In 1993, Joe Carter hit a ninth-inning walk-off home run to win the World Series and break the heart of every Philadelphia Phillies fan, including mine. As the ball cleared the wall, announcer Bob Costas said, “Instead of celebrating on Broad Street, they’ll be cheering in towns like Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan!” While Americans at home said, “Say what? Is that a real place?” I was crushed but I also laughed — because I married a nurse from Moose Jaw. I know that town intimately. And I know where to find its one espresso machine.
Which is to say: I know Canada. And Canada, bless it, is the only nation on Earth whose self-image is,”‘We’re very sorry, but we’re quietly better than you at almost everything, eh?” Now that the Trump administration is trying to ravage our most reliable ally — a country that has lost forest firefighters sent to help us while Republicans act like climate change is a hoax, I have a modest proposal. California shouldn’t secede from MAGA-land. Secession is so 1861. We should become Canada’s 11th Province.
Consider the upside. Health care for everyone: Imagine going to the doctor and leaving with medicine instead of a second mortgage. A national anthem a human being can actually sing. “O Canada” requires one octave, not a Mariah Carey audition. Weekend privileges in Vancouver and Montreal, two of the most dazzling cities on the planet. And the cuisine merger of the century: poutine served alongside our tacos. Gravy, cheese curds, carnitas — we would never again lack for caloric intake. (Yes, in trade negotiations Trump reportedly demanded Canada ban French as an official language. Canada replied, politely, “Merde!”)
Which brings me to Mark Carney — a banker, of all people. Carney has shown more spine than the entire leadership of my Democratic Party. Under Chuck Schumer, the party is passive, weak, unimaginative: a strongly worded letter and speeches on the House floor are about all it can muster. What might a lionhearted leader like Carney do instead?
Consider Trump’s pardons — hundreds of them — each preceded by million-dollar-plus donations to a Trump PAC or his “Presidential Library,” money he’ll mostly keep himself. Imagine Democrats saying, “Those are called bribes. Bribes void the pardons. And when we’re back in power, we’re coming for every one of you.” Legally improbable? Maybe. But a shot across the bow makes even oligarchs flinch.
Carney didn’t worry about the consequences; he accepted that sacrifice is the cost of the good fight. Democrats don’t seem to have the same undaunted spirit.
And in Santa Barbara? While Trump’s government rams Sable oil past our environmental protections, our leaders might say, “We will indict in our local courts any Sable employee, from mechanics to managers, responsible for spilling oil on our beaches, poisoning our wildlife, or polluting our air. All of them.” County supervisors will gasp, “We can’t legally do that!” We can say it. We can mean it. We can try it. Let the line in our tar-stained sand be drawn.
Let us be like Canada. Better: let’s join Canada — and bring Oregon and Washington along for the carpool. We already love their people: Martin Short, John Candy, Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, Mike Myers, Ryan Gosling, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen. We’d just be formalizing the paperwork.
O Canada! Take us. We stand on guard for thee — and we’ll bring the avocados.
