The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Canada as the 51st State?

Episode Date: January 8, 2025

Incoming U.S. president Donald Trump likely has at least some Canadians wondering, what if we did become the 51st state? How would our lives be different? Could we maintain our distinctive and different customs? For insight into this hypothetical, we welcome Laura Dawson, executive director of the Future Borders Coalition, a self-described bi-national organization promoting a cohesive vision of the U.S.-Canada border based on the principles of efficiency, safety, and security; Jeffrey Simpson, for more than three decades, the national affairs columnist at the Globe and Mail, and author of eight books; and Kathleen Wynne, 25th premier of Ontario, now teaching public policy at the University of Toronto's Victoria and Trinity Colleges.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Matt Nethersole. And I'm Tiff Lam. From TVO Podcasts, this is Queries. This season, we're asking, when it comes to defending your beliefs, how far is too far? We follow one story from the boardroom to the courtroom. And seek to understand what happens when beliefs collide. Where does freedom of religion end and freedom from discrimination begin? That's this season on Queries, In Good Faith, a TVO original podcast.

Follow and listen wherever you get your podcasts. Yes, he was trolling us. Yes, he's trying to mess with Justin Trudeau. But incoming President Donald Trump likely has, at least some Canadians, wondering, what if we did become the 51st state? How would our lives be different? Could we maintain our distinctive and different customs just as, say, Texas has from Massachusetts?

Let's find out. We welcome back to the studio Kathleen Wynn, Ontario's 25th Premier, who's teaching public policy at Victoria and Trinity Colleges at U of T. In our nation's capital, Jeffrey Simpson, for more than three decades the national Affairs columnist at the Globe and Mail and author of eight books, and in Atlanta, Georgia, Laura Dawson, executive director of the Future Borders Coalition. That's a self-described bi-national organization promoting a cohesive vision of the US- Canada border based on the principles of efficiency, safety, and security. And it's great to have Laura, you joining us again.

I hope your mom's watching us and Sault Ste. Marie. Tell me she is. She is, absolutely. Probably both at both airings tonight. Okay, good to hear. Good to hear. Let's okay.

Let's just put this right on the record right now. Here's Donald Trump posting in Truth Social yesterday. He says, many people in Canada love being the 51st state. The United States can no longer suffer the massive trade deficits and subsidies that Canada needs to stay afloat. Justin Trudeau knew this and resigned. If Canada merged with the US, there would be no tariffs, taxes would go way down, and they would be totally secure

from the threat of the Russian and Chinese ships that are constantly surrounding them. Together what a great nation it would be." Okay, Premier Nguyen, way in first. When you first heard and saw, because this isn't the first one, he's done this before. When you first saw and heard about all this, what went through your head? Well, you know that people keep saying he's not a serious person but we have to take him seriously. And I think that's where we are.

I hear this as a threat that is pushing us to negotiate on something else. That's how I hear it. But I was talking to my students yesterday. I had my first class in my fourth year seminar this week. And you know, we were talking about publicly funded education and publicly funded health care, and how we would hold those things, how we would maintain and sustain those things

in any kind of configuration of us being part of the United States. I mean, first of all, it's ridiculous. We're huge, 13 of us, you know, territories and provinces. And so one state, how does that even work? There's so many logistical questions. But for me, the essence of it is we have very important policy differences with the United States, with any of the states.

And so I would worry about those things that I hold dear as a Canadian. Jeffrey Simpson, how about you? When you first saw this trolling, what did you think? Well, I thought it was very consistent with what I've always thought about Donald Trump, which is his brain has a very large area in it, which is fact-free. And in that area float all kinds of grievances, past wrongs, wrong ideas, misstatements of facts, which over the years, he, I think, has convinced himself is not an adverse problem for his political career or indeed his business career.

I don't think it would do a lot of good to dissect what he just said. Every sentence in that quote you just gave me is factually wrong. Starting from the premise, and Angus Reid just had a poll which said that 15, only 15% of Canadians were interested in the possibility of the idea. So when he says there's a massive majority of Canadians ready to, this is just his fact-free brain ricocheting these errors around. And I'd say one second thing. If I were sitting next to Donald Trump as the prime minister of Canada, not that

he would pay any attention to this, but I'd have to get it out. I'd say, Mr. President, you are the leader of the world's oldest federation. 1776, 1782, you came together. We are the world's second oldest federation. And when we were coming together in the 1860s, you were having a civil war, 1866, 1782 you came together. We are the world's second oldest federation. And when we were coming together in the 1860s, you were having a civil war, which was the most bloody war in your history.

More Americans were killed in that history than in all of America's many other wars combined. We've never had one of those. So we're the world's second oldest federation. And you don't throw a country like this one that has survived in peace for all those decades into the vortex of the United States. It's inconceivable and of course it's insulting, but Donald Trump and insults are two words that go together like I don't know what.

Okay, Laura, I wonder if you had a somewhat different take given that you're south of the border. You're actually south of the Mason-Dixon line as well right now. So tell us how you regarded the Trump tweets when you first saw them. Well, at first, you know, anything that he tweets that has many people say, after it, all of the words are going to be false. So that's sort of, you know, I tell that we all know right now is that he's going to be sort of making things up and freelancing as he goes along. But honestly, it was a gut punch. You know, I remember about 10 years ago or so, I was working for a U.S. ambassador in

Canada who had a white board up in his office during a federal election and he was keeping track of the polling data, who was up, who was down, where were liberals, where were conservatives, and somebody suggested to him that he remove the whiteboard because it might be construed in intervening in the affairs of a sovereign state. Now we have this guy who's just kind of blowing up everything that we feel and know about identity and Canadian culture and Canadian sovereignty and not giving it a second thought. I mean, how naive we were or how far we've come in the last 10 or 12 years. So I take it as with a grain of salt, it is just Donald Trump, but at the same time,

it is a gut punch and it makes me furious. There's been a good debate in this country about how we either have been or should be responding to this. So Premier Nguyen, you saw that the first thing that the current prime minister did was take a bunch of folks down to Mar-a-Lago and have a meeting, but he hasn't smacked him back. What do you think should be done? Well, I think there are people who are smacking back. You know, Premier Ford is standing up and smacking back. I think there can be a good cop, bad cop kind of routine here. I think that the prime minister, whoever that is, but right now,

Prime Minister Trudeau, has to have a relationship with the President of the United States. So I think that it was smart to go to Mar-a-Lago. I think it was smart to have that conversation because the relationship is very important in terms of our economy, obviously. And the relationship has to be strong. But I think that, you know, the fact that there are voices who are pushing back, I think that's good.

I don't think it's, I think it's amazing that it's even 13, I heard 13%, Jeffrey, not 15% of Canadians even think this is a good idea. But I think that voice of we're not interested has to be expressed. And I think the premiers have to do that to some extent, but they also have to build relationships across the country so that they're talking with governors and they're talking with representatives of Congress so that the importance of our integrated supply chain

is first and foremost as we go into the conversation. Because really the conversation that is critical right now is about tariffs. It's about how do we maintain a trade relationship and a supply chain that's going to benefit North America, certainly in the United States and Canada, in the face of this threat. That's the real threat.

That's the one that I think we have to worry about. Jeffrey, whether it was 15% or 17% or 13%, whatever it was, did even 1% of you, did 1% of your inner voice think for a moment? I wonder how this would work. No? No, no. I mean, does Mr. Trump want 7 million francophones

in his country? He doesn't like the Hispanics who are coming across the border. All of a sudden, he'd have to deal with seven million francophones does he want that I don't think so and I could go on I mean they're a fundamental demographic political historical differences between these two countries and each in its own way has gone on for centuries, for decades and decades, living beside each other with these differences and accommodating them where possible. The last war we fought was 1812, 1814, one of the most farcical wars ever

fought by anybody in any place in the world. So, I mean, it's just nonsensical. I mean, we're having this discussion, but it is not a serious discussion in this country and will not be no matter how many times Donald Trump trolls or tweets or whatever. It's just, it's not going to happen. And he hasn't thought about it. And I agree with a previous comment that this is part of a kind of poking at Canada because Trump going back to the days when he was a real estate developer

Did all kinds of things if people were deemed to be weak, right? He's stiffed contractors and he you know, and so this is his pattern. The question is you asked what do we do and We are in a very difficult situation because of our own internal problems We have a practically a hundred percent dysfunctional federal government at the moment. The ministers like Freeland who negotiated the last free trade agreement, they're going to be out campaigning for the liberal leadership. They're not even in the cabinet anymore. Mark Carney, who's he? He's not in the cabinet.

He's not elected for nobody. Trump never liked Trudeau, still doesn't like him, relishes in the fact that he's now weak in leaving politics, rubbing his hands with Glee. The leader of the opposition who will win the next election won't be in office for months. So we don't have a functioning government. We have a functioning public service, but we don't have a functioning effective political government.

And maybe he intuitively knows that. And here's the time to push. Well I take your point on this being a bit of a ridiculous discussion. But humor me, Laura, if you would, for a second here. Because I want to talk about those 15% of Canadians, if in fact that's what the number is, who were surveyed, who said, I'd entertain the idea. Presumably if we were to become the 51st state, I'm blue-skying here, everybody.

Don't come down my throat. Parliament in Ottawa would be our new state legislature. Presumably, we'd send, as a country of 40 million people, we'd send something like, I don't know, 55 to 60 congressmen to the US Congress. We'd get a couple of senators there as well. We'd have a pretty big voice in the House of Representatives. How does all that sound to you, Laura?

So when Steve Pakin calls, I know that I need to do my homework. So I did my homework in preparation for this. And I ran some of the numbers and I did a thought experiment because if you look back historically, Canadians have been asked to consider this in one way, shape, or form about every 50 years from the US Revolutionary War through the Fenian raids, through the post-war economic arrangements that we made. And so it's a good idea to think about this stuff once and a while. Hypothetically. So first of all, as you say,

Canada has a significant, Canada as a state, has a significant influence in the U.S. Legislature. Second only to California. A lot of seats in Congress and presumably two Senate seats. A lot of influence over the Electoral College. In fact, Canada could probably have a strong influence over who becomes president, who doesn't. It would provoke a leftward shift in US politics. It would provoke a progressive shift. So I think Donald Trump better be careful what you wish for, because it might come true, Trump better be careful what you wish for because it might come true because there's no way that a Canada as a 51st state would ever see a leader like Donald Trump become president. But continuing the thought experiment from the Canadian perspective, what would it feel like to be the third largest

country in the world? What would it feel like to be an economic powerhouse, to be a military powerhouse, not to have to worry about border issues and tariffs and trade, to be able to flex a little bit in the world? I'm not saying that's a good thing, but this is sort of stuff that Diane Francis was writing about a few years ago when she proposed merger of the century. So I think as a thought experiment, we ought to take this seriously and then immediately reject it because there's all sorts of reasons why it's a terrible idea.

Well, Kathleen Wynne, that's the thing. You want to get rid of the tariffs? Join the United States. There's no more tariffs. That's what Donald's saying. Well, yeah. But the quality of life, our quality of life would change so radically in terms of the,

as I said earlier, the things that we hold dear, the nature of our culture, who we are would morph. You think so? Well, I think so. I think, well, we'd be in a fight about water right off the bat, right? We would be in a fight about public health care and publicly funded education. I mean, when I was Premier and I was doing some of the work

as we were going into the NAFTA negotiations meeting with governors, it was just, it was amazing to me what a budget of a state looks like as opposed to a budget of a province where we have responsibility for these issues. So, the quality of life of people living in Canada would change enormously, maybe for the issues. So the quality of life of people living in Canada would change enormously, maybe for the better. Maybe the 13% of Canadians think it

would change for the better. I think it would change for the worse, because I think we would be fighting for things that we've developed over, since 1867, things that we've put in place that we value that would be all of a sudden up for negotiation. And I just, I don't think, I think we would, we would reject the idea out of hand once we thought about those.

Can I show you a picture here? Yeah. Sheldon, bring this up, will you? This is the middle of page two. There's Kathleen Wynn, Premier of Ontario, standing with, you know who that is? That's Mike Pence. Mike Pence, yes. When he was governor of Indiana.

Yes. You guys had a meeting. he was governor of Indiana. Yes. You guys had a meeting. He was one of the governors I met with. Right. This issue ever come up? No. Never came up? No.

And not with Governor Snyder in Michigan, not at all. I mean, it was a conversation between equals, you know. We were talking about the supply chain. And I just want to go back to something Jeffrey said about the weakness of where we are right now. That is absolutely true. We are in a weak situation and I think that is why Trump thinks he can kick us at this point. But it is really important to go back to what I said earlier about the role of the subnationals now. It's extremely important that we support the premiers in their conversations.

Because subnationals, when we were renegotiating NAFTA the first time, under Trump's first term, it was the provinces that were in those conversations before the federal government came in, before Christia Freeland got Team Canada together, the provinces were already there doing some of that work. So I think we see this period right now as that, you know, that sort of, I know it's not the same as 2016, but it's even more important that the provinces take that leadership role. Sorry, I know that's not where you want to go, but that is, that's a really important aspect of this

relationship right now. Fair point. Jeffrey, don't you think, particularly, I look around this place here, everybody's got a cold right now. And it's only minus 17 outside today. And would you love to be able to go to Florida and have it be part of the same country and spend dollars that were actually worth a dollar and not only 61 cents Canadian? Well, I do have a small condominium in Florida. There you go. In a county which in the last election had 35,000 votes for Kamala Harris and 125,000 votes for Donald Trump.

So would I feel comfortable under those circumstances of paying my taxes and dealing with the kind of things you have to do with? The answer is absolutely no. Do I like the sun? Yes. Do I like Americans, you know, personally? Yes. So sure, having this, but we can go down there without becoming part of the union.

I mean, last time I looked, let me flip this around a little bit. We can beat up on things in the United States, okay, but there are things they are doing and have been doing that we should consider very seriously. Their airports work better than Toronto's and Montreal's. Their airlines have an on-time record that vastly eclipses now, unfortunately, that of Air Canada. They have an interstate highway system that puts our little ribbon of the TransCanada Highway looking ridiculous, etc.

They have a dynamic economy in the tech sector that we should pay attention to. Whether we like it or not, they have a tax system that encourages entrepreneurship in a way that ours doesn't to our detriment. So there are things we can learn from the United States experience. It wouldn't occur to them to look at what we're doing because that's not what big boys do, but we can learn some things from the United States while we're going through this sort of dismissal of Donald Trump's fantasies. By the way, one last little point.

Yes. I don't think Canada would join the United States qua Canada. I don't think Alberta would allow itself to be sitting there with, you know, representatives from Canada in the Senate they would want their own representatives and Ontario would you know flex its muscles and said we don't want to be in there with Prince Edward Island for God's sakes so you'd have more than one Canadian group Canada is a Federation and that would play itself out in this never never land of us

joining the United States and that would cause the out in this never, never land of us joining the United States. And that would cause the Americans to say, gee, is that really what we wanted? Was 12 or 13 or 10 more states in the already rather decentralized federation that they have, not as decentralized as ours, I might add. Let me pick up on your comment about whether they have anything to learn from us. And I'm gonna ask our our director Sheldon Osmond

to bring these numbers up. We're on the bottom of page three here, Sheldon, as we look at us versus them. And this speaks to what Kathleen Wynne was speaking about a moment ago. If you check out these areas that we want to compare. Canada versus the United States. Infant mortality per thousand live births. Canada is four and they're five. So we're healthier in that regard.

Our life expectancy, 82 years. There's only 79. COVID deaths per 100,000, 135 in Canada, 341 in the United States. We seem to have made it through COVID much better than they did. How about let's check some other metrics here. In terms of racial equality, Canada is 62nd in the world out of 150 countries surveyed.

The United States is 138th when it comes to racial equality. How about gender equality? We're 51st. They're 109th. What does the OECD and the European Union say about child poverty? Canada's got 17% child poverty. United States, 26% child poverty.

And how about one of these nice, amorphous terms, happiness? On the happiness index, we're considered the 15th happiest country in the world, the US only 23rd. So OK, Laura, given those numbers, should we be inquiring about making them the 11th province of Canada? Well, I think the same dynamic supply in that you know do we want a significant rightward shift for Canada? Do we want to go from a

society with a strong social safety net where everyone matters to a you know good luck? It's great for entrepreneurs but if you're on the lower end of the spectrum you don't have the kind of health and social protections that you need and that you would expect in Canada. And to add to your points about smaller provinces being marginalized, regionalism, what about Quebec? There's no protection in the United States for minority language rights. So all languages have equal protection under the free speech rule, but there would be no distinct society, there

would be no Quebec language rights, there would be absolutely wear your religious symbols to work because that is part of the US cultural makeup. So while Quebec would be a very important get from a US perspective in terms of resource and geopolitical positioning, the sorts of concessions that Quebec, indigenous people, would have to make in terms of rights and identity, I think, would be untenable. Well, you're not that far from Louisiana right now.

And we know what's happened to the status of the French language there. They don't speak a lot of French in Louisiana anymore, not too much. Let me show you a clip here of, well this was, Premier Wynne mentioned this just a few moments ago, Doug Ford's pushing back. He's smacking back. He's heard what incoming President Trump has had to say about all this and he had a couple of ideas of his own the other day. Sheldon, roll it if you would. Trump once again talked about the idea of now a merger between Canada and the United States. You have dismissed that as a joke. At what point do you say that that's no longer a laughing matter

and something that should be taken with quite a bit of seriousness? Well I know under my watch for Ontario, it would never be for that at all. We have the greatest country in the world. We have the greatest province anywhere. Any sub-sovereign nation is Ontario and the rest of the provinces as well. Do you think he's joking about it? You know something to the president?

I'll make him a counter offer. How about if we buy Alaska and we'll throw in Minnesota and Minneapolis at the same time? So, you know, it's not realistic. I know he likes making these comments and he likes joking around. I take that seriously.

He may be joking, but under my watch, that will never, ever happen. I know he's not your favorite guy in the world, but what'd you think of that? Yeah, I think it's the right tone. You know, he's kind of favorite guy in the world, but what do you think of that? Yeah, I think it's the right tone. He's kind of built for this kind of bullies in the schoolyard. So, as I said, I think the pushback is fine. I don't think it's what the prime minister should be doing.

I think it's fine that he's doing it. But he's got good reason to do that. He's going into an election, and so he's standing up as Captain Canada, whatever. That's fine. The moment calls for that. But it's not serious. The Prime Minister has to take a different tone. And I think that's, you know, that's what we have to, that's where we have to have the serious discussion is nation to nation.

Jeffrey, would you like to see more of that from Doug Ford? I don't want to pop the balloon on TV Ontario. I'm sorry. You won't ever invite me again. But the voice of the Premier of Ontario, whoever she or he may be in the Republic to ourself, is a very, very, very tiny, tiny noise. So it plays well in Ontario.

And so far as it's recorded elsewhere in the country, it plays well in Ontario, and so far as it's recorded elsewhere in the country, it plays well. Very, very little resonance in the United States. I'm sorry, nobody's gonna shake in their boots because of what any Premier of Ontario has to say. Perhaps a border state, Michigan or New York, but in Arizona and Kansas, zero. Now, that having said-

Can I jump in there for a second, Jeffrey? Let me push back only a little bit to say he was on CNN. Those comments got him on CNN. Those comments got him on Fox News. Maybe there's a little more going on there than you give him credit for? Yeah. So a hit on Fox News and a hit on CNN, I mean, fine, but that's a hit. It's going to last five minutes and we pass on to something else.

But back, I don't want to be dismissive here. Given the chaos in Ottawa, given the fact that there's going to be a quasi vacuum in Ottawa, nature abhors a vacuum, especially in a crisis. So you're going to need the premiers to get together and produce ideas. And here's some ideas which are counterintuitive. Okay. and produce ideas, and here's some ideas which are counterintuitive, okay? Rather than doing a piecemeal response to what Trump has identified is his concern, which is this immigration and fentanyl question.

This is an interesting debate because although he mentions this Canadian trade surplus with the United States, he's really said, we want you to fix the border with regard to fentanyl and illegal immigrants. Now that's in our interest to be done. Okay. So what we should be doing in my view is going to the United States with constructive, positive ideas about how together we can work on those two problems, which are in our interests as well as theirs. And I end by saying, when we had this dispute some time ago, you may remember that the estimable John Manley and Governor Ridge of the United States got together and worked

out common order problems and solutions. And that's what we should be doing now, rather than responding in a piecemeal way, saying we're going to spend X amount on drones and Y amount on this. Sit down with the Americans saying the president of his identified issues, which are relevant to us, not the tariffs. That's a whole other issue, but the border issue we should be working on together with constructive ideas coming from our government, except for the fact that we barely have a government.

Laura, can I get you on that? Absolutely. I'm going to push back against Jeffrey about the impact of Canadian provinces in the United States. As somebody who worked in Washington advocating on behalf of Canada for several years. That's where the sizzle happens, but it's not where the stake happens. And Canada will never be interesting in Washington when there are huge geopolitical things happening, when there are very powerful lobbyists at work. But Canada, Canadian provinces in particular, can be very effective

at the regional level. And the regional level is where congressional legislators live and breathe. So you get to them there and get them to deliver the mail for you back inside the Beltway. Working inside the Beltway has only limited utility. Our embassy does a good job, but I think that premieres are incredibly important. And also a lot of the areas that we're worried about now and where we have opportunities in the resource sector, in supply chains, in infrastructure, these are things that premieres can very productively advance. What I'm concerned about is there's no center now to bringing premieres

together, bringing industry together. So I'm having a series of meetings with my members and industry associations saying, Okay, guys, how do we DIY this? How do we get our interests advanced? How do we form a larger coalition in the absence of a hub at the center? And I agree with Jeffrey, I mean, the security and prosperity partnership that we saw after 9-11, it's definitely time for a review, a rethink, a reboot of that. But it needs to be a Canada developed initiative, not just what Donald Trump thinks we respond,

but here's what we need and here's what's going to pull us into the next decade. I just wanted to reinforce what Laura was saying. When New York State was going to put, was going into their sort of New York first, America first policies in place, we had people on the ground in Albany talking to legislators. We meaning who? We meaning Ontario. Ontario had our representative from Washington was in Albany talking to legislators about a carve out for us, for Canada.

So how did that go? It went very well. We managed in that instance to not suffer from those policies. So I think what Laura's saying is really important. Yes, we need a coordinated approach. Jeffrey was talking about that. So there is the Council of the Federation. The premiers do talk to one another on a regular basis

and they can do that more. And it's on the ground. When I was talking with Rick Snyder of Michigan about the bridge and about the auto sector, those were important conversations and then those conversations got to the president's ears. Not through me, but through other Republican legislators. Let me just follow up on something Laura put on the table and I'll sort of fact check it with you if you like. When you went to have a meeting with a border state governor did you check in with the Prime Minister first and say I've got this

access I want to make sure I'm on the same page with you what do you want me to say here? So well our staff were talking to each other The bureaucracies were talking to each other. But it wasn't as coordinated as, you know, the prime minister is going to say this, and we're going to say this. It was much more, we're on the same page. We're checking in with each other. But we weren't singing from a script.

We had our own messages. But yes, there was coordination for sure. And as the effort ramped up, there was more and more coordination. Gotcha. With 30 seconds to go in this discussion, I want to go back to Jeffrey Simpson for a last word and see if I can get him, when he's down in his place in Florida, to even consider 1% of his spirit on whether or not

he'd like to be an American using greenbacks down there. No. I'm not going to give you a longer answer than that. The answer is no. Where we can learn from the Americans, I just went to to give you a longer answer than that. The answer is no. Where we can learn from the Americans, I just went to the world hockey tournament here with the juniors. Oh yes. They won, we finished fifth. We thought this was our sport, that we were the best. Two times in a row we're fifth. We need new people in hockey Canada and we need to learn from the Americans about how they're doing it because they're

kicking our butt. Now I must confess I did not see this conversation ending up there but it's not a bad point. You and I have talked hockey for many years haven't we? And we shall again. There's 300 million of them, that's the problem. Well that's it, they're ten times bigger than us. Thanks a lot for this. Laura Dawson, Jeffrey Simpson, Kathleen Wynn, it was great to have all of you on TVO tonight. Many thanks.

Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks.