Lawrence Solomon claims Canada is no longer a boring, benign state on America’s north border.
“President Trump offered Canadians the deal of a lifetime to join the U.S. and be welcomed as equals.” So began Canadian author Lawrence Solomon’s February 24 article for American Thinker in which he outlined a scenario in which the United States acquires Canada province by province starting with Alberta and Newfoundland and Labrador. It’s easy to view this proposal as a far-fetched Trumpian fantasy intended to rile his opponents and unsettle the world order. But Solomon, a best-selling author with seven books under his belt and long track record as Canadian newspaper columnist and environmentalist, is deadly serious. I reached out to him for an email interview so he could elaborate about his support for Trump’s highly controversial expansionist vision. He accepted immediately. Below is the lightly edited transcript followed by his bio.
Q. Most Americans have reacted to President Trump’s musings about Canada joining the United States like it’s some kind of joke. How seriously should Americans take this proposal?
A. When are President Trump’s proposals ever not serious? We shouldn’t mistake Trump’s unconventionality as half-baked. His philosophy is internally coherent and consistent. He has a chess-player’s ability to parry opponents who can’t think as many moves ahead.
Q. Do you think this proposal is in reality a power grab for Alberta’s massive energy wealth? Isn’t that the main prize?
A. Alberta is a big prize but not the main motivation. Canada is no longer a boring, benign state on America’s north border. It is now a threat; a center of drug running and money laundering that is in bed with Communist China. Moreover, its borders are essentially undefended and its ocean passages unpatrolled. Trump’s interest in Canada is as much defensive as offensive.
Q. What’s been the reaction in Canada to your American Thinker article?
A. Silence
Q. In your article, you lay out the benefits for Canadian citizens. But won’t national pride stop this idea dead in its tracks?
A. Before Trump’s proposal inflamed Canadians into a semblance of patriotism, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called Canada a “post-national state” and Canadians responded by renaming buildings and taking down statues that honored our founding fathers. And by castigating us as a racist, settler nation that stole land from the Indians. Canada is a country of national resentments rather than national pride – French vs English, East vs West, ethnic minority against ethnic minority. Until recently, those who waved the Canadian flag were viewed as insurrectionists and threatened by Canada’s federal government. Trump has triggered a bout of faux nationalism. The only real identity Canada has left is “not American.”
Q. You suggest that the first of Canada’s 10 provinces to join the United States should be resource-rich Alberta and the eastern maritime province of Newfoundland and Labrador. But there’s approximately 2,000 miles separating them as well as seven other provinces. How is that even feasible?
A. I propose President Trump offer Alberta and Newfoundland separate statehoods, as potential 51st and 52nd states. If those two provinces agree to join the U.S., the rest of Canada’s provinces, with the possible exception of independence-minded Quebec, would then lose any pretence of patriotism to Canada and embrace the idea of joining the U.S.
Q. Do you think the United States should also pursue making Greenland part of the country?
A. Yes. Like Canada, Greenland is at risk of falling under Chinese influence. Moreover, if Canada joins the U.S., Trump’s logic in acquiring Greenland becomes even stronger, since Greenland would then be adjacent to America’s east coast.
Q. How do you think all this talk of the territorial expansion of the United States plays with the regimes in China and Russia? Doesn’t it give them cover for their territorial ambitions? And doesn’t it fuel the optics that the big three strongmen intend to carve up the world?
A. Pre-Trump, Russia and China didn’t need cover for their territorial ambitions. They did as they wished because no strongman was around to stop them. With Trump in the White House, their territorial ambitions are tempered, particularly since the land mass Trump acquires would no longer be acquired by other regimes. Would we rather have Canada and Greenland under American auspices or controlled by China?
BIO
Lawrence Solomon is a Canadian author and columnist on energy, health and environmental issues. He was an advisor to President Carter’s Task Force on the Global Environment (the Global 2000 Report) in the late 1970’s, and at the forefront of movements to privatize and deregulate energy systems, reform foreign aid, promote vaccine safety, and convert free roads to toll roads. He is a founding opinion editor and columnist at Canada’s Financial Post, a former columnist for theGlobe and Mail and the Toronto Star Syndicate, and a contributor to the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Solomon, a founder and managing director of Energy Probe Research Foundation, also helped found the World Rainforest Movement, Friends of the Earth Canada, and Lake Ontario Waterkeepers.
