Understood.Upsides like:a relative handful of people,civilized English speaking people (yes,the French speaking ones are civilized too),living in a huge country awash in natural resources,sharing a land border with a single nation,that nation also being prosperous and civilized,having to spend a relatively small sum on defense thanks to the power of that southern neighbor,and not having a history of slavery.
Well, there are territorial spats up north and over fishing rights, so the U.S. isn’t the only country Canada needs to worry about, but it has nothing like the U.S. commitment.
On the other hand, if the U.S. was not so committed to making the world safe for democracy, (see how that has worked out) a ton of money would be saved. As far as neighbors go, the U.S. has a very long history of mixing things up in Mexico—Fast and Furious is by no means the first time the U.S. has helped to destabilize Mexico not for the intent of destabilizing Mexico but for the sake of advancing U.S. domestic political agendas.
The French thing does pose its own problems.