part of the UK? They were founded on staying loyal to the British Crown, the US didn't even exist at that time.
Otherwise you make good points.
It was never part of the UK, but I understand what you mean. The reasons for being anti-American have changed, but there is still a strong anti-American feeling.
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Well, they never were "part" of the UK, they were a collection of separate colonies in the Empire and then a Dominion.
And they're still loyal to the crown, it's just that all the imperial dominions that liked Elizabeth just pinkie-promised each other it wasn't the British monarch ruling them any more, it was the monarch of Canada, or Australia, etc. Except they all so happen to be the same monarch.
Personal union isn't so uncommon historically, but I still find the situation where all the countries have to agree to change the line of succession or affirm a new monarch to be a bit clunky and silly. Honestly, that's probably my take on constitutional monarchy itself, though I go back and forth between thinking it's kind of a neat thing to have a symbolic figurehead people can unite behind, and thinking it's insane and inhuman that Charles has all this power on paper but in practice he's damn near a slave-by-birth to the prime ministers of the countries he supposedly rules. I somewhat respect Edward for having the gumption to just say 'no,' and nope out, but that admiration is tempered by the part where he probably tried to get the Nazis to reinstate him if they conquered the UK. I kind of like the Sweden thing where they rewrote the constitution to remove the king from governance while maintaining him as a cultural figure.
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