The Effrontery

Did you see that Senator Martin of the Maine legislature has posted a four page letter expressing the opinion that the four western provinces of Canada should join the USA? Why a senator of an eastern state would particularly invite our western provinces, I know not. I wonder what he has against the rest of us. If you are interested, you can find his letter within this reply post in Facebook by a Canadian politician.

What ignorance, arrogance and effrontery! Talk about not being able to read the room. He seems to have missed the news from the past eight months that we are not interested. Frankly, we have it better here, and most of us are refusing to even cross the border to visit these days, never mind actually becoming one with the US. 

There have been various response. Predictably, Charlie Angus has something to say.

I could go on with responses and even write my own, but I will just post some excerpts from the response, by a Canadian MLA, Brennan Day, from BC in an X post. 

We’re Canadian. Proud of it. Not confused. Not for sale. And not going anywhere.

You see, we don’t measure freedom by the number of firearms owned (but we do own a few) or how loud we can shout without consequence. We measure it by how we care for one another—how we build strong public institutions that ensure our kids are educated, our seniors are looked after, and no one goes bankrupt because they broke a leg or needed chemotherapy.

. . .  this letter—framed as an invitation—lands more as a manifesto of arrogance. The idea that Western Canada must “abandon Canadian legal codes,” “discard Canadian political loyalty,” and “salute your flag, not ours” is not unity—it’s erasure.  

You say you want us “free, armed, self-governing, and accountable.” We already are. We just don’t define those words through the same lens:

•Freedom means your health card works better than your credit card.

•Accountability means a leader who answers to Parliament, not the cable news pundits.

•Self-government means working with Indigenous Peoples, not stepping over them.

We believe a rising tide should raise all ships, not just megayachts.

Your letter is a perfect example of what many Canadians find so deeply troubling about the American worldview—assuming that what works for you must be the solution for everyone else . . . We know who we are. We know what we have. We see the chaos, division, and deep inequalities that plague your system, and we’ve chosen a different path. Not because we’re blind to our flaws—but because we believe in fixing them our way.