Examining that 51st State Proposal

Russell Pangborn

Donald Trump does not care about fentanyl; he doesn’t even care about the tariffs as much as he does about a new strategy. The strategy’s plan involves annexing Canada and our rich minerals for his country and his wealthy supporters.

The message to all the members of CFIC should be that this is the time to put an exclamation mark on the last C in the acronym. We are Inquiry Canada and for the first time in all our lifetimes, our country is under threat. We may not see eye to eye on how much of a threat we face, but discussion is always good. We must handle this perilous situation with eyes wide open and an understanding of similar situations with past world leaders, as we watch the track record of a wannabe strongman.

The U.S. president is talking about taking over a few countries and that may be a smoke screen for the one he really covets … ours. He is not just mentioning this once in passing. His plans and rationalizations for the takeover of Canada are a nightly feature on the news. Endless repetition of lies and half-truths affects the electorate. It won him the presidency. He is using the same strategy to fire up his base and anyone who stands to gain from the annexation of Canada. He is not convincing Canadians who have taken to the “elbows up” slogan. But he does not need to. The bully has economic clout and military might.

Today a military strategist on a Canadian news channel indicated there really is a strategic advantage for NATO if the U.S. takes over Greenland. His proviso, though, was the people of Greenland have to want this to happen. As for Canada, he indicated this 51^st state stuff is a real puzzle. He his and colleagues mostly believe this to be a joke. 

Congressman Shri Thanedar is not laughing. Instead, he is sponsoring a bill to prevent the U.S. from invading Canada. H.R.1936 has been nicknamed the “No Invading Allies Act.” We know not all Americans think like Trump, but the ones who were able to get him elected are listening to endless repetition of lines like — the border between the U.S. and Canada is an arbitrary, invalid line. And they are malleable.

Are you one of the Canadians angry about the tariff war, but unconcerned about an attempt to take over our country with economic coercion? One of our seasoned politicians, Bob Rae, is now saying Donald Trump’s goal for Canada is theft by force, and that this will be the fight of our lives.

Americans didn’t used to talk about the takeover of their friendly neighbour to the north. You know, the buddy that stood by them during the 9/11 attack, committed its soldiers to the Afghanistan mission, and tried to tell them in a moment of pain that the facts indicated that the Iraq invasion was not warranted. 

About a recent Doug Ford interview with Fox News’ Jesse Watters, during which Ford was pleading the case for not economically attacking Canada, it was reported: “Ford then touted that Canadians are proud of their resolve and attempted to address the economic variables impacting Canada and the U.S. — to which Watters promptly ended the interview by stating, “So this may just have to be a hostile takeover.”

Donald Trump is directly, repeatedly, and consistently threatening Canadian sovereignty and the liberty of 40,000,000 people. This aggression is both real and a staggering betrayal.

A former Republican strategist, Steve Schmidt, wrote in a message to Canadians and a wake-up call to Americans: ”There is silence from America’s governors and silence from America’s business leaders. There is silence everywhere from everyone about something every American should be shamed by, and ready to scream in the street to Trump that ‘You will dare not do this in our name’.”

That silence is troubling. Adolf Hitler took advantage of that hush when his movement transformed a democratic republic into the Third Reich. Their next step was a forceful takeover of neighbouring countries.

Too many U.S. voters have not paid attention to the history lessons of the failed democracy of Germany in the 1930s. That period was so awful to the world that it became verboten to make any comparisons to it and the leader. During Trump’s first presidency, before his insurrection and felony convictions, comparing him to Hitler was an affront to many. In his second term, we are seeing an aggressive challenge to the courts and the rule of law reminiscent of the challenges in Germany before WW2. We are seeing men marching around in U.S. communities dressed as Nazis. We are seeing unprecedented challenges to the freedom of the media to report the facts as money can be used as an instrument to subdue. A failed insurrectionist leader is now a president with a favourably stacked Supreme Court to back up his unprecedented power grabs. The lower courts are fighting back and it is interesting to hear the Vice President’s comment that the lower courts are not allowed to block Presidential policies, illegality be damned.

Too many voters did not pay attention to a historical record that is a playbook on how to dismantle a democracy. But someone did. Trump and his henchmen are executing a master plan for a dictatorship run by a minority. And that playbook looks a lot like Hitler’s and the Nazis’. Our nation is not currently threatened by a military invasion, but that could change. Whipping up enough people with more false stories has proven to be very easy to accomplish with the power of the internet. He wants Canada. His 51^st state rhetoric and economic threats are a first step in taking over our mineral-rich nation. 

As of this writing, economic coercion is being employed over an imaginary fentanyl cross-border problem, which is at .1 percent of seizures (43 pounds) compared to 21,100 pounds intercepted from Mexico. 

We do not want to trade away better healthcare or sane limits on assault weaponry. Most of all, those of us at CFIC do not want a White House faith group telling Canadians that far-Right evangelicals are being treated unfairly. It is only a minority of Canadians who want to destroy our secular society. I remember writing in 2015, “I am very proud of my country today. Fifteen new cabinet ministers omitted “So help me God” from their oaths of office. They may or may not be religious, but the separation of church from state is music to the ears of atheists, agnostics and secularists.”

A new world order may be unfolding. Countries with superior arms and manpower are eyeing weak neighbours. China with Taiwan, Russia with Ukraine, possibly Finland and Poland, and now the U.S. with Canada. Trump endlessly repeating his 51^st state rhetoric has laid the groundwork for U.S. citizens to entertain the idea. His arguments are the rationalizations required for ramping up enough support for eventually just seizing another territory to fulfill America’s old dream of manifest destiny.

We have not had a major superpower war for a long time. Mutually assured destruction with nuclear weaponry did have a calming effect while humanity balanced on the precipice of an end-of-the-world scenario. Nuclear weapons are a fact of life. In 1994, a multi-nation agreement was signed between Russia, the United States, and Ukraine. Security assurances from the U.S., Russia, and Britain were enough to convince the Ukrainians to return all nuclear warheads to Russia by 1996.

But it appears the teeth of the agreement revolved around legal terminology. An assurance of security was different from a guarantee of security. Recent history shows us that assuring Russia was going to be prevented from economic coercion and invasion meant nothing. Zelensky told us so recently at his last White House visit. Russia has repeatedly signed documents and then broken its word to satiate its hunger for more territory and power.

As of 2025, the invasion appears to be finally paying off as Trump cuts Ukraine loose. Russia invaded them and killed their women and children. But somehow this is the fault of the Ukraine government, according to the U.S. president. So much for security guarantees or assurances! Would Russia have invaded a nuclear Ukrainian nation if the warheads had not been put out of commission? That might have been a bridge too far. 

Canada has long decried nuclear proliferation. It made sense to us in a civilized world. But when a well-armed nation of 350 million may justify a hostile takeover, the sting of a few nukes could be all that is left to keep them and others out. I’ll add to that shocking statement something similar to what the far-Right does with all their crazy proclamations: It was only a joke … you know … like the 51^st state joke. 

Our politicians are starting to wake up to the seriousness of the U.S. threat. Our electorate needs to weed through the misinformation mess that could be used by our neighbour and other players to weaken our resolve and our support of leaders who will stand up for us. So while the U.S. government may incorrectly say Canada is subsidized by the U.S. for the amount of $200 billion, there are nations like Russia running a different strategy. They will play up anything to discredit any of our strong leaders. A lot of garbage is already circulating on Facebook and X, etc., with false innuendos. Our opposition parties need to be cautious of when their greed for power aligns with pumping this misinformation feed.

The times seem dark; they may get darker. But it will take a lot to rob me of my Canadian identity. I hope my fellow Canadians feel the same way. My elbows are not coming down anytime soon.