[Lunatic Fringe]

I always love reading good fiction

[fieldmarshaldj]

I'll take Alberta, and they can stuff British Columbia. Vancouver makes Seattle look like Greenville, South Carolina.

[Centurion2000]

Make sure we DITCH vancouver as a free city though. Sasketwuan (sp?) may want to get in on this as well.

[SoftballMominVA]

54-40 or fight!

Maybe President Polk was right?

[Incorrigible]

With Alberta as America's 51st state, the U.S. would secure 300 billion barrels of recoverable oil reserves, more than exist in Saudi Arabia. U.S. oil imports would plummet and America's great dependence on foreign oil would vanish.

If this is true, why isn't Canada selling us this oil at today's market price.  Something tells me there's more to the story.

[fish hawk]

Actually there would still only be 50 states as we lose Kalifornia and Arizona back to Mexico.

[Drew68]

Interesting thesis.

[bert]

How about maintaining the same number and trading Alberta for say Washington or even better Massachuttes.

[Husker24]

Canada's most conservative province -- anti-Kyoto, anti-gun control, hostile to national health care, receptive to plebiscites and Bible-belt Christians, free of provincial sales tax

Why join the United States, they should form thier own country. Then if Hillary is ever elected, ill have a place to go. We would just end up holding them back. Do you honestly think that the Democrats would let us drill for oil there if they were a 51st state? It would just be one huge wildlife preserve with higher taxes.

[Arkinsaw]

the Supreme Court of Canada has already endorsed a province's departure if its citizens speak clearly on the matter.

If they joined the US they would give up this option for themselves and for all of their descendants. Independence would be a better option for them. Interesting that the Canadians have a voluntary union. They should call theirs States and we should call ours provinces.

[Fiddlstix]

Bump

[Cicero]

There are political problems with Vancouver, true. But the city is beautiful, and so is British Columbia as a whole. The weather along the coast is fairly moderate because of the ocean currents. Plus it would link the lower 48 with Alaska.

Sounds like a deal to me.

[Consort]

United North America.

[AmishDude]

The most interesting part of this article is the Candian Supreme Court decision that any province could choose to leave Canada. This means Albertans can force the issue. With the exchange rate so bad, they might.

If any Canadian province leaves (We were all thinking Québec, weren't we?) Canada won't survive well. I wonder if it can be argued that Canada's health care system is essentially paid for by Alberta oil.

Now, with regard to the first sentence: Neither Bush nor the US in general is particularly eager to get Alberta's oil. Yes, it'd be nice to have it within US borders for national security purposes, but Canada needs to sell it more than we need to buy it and it won't be free -- US consumers still have to buy it no matter what. It just won't be subject to whatever tariffs or other taxes Canada puts on it.

[DonQ]

Vancouver Island would be a gorgeous addition to the Union. On its highways, careless drivers are yelled at as "Stupid American!"

The only problem is that, if they join the US, those provinces would have to give up speaking English.

[xrp]

Can we get that 51st/52 state map redone with Aztlan removed to see what American will really look like? Thanks.

[Porterville]

Waiting for the day we take Canada and go to war against Quebec.

[Alberta's Child]

Forget it -- the author is confusing the conservative spirit of Alberta with a pro-American one. If anything, Alberta is probably more strongly opposed to joining the U.S. than any other Canadian province is.

When asked to choose between Ottawa and Washington, most Albertans would select Calgary.

[Quix]

I'd cheer, I think.

[HassanBenSobar]

I suppose that, even if Alberta and BC were to become US states by their own choice--the US would still be branded as imperialist, merely for allowing it. And that we did so only for oil. And that we are now oppressing all the Vancouver potheads, acting like hegemons, blah blah blah jingoistic blah blah blah military-industrial complex yadda yadda long live Chairman Mao blah blah...arright, I guess I'm getting carried away now.