Why California Needs to Join Canada

“Last night Canadian troops invaded and occupied Vermont. No one cared, so they went home.”

I sometimes opened speeches to my American colleagues with that line — it made people sit up, for a second! Then they would chortle and relapse back into the polite stupor Americans have when anyone drones on about Canada.

BUT CONSIDER:

If Californians get sufficiently annoyed at the behaviour of the former Confederate states — herein to be known as “Simpletons” — then it is obvious that California should break away and join Canada.

The advantages:

· Both of us have the same size of population and about the same size of economies — there would be no jarring push-and-pull for power. We’d have equal weight at the table.

· Together, we would have the fourth largest economy on the planet.

· We both have “.CA” for domain names. In this Internet age, this is a big consideration.

· We have roughly the same Liberal values. When Americans East of California use the term “socialist’ or “communist”, Canadians and Californians interpret it to mean “Center”.

· We could help each other: California can lend us some of its sunshine, and we could lend it some Royal Canadian Mounted Police to help with urban crime. They only look cute in their red uniforms — in actuality, they would tear your face off. Hence the red.

· Californians like surfing. Canada has the world’s longest coastline…albeit a bit cooler in most places than the sunshine state. Our coastline is even longer than Australia’s, and they’re a freaking Island!

· California needs water. Canada has water. Look at what happened in Vancouver a few months ago: it almost washed into California on its own!

· We would be pushing the same agendas across the world stage, making a better world through the values of tolerance, scientific knowledge, environmentalism, and progressive growth.

· Joining Canada would give California direct access through their own new country to the East Coast! Just drive North, turn right at Vancouver, and drive for 6,000 kilometers. About 4,000 miles. BTW, we could convert Californians to the metric system, which is used by all civilized countries in the world. Except the U.S. But I’m being redundant.

· California is moving to a public healthcare plan. Canada has decades of experience with that, and it works so well that a person of my age has an average lifespan four years longer than my American counterpart! Just by being Canadian, protected by public healthcare. Certainly my extra years have got nothing to do with smart lifestyle choices! Enough said.

· If Canada had California, we would be protected from invasions by Mexico.

In making this union work, for those unfamiliar with the geography involved, there are two states that are between Canada and California: Washington and Oregon. Washington and Oregon are also in the “Blue” column politically, so maybe they would like to join in. If not, we could probably dig a chunk out from under them, jack them up, and drive straight under them. Or dig a hole. Whatever works best.

All that remains is to pick a name for the new country. Just throwing two ideas out for starters, what do you think of:

· CaliCanada

· Canifornia

Canifornia is growing on me…give me your thoughts on the name, and other reasons why we should get together!

BTW, this idea has actually been incorporated into a petition to the California State Senate; I think the petition got 69 supporters. So the momentum is out there, folks!