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Comment by grahamj | Hacker News Reader

Canada here, can we join too?

I heard you all will be joining a different union of sorts here soon enough.

I've always joked about joining Europe because I feel we have more in common with them then our neighbour to the South, but recent comments from said neighbour's upcoming Führer have made the jokes just a tad more serious.

I think it more likely we'll burn the White House down. Again.

Maybe the US will break up, and then some parts of the US will join Canada.

As big as the political problems the US has been having in recent years are, I don't think that's likely to happen in the short-to-medium term. But, if these problems just keep on getting worse, then eventually it may become a very real possibility.

I'd be down to switch things up and join Cascadia as a BC resident. Though the US can keep Oregon...

Why not the reverse?

Peter Zeihan makes the case in one of his books for why Alberta should leave Canada and join the US. I’m not Canadian or American and have no dog in the fight, but it’s interesting reading.

I lived in Alberta for a few years.

While Alberta is often called “the Texas of Canada” there is not a single Albert a that would give up their healthcare to join the US. In many meaningful ways their standard of living would plummet overnight - healthcare, education, safety, violent crime, life expectancy, etc.

Why would violent crime go up?

USA vs Canada per capita

Rape: 16x higher

Total Crime: 5x higher

Murder rate: 3x higher

Prisoners per capita: 6x more

.. and it goes on

... would you want your community to change like that ?

https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Canada/Uni...

Why would the law-abiding people of Alberta become violent criminals just because they gained American citizenship?

And why would the US's existing violent criminals move to Alberta?

Violent crime in the US is not evenly distributed.

I think it's reasonable to presume that any territory added to a country will become the average of that country over time.

So the better question is actually why is the average American such a violent criminal compared to the average Canadian? Answer that and you will have answered your question.

Likely lack of healthcare (desperation), lack of affordable education, debt, need to fill for-profit prisons, corporate lobbying to make regular people's lives worse, etc. etc.

> Violent crime in the US is not evenly distributed.

Neither is it in Canada.

If you want to cherry pick the "best" of the US and leave out the worst from any comparisons, you'd have to do that for whatever country you're comparing it to.

You're missing the point, I think. The question the previous person was asking what would send all the criminality to that province?

> what would send all the criminality to that province?

Nothing would "send" criminality there, over time any place joining the USA would become the USA, and by definition it would become the average of the USA (because it will be a part of the USA)

A lot of people like to think a place will become the USA in all the perceived "good" ways like higher potential salaries, lower income taxes, more freedom, etc., but they fail to realize a place will also become the USA in all the ways that make the USA so vastly different from every other developed nation (healthcare, education, violence, crime, etc.)

But the average doesn't matter if you're in a place with low crime.

Of course it does! Those higher crime areas are using up limited time and money that could be better put to use making your life better, but instead it's being used to deal with all that crime and criminals.

Your live is measurably worse because of it.

Interestingly enough while the Canadian constitution doesn’t flat out permits this, it does allow the province to have a binding referendum and should a vote come to pass by it’s people, it forces the federal government to seriously consider it, thus a faithful negotiating can take place which could lead to the province becoming a sovereign nation.

See the Clarity Act of 1999.

And just like the decades of talk about Quebec doing it, it will never happen. Who is going to print money for this sovereign nation? And all the rest

Our 7 farmers will put a stop to anything like that.

No, that's actually off limits, by treaty.

> No, that's actually off limits, by treaty.

They have to amend the treaty anyway to allow a new member state to join, so why couldn't they just amend it to remove that limit at the same time?

What really matters here isn't the letter of treaties, it is the political reality that it ain't happening. Canada's economy is very tightly bound to that of the US, joining the EU would be erecting all these new barriers to Canada-US trade which would hurt the Canadian economy, and the reduced barriers to Canada-EU trade wouldn't be enough to counteract that. There is no escaping the geographical reality that the US is right next door, the EU an ocean away.

> What really matters here isn't the letter of treaties, it is the political reality that it ain't happening.

And the political reality is that no one in the EU wants to widen the discussion to countries like Morocco, so the rule that the country must be in Europe is useful.

I don't think they really want Kazakhstan in the EU either, but the rule that "the country must be in Europe" isn't needed to keep them out. (Most of Kazakhstan is in Central Asia, but a small sliver is in Europe, by the standard geographical definition.)

Iceland is literally on the gap in the tectonic plates between Europe and North America.

You're right. You could say the same about Turkey.

And, really, Georgia (also granted candidate status) which is a problem in that a not insignificant fraction of the population isn't really sure if the EU is better than Russia.

But having a problem with expanding further east doesn't necessarily recommend that the EU should expand further south or west.

With the disclaimer that my original post was firmly tongue in cheek and I don't expect it to ever happen:

Trump has threatened 25% tariffs. If that were to happen I wonder if that ocean would suddenly seem much smaller.

What does your governor say?

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