Canada 51st state

[August1991]

What a dog's breakfast this thread is, involving as it does the age-old bugbear of English-Canada: continentalism. Let me take a small break from an arduous task in the real world (ie. seek a way to procrastinate) and start with Hardner's comment:

Again, people are viewing these issues from a national point of view. Countries really are a thing of the past. They're only useful for marketing campaigns, and election campaigns.

What's a country? Would Canada disappear if we joined the US? The mountains, lakes, people, accents, languages and all the rest would still be here. We can't exactly roll Canada up and take it out into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

So, we are really talking about our governments. I have always thought of Finalnd and the Soviet Union when people talk about how two very different governmental systems can exist side-by-side while having extensive relationships between people on either side of a border.

As to health care, both Vermont and Massachusetts recently passed comprehensive health care legislation that means every resident of those states are covered. Canada could be part of the US and still have "socialized medecine".

Incidentally, watch for the buzz phrase, continental security perimeter, to come back into vogue.

[Hicksey]

I'm still trying to figure out how we end up with their system.

Read the thread title. It's hypothetical.

But in reality, if you haven't a job that would provide for that by the time you're that age, you're doing something wrong.

Like raising kids, or being sick, or working at one of the growing number of Mcjobs provided us by conservative policies?

Oh, a hypothetical situation that would NEVER happen. I see.

You contend that if those jobs were unionized and paid more these people would be able to afford more?

That's nonsense and you know it. If you raise their salaries, the cost to make the goods they make will go up, and in the end they won't be able to afford any more than they could before because the prices for those goods will go up as the cost to make the goods did.

[lost&outofcontrol]

Wow, Black Dog. Only about 1% of a country without government sponsored health care filed bankruptcy as a result of medical expenses?

2 million Americans is not small in my book.

[sarcasm]Thats a statistic worthy of a wholesale condemnation of their system[/sarcasm]

[BubberMiley]

Oh, a hypothetical situation that would NEVER happen. I see.

Actually, hypothetical means imagining the circumstances of a situation if it should come to pass. It doesn't mean that situation shall never come to pass. I was pointing out the thread title because you seemed to be confused, wondering why Canadians would have to adapt to being American if we were to become the 51st state. I don't get your confusion. That scenario seems to be self-evident.

You contend that if those jobs were unionized and paid more these people would be able to afford more?

I said nothing about unions. I said Mcjobs are becoming more and more common, almost the norm. None of these jobs offer benefits like health care.

If it were to come to pass that we joined the U.S. (and I honestly don't believe that will ever happen unless we are forced to, because it would never be in our interests to join that debt-ridden declining empire), there would have to be a health care transition where Canadians of a certain age (around 35 and over) would have to have their premiums subsidized by the government because no private company would be willing and no individual would be able to afford them.

[Ahni]

How does free trade legalize slave labour?

Well, first I'll admit that was a little sensationalistic on my part to say that, but the benefits behind reallocating jobs from Canada to Mexico simply because of the massive wage differences of the two countries - while the economic base of the company tranferring the jobs is canadian - ultimately translates into hiring people who will work for slave wages... not to mention the often ridiculous and unsafe working conditions in non-first-world states which you nor I would be ever tolerate or cope with --- only to end up with a wage so meek that they can't even afford to shop at the new walmart down the street.

Remember, we're talking about Mexico here -- you know, the place where the pres is a previous CEO of COKE, the place that just legalized personal posession of crack and heroin to coax the people to stay...

Anyways, here's a little something to think about regarding NAFTA (they're PDF files)

» The Ten Year Traack Record of NAFTA: Mexico

» The Ten Year Track Record of NAFTA: Agriculture

» The Ten Year Track Record of NAFTA: Democracy

» The Ten Year Track Record of NAFTA: Jobs