cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/46886810
The American president has invited Canada to become his country's "51st state," an idea that has infuriated most of Canada's 40 million citizens.
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Hence this suggestion: Why not expand the EU to include Canada? Is that so far-fetched an idea? In any case, Canadians have actually considered the question themselves. In February 2025, a survey conducted by Abacus Data on a sample of 1,500 people found that 44% of those polled supported the idea, compared to 34% who opposed it. Better the 28th EU country than the 51st US state!
One might object: Canada is not European, as required for EU membership by Article 49 of the EU Treaty. But what does "European" actually mean? The word cannot be understood in a strictly geographic sense, or Cyprus, closer to Asia, would not be part of the EU. So the term must be understood in a cultural sense.
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As [Canadian Prime Minister Mark] Carney said in Paris, in March: Thanks to its French and British roots, Canada is "the most European of non-European countries." He speaks from experience, having served as governor of the Bank of England (a post that is assigned based on merit, not nationality). Culturally and ideologically, Canada is close to European democracies: It shares the same belief in the welfare state, the same commitment to multilateralism and the same rejection of the death penalty or uncontrolled firearms.
Moreover, Canada is a Commonwealth monarchy that shares a king with the United Kingdom.
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Even short of a formal application, it would be wiser for Ottawa to strengthen its ties with European democracies rather than with the Chinese regime. The temptation is there: Just before heading to Davos, Carney signed an agreement with Beijing to lower tariffs on electric vehicles imported from China.
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Any US state that wanted to join Canada would have to reckon with the "guns" thing. Even states that align with Canada in most ways still have a lot of gun nuts, even left-leaning gun nuts. Meanwhile, Canada has slowly been tightening already fairly restrictive gun laws. One glance across the border makes Canadians convinced that guns just escalate problems, they don't solve them.
Any US state joining Canada would not be feasible for Canada, as it would simply be a peaceful American take over.
Even if just Washington joined l, they population of the state is 8 million.
That would mean 16% of the voters in Canada's next election would be former Americans and basically decide the direction the whole country goes via peaceful democratic votes. Do you think Canada would remain Canada over the long term or do you think it would change and become closer to what America currently is?
16% is a majority?
Doesn't have to be a majority with our idiotic first past the post voting system.
You can get a party with majority of the seats with as little as 30-40 % of the votes
Combined with Alberta and a few other locations you could easily never get a liberal or NDP government again and everyone slides to the right.
So, is 16% smaller than 40%?
Do you just give up reading a comment once you find a point that semi-supports a smartass comment that pops into your head?
Was the other half
Tightening them for no good reason, the whole kick-off for the “buyback” program was the 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooting which wasn’t caused by someone who had a possession and acquisition license or had legally obtained their firearms.
It’s been 6 years on now and firearms owners are on the edge of their seats because the government intends to criminalize hundreds of thousands of people by the end of October.
Everyone knows licensed firearm owners are not to blame for what happened in 2020 hence the major pushback from provinces, police organizations and firearm owners.
For no good reason other than guns lead to deaths. That's a pretty good reason.
Cars are just as deadly as firearms however, we aren’t going and saying Red Honda Civics cause a larger percentage of fatality rates so we’re just going to ban them.
It makes no sense just like how our current government has decided to ban hundreds of thousands of firearms based on appearance and not function.
And while people bicker about licensed firearm owners statistically speaking majority of firearm related crime in Canada is caused by illegal firearms that are typically smuggled in, shouldn’t our resources not focus on the root cause of the issues we face?
Cars should be much more heavily regulated, IMO. But, they have escaped outright bans because they serve a clearly important purpose that's beneficial to society. A gun doesn't.
We can agree to disagree on this sentiment here, licensed firearms owners receive a daily background check by the RCMP whereas those who have a drivers license do not, the only time a person with drivers license gets a background check is when they’re pulled over and checked by a cop.
So you’re saying farmers who defend their property from varmints don’t serve a purpose to society? How about folks up north in research stations typically in polar bear territory? How about people who simply enjoy forest camping and want a means of defence against a predator?
Firearms certainly serve a purpose to society.
Farmers serve a purpose. Guns don't.
Varmint hunting involves firearms.
Edit: Just going to add that if our Wildlife Conservation Officers believe the use of these now prohibited rifles is the best defence against a grizzly bear than shouldn’t we have access to these same tools? If our government says to us the public to use bear spray against a bear (which admittedly may work) then why are we sending these officers into the forest with rifles?
Do you live in an area where you're at threat from grizzly bears?
No, but I certainly camp in such regions frequent enough where such a threat is serious. Hell last time I camped 40ish kilometres up a trail (crown land) with some friends and heard bears most of our night.
And yes, we got the fuck outta there quite quick but if we didn’t have our firearms things could’ve gone ugly.
So, you shot at the bears?
I never said that, not that it matters as it would have been self defence even if we had, but to satisfy your need we had shot away from the bears solely to make noise as a show of force and presence.
Not an uncommon practice hence why bear bangers exist.
So, you don't need guns.
Deterrence is not a replacement for defence.
If you’re facing a predator that is larger than you are you going to gamble with your life with just bear spray and bear bangers?
Are you going to gamble your life with just a shotgun? The only way to truly be safe from a bear is with a rocket propelled grenade.
Anyhow, the point is you were lying / wrong when you said "if we didn’t have our firearms things could’ve gone ugly", because you didn't actually need your firearms, since you didn't use them, at least not as firearms.
Bear spray is very effective, probably more so than a gun, if you shit your pants at least at the sight of a bear (but usually it's the other way around too).
As a European that just shakes his head about Muricas love for kill tools, you don't need a gun as average person. For rare cases there are strictly regulated permits. But otherwise I'm very glad that I don't have to fear being shot by MAGAts. Or have basically no school-shooting etc. I sometimes think you're stuck in the middle age or wild western or something like that...
Australia had a huge gun buyback and the suicide rate dropped by thirty percent!
Guns are one of those things that don't solve problems, until they have to.
Sure, right, like how they're supposed to be used in an uprising against a tyrant... but when there's currently a tyrant in charge in the US, nobody's doing anything.
Or how they're great at stopping a "bad guy" home intruder, but that home intruder never actually intrudes, instead the gun is just used in a domestic violence situation, or for suicide.
oi, using statistics instead of anecdotal experience is cheating
Because anyone who's realistic enough to want that guy out of office is also realistic enough to know that a gun, or even a few thousand guns, won't do much against rocket-armed aircraft and exploding drones, even if they were willing to escalate to violence. The last time a group of citizens with ordinary firearms had a real chance against an army was around 1880 (just before the invention of the automatic machine gun). It kinda-sorta-almost sometimes appears to work in spats in the developing world because the objective there is to get the army to decide holding the area isn't worth the resources and it should go home. That ain't gonna happen in a civil war in the States.
Of course, the fact that the American "right to bear arms" is a joke just makes it all the more infuriating.
Which is what the civilized word has been saying to the US for decades now, but gun nuts in the US insist that people need to be armed so they can rise up against a tyrant.