This isn’t at all a political blog and I’ve certainly never wanted it to be controversial, either, but in light of recent developments around the possibility of being “economically forced” into becoming “the 51st state,” I feel that I have to stand up for my country. I know that many Americans do not agree with president-elect Trump’s pronouncements about annexing Canada; nevertheless, here we are. Such a threat requires a response.

First of all, we Canadians are not grateful for the “offer” of statehood as a number of U.S. politicians, pundits, show hosts and various others have said that we should be. We are, in fact, very insulted by the notion, just as Americans would be if another country decided that they should be forced into some sort of unwanted union.

To support this view, Mr. Trump has asserted on his social media platform that “many people in Canada LOVE [Trump’s emphasis] being the 51st state” worded as if we had already joined the U.S. That is simply and factually very inaccurate. The vast majority of Canadians like, value and want our independence, sovereignty, and self-determination.

Supposedly, the U.S. is “subsidising” Canada through an “unfair” trade imbalance and if we want to continue this position, we should become a state. Again, this is factually inaccurate. The trade balances completely once our oil and gas shipments are taken into account, which Mr. Trump is neglecting to include. It’s particularly worth noting that Mr. Trump specifically signed off on this trade agreement during his last tenure.

The U.S. is categorically not “subsidising” Canada. And that extends to our military, as well. There are no U.S. troops stationed on Canadian soil in order to defend us. We are more than capable of defending ourselves, and we do have that history.

There seems to be some astonishment that we don’t want this “union.” The people who feel that way should stop to consider. We are a sovereign, independent nation with a long history of doing things our way and of defending our right to do things our way. We like and want that. Internally, we may disagree; we may argue and face division. But in the end we have a precious commodity: our right to disagree and argue and face division and through that process, to come around to our own path, a path that represents us, our culture and our values.

We are not perfect, and Mr Trump has flagged issues that he feels we need to address such as illegal border crossings. The U.S. is not perfect either, and we have issues such as the flow of illegal guns into our country. There is no reason why these issues can’t be solved cooperatively; why would there be a need for threats of annexation? Or is that the whole point?

Being forced into becoming a part of the U.S. fundamentally flies in the face of the American philosophy of self-determination. The fact that those who are advocating this approach are also failing to see this discrepancy is incredibly disturbing. Self-determination is okay as long as we do what the United States tells us to do? Or otherwise we’ll be forced?

Canada will never voluntarily join the U.S. With all due respect, we don’t want to be American. It’s that simple. And on that note, and since Mr. Trump was elected on a platform of addressing issues such as inflation and a number of other internal matters, I suggest that he turn his attention to those, and leave us to deal with ours.

In the past, we two nations have cooperated extremely well. One sobering example is 9/11. There were all those Americans on all those aircraft who were required to land here and were looked after as sisters and brothers in need who had been horribly attacked.

More recently, we are providing help to the state of California as it battles those terrible fires. The governor asked that we send our military firefighting units and they, as well as many civilian firefighters have either arrived or will be shortly.

These are the things you do for a good neighbour and we do them gladly. We shouldn’t lose sight of all this goodwill and respect, built up over generations, that our two nations have worked hard to achieve. It’s a precious thing that’s far easier to destroy than to build.