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?
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.
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.
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.
