Former president Donald Trump says Canada is considering a brazen new proposal: to become the 51st State of the United States in return for free access to his imaginary $175 billion "Golden Dome" missile shield. As Trump has indicated, drones won't keep the famously polite people of our next-door neighbor to the north from having a front-row seat to the "Golden Dome Club," and at a bargain-basement price: our national soul.
"I said," Trump wrote in a kind of classic all-caps-and-dollar-signs online Trump voice, "to Canada that, with us, all Lumber prices will move up, and homes prices will be largely gone (close to 100%). What do you think you're doing?" he said, before bringing it home: "I told Canada, that they will be excluded if they are a Country." "But it would be Zero if they were 51st State. "They want to do it and are thinking about it!"
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney didn't have to be asked twice and promptly killed the dream faster than a snowstorm cancels a spring baseball game in Toronto. "Canada isn't for sale, period," Carney said, smashing the dream of maple syrup and bald eagles sharing an office in one bureaucratic building. He assured me that Canada is involved in some high-level discussions about the "Golden Dome," but the issue of statehood is not, I repeat, not a topic for consideration.
The "Golden Dome" plan presented by Trump last week has been marketed as a high-tech missile defense umbrella protecting North America from all airborne threats. Trump said Canada was "very, very eager to take its place back in it." "Canada has called us, and they want to be part of it," he added. So we'll be, and they want to have protection also."
However, judging by sources on the icy side of the border, Canadian interest in missile defense is not synonymous with an existential identity crisis. Most Canadians are not salivating at exchanging the red maple leaf for the stars and stripes.
Trump also rekindled an oldie but goodie, one of his all-time favorite talking points, that the United States is paying the price for Canadian security. "America cannot continue to subsidize Canada's economy to hundreds of billions of dollars annually," he added. It does not even make sense unless Canada is a State!"
The bottom line is that while the radar on Trump's missile shield may pick up some signals, his statehood pitch certainly isn't gaining much traction in Ottawa. Canadians love hockey, poutine, and sharing a continent, but join the union? That's a hard no, buddy. So, for now, the "Golden Dome" is still American-made and available only to the 50 states already on board.
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