S. A. Shelley: At OWOE, we have repeatedly advocated for a North American Energy Alliance of some kind to ensure cheap and robust energy supplies at reasonable costs and with minimal geopolitical risk. In some forms, it already exists when you consider how the Northeast is supplied by cheap Newfoundland hydropower via Quebec (after a huge markup), or how the overwhelming majority of Alberta Oil is shipped to the Gulf refineries.

Then at a surprise dinner at Mar-a-Lago, on Friday, November 29, President Elect Trump made a passing comment to the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that Canada should become the 51st state . Fair enough. Diplomats and politicians in Canada spent several days afterwards explaining away that remark as a "quip" of some form.

What was the casus belli of this remark?  Trade and security concerns by Trump's incoming administration. Since 2015, when Trudeau took over Canada, Canada has become one of the world's largest exporters of fentanyl pre-cursor chemicals and fentanyl: "Sadly, (in 2023) Canada is a producing country of fentanyl and synthetic opioids. Not only are we a producing country, we're an exporting country," Bertrand told host Catherine Cullen (see also Canada now a 'low-risk, high-profit' hot spot for fentanyl super labs | National Post).  In 2017, year 2 of Justin Trudeau's sunshine government, Canada moved up to rank 9 in the global corruption index. Canada's ranking hasn't gotten better since, and I would argue that based on the number of times that Justin Trudeau has been found in contempt of parliamentary ethics laws, that Canada’s ranking has probably gotten worse. When it comes to money laundering, it's rife in Canada by big business, foreign "business" and of course big politics. I won't even mention the problems with unaccountable migrant flow in both directions across the border. With the longest international border in the world, this is likely going to become a problem as the United States focuses resources on the US-Mexico border. We're going to need a wall up there soon enough.

When Trump made his quip about the 51st state, he was basing it upon some serious concerns. Historically, aggrieving nations have made changes or been invaded by the aggrieved. Unfortunately, Justin Trudeau is incapable of making the necessary changes fast enough to soothe the ire of the big dragon down south. What do parts of Canada offer the United States?  Vast amounts of resources with a smattering of manufactured goods. The top ten exports from Canada to the US in 2023 are summarized in Figure 1.

Commodities and resources dominate the exports from Canada into the United States. To that I could add talented people. I first moved to the United States in 1999 and even way back then I was amazed at the number of Canadian doctors, nurses, engineers and such who were living and working in the United States. The severe doctor and nursing shortage in Canada is made more acute because of the welcoming programmes of various states. Senator Bernie Sanders agreed with Trump's 51st state agenda, with the caveat that the United States inherit Canada's universal healthcare system. To which I reply, "There are millions of Canadians without doctors and many thousands dying on waiting lists; Do we really want to import that malaise"?

There is sufficient support in some parts of Canada for a union with the United States: The politics in Canada made it so. Not all of Canada would join the United States, and the United States should not even consider inviting those recalcitrant regions to join the union. But if done properly, union of some parts of Canada with the United States will boost economic prosperity for everyone. America gets a lot more resources to feed industry and a big demographic boost with a reasonably well-educated workforce with inherently similar values. Canada, in turn, would get defense, access to leading medical practitioners, and a stable currency. Union with Area 51 would bring about much greater energy, industrial and digital prosperity and security to North America as a whole.

Vive l'Alberta Libre,

And for goodness sake, someone in Washington finally shut down Line 5 and get Keystone XL back on track.