‘No Canadian dream’: Meet some who want to join a 51st U.S. state

EDMONTON — Jordon Kosikowie has been thinking a lot about what would happen if Alberta joined the United States.

The 35-year-old works in the oil and gas industry in the Edmonton area and says life has been hard in recent years. So he’s open to the idea if it brings more prosperity.

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“If there’s an opportunity for me to put more money into my pocket, why not converse about it?” said Kosikowie, who runs a Facebook group for Albertans who want to be a part of a 51st U.S. state. The group has grown to 1,000 members since it was created a few months ago.

“There’s no Canadian dream. I still don’t foresee myself owning a home.”

Kosikowie represents a small fraction of Canadians who say they would vote to join the U.S. in a referendum, said Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute.

An online institute survey of 1,653 Canadian adults in January suggested 90 per cent wouldn’t vote for Canada to become a 51st state in a hypothetical referendum.

“The 90 per cent is significant,” she said.

“That really does speak to a consensus that crosses political lines, demographic lines, regional lines, age and gender demographics, and it’s basically the only thing that Canadians agree on right now.”

But it also suggests 10 per cent of Canadians would want to join the U.S.

An online Leger poll released in March said nine per cent of Canadians want Canada to become the 51st state. Support was highest in Alberta at 15 per cent.

The online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.

Kurl said her survey suggests those in favour of joining the U.S. are mostly conservative men living in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and those who might vote for fringe parties and are “diet MAGA,” referring to U.S. President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement.

“We’re talking about slices of the population on the margins,” she said.

Kosikowie said he would want Alberta to join the U.S. because more conservatives live in Alberta and Albertans are opportunistic.

Many in the province also feel left out from the rest of Canada, he said. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has regularly butted heads with the federal government and says Ottawa has done nothing but harm the oil and gas sector.

“I support statehood, but I support more of the conversation,” Kosikowie said.

‘We don’t even love each other’

Dave Bjorkman has bigger dreams. He thinks all of Canada should be part of the U.S.

The 47-year-old from Edmonton started the Party of the Canadian Constitutionalists. He also created a Facebook group called “Canada the 51st State,” when Trump first made his annexation threat earlier this year. It now has 6,000 members.

Bjorkman said he believes both countries can prosper if they unite. He also feels Canadians are unwilling to work with one another to grow the country’s wealth.

“We don’t even love each other,” he said.

“I’ve been across Canada. All I hear is, ‘I was born in Alberta, I hate Quebec, I hate Ontario,’ or, you know, ‘I’m from B.C., I hate Alberta.'”

He said Canada can benefit from U.S. trade relations and the U.S. can learn a lot from Canada’s universal health care.

The perceived economic benefit is what’s drawing some Canadians to the 51st state movement, said Nelson Wiseman, a political science professor at the University of Toronto.

“A lot of these people are unhappy with the current situation,” he said.

“They feel disconnected from the government. They think the government just serves big cities.

“But it’s a wild idea.”

Canadians might view the U.S. as more prosperous, he said, but a merger would create significant economic challenges.

“From a logistical point of view, an operational point of view, a pragmatic point of view, it would take probably a decade for a merger of the two countries to happen,” he said.

“You don’t just wave a magic wand and it happens, because there are all kinds of things that would have to be sorted out.”

This week, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Trump’s threats to annex Canada need to stop before the two countries can have comprehensive bilateral conversations about trade and security.

“We’ve called out those comments. They’re disrespectful, they’re not helpful, and they need to stop,” Carney said.

However, Kosikowie said Trump’s comments have sparked ideas in the minds of some Canadians.

“We all look at things a different way. We’re all allowed to learn and ask questions,” he said.

“It’s the beauty of Canada.”

— by Fakiha Baig

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