Absolutely against invading the sovereignty of one of our closest allies and friends, but why tf would they make it one singular state? There’s no way they would pass up the opportunity to split it up into many states, likely along existing province lines, in order to keep numbers up much like gerrymandering does. The premise is stupid to begin with so I’m annoyed I’m entertaining the thought, but it’s so strange that it keeps coming up like it would be one state.
Obligatory it’s bullshit, will never happen, et cetera preface…
The problem with splitting it into multiple states is that each new state would get 2 senators. Our house is capped, the amount of reps we have is how many have, which means they can fuck around with the numbers a bit and potentially take democratic seats away to give to state of Canada, but with the Senate, if it were to split it into 10 new states, we’d have to add 20 additional senators, all of whom would be Democrats (or, at least, most of them). Some of the Canadian parties might last for a bit, but eventually the two party would take over, and they’d all become Democrats, and it would fuck the Republicans. Better to keep it as a single state, do some fuckery on who loses seats to add Canadian reps to the house, and only add 2 senators. Much easier to buy 2 senators than 20.
But honestly, the smartest route would be to make Canada a territory. No senators, no reps, no voting for president. But still citizens. Give it the Puerto Rico treatment.
Honestly, I think there is a path down which I could accept a Canada-U.S. merger. But it starts with adopting our Westminster-style political system and adding the electoral reform we need. While we could accept some specific institutions of theirs replacing ours, there isn’t a single part of the U.S. political system itself that’s remotely acceptable.
A Canada lead by Democrats is still a big step backward for us, even if we kept our services like healthcare at current levels.
Question from the American here. Does it ever bother folks that you don’t get a direct say in who the prime minister is? It’s a superior system to the bullshit we’ve got going on down here, and clearly, being able to directly vote for the head of state/government doesn’t guarantee shit, I’ve always felt like it not being able to choose the PM was kind of shitty
I think people who are unhappy with election results for other reasons sometimes make it an issue, disingenuously. But it doesn’t seem to me like anyone genuinely has a problem with it. PMs have considerably less power than presidents, and how much power they have is at least partly down to how the party chooses to govern itself. A PM who’s party has little power would be quite ineffectual. Maybe that isn’t great, but I’m not aware of a system that isn’t worse in that regard. Maybe the French system is slightly better, but their president’s power still depends a lot on majority party backing, at least for domestic issues. (And that’s a high-level not-super-informed opinion.)
In practice in Canada, the party leader shapes the party, and the electorate votes for the party shape they see, knowing who made it that way. In effect, we practically are voting for our PM. We’re just tempering that choice against local concerns. But even then the local MP who most aligns with our values is probably going to share a party with the party leader we’d most like as PM. We’re only divided against ourselves when that local MP happens to personally be a lousy politician while someone else is doing a much better job of representing their constituents.
Yeah, I was familiar with, like, the nuts and bolts part. It was the emotional reaction, I guess, I was looking for. So most people just don’t have a problem with it?
In the us, we used to not be able to vote for senators. We elected the house, and the house elected the senators, and that shit didn’t fly. Lol. One thing about Americans, we want to have opinions on shit. Even when we shouldn’t, we gotta voice ourselves. If we tried to switch to a Westminster system here, people would be up in arms about not being able to vote directly for the PM, like we were about senators. Even if it’s a better system. It’s not the greatest trait our country has.
It doesn’t bother me. Everyone has the chance if they don’t have a membership in another party, to become a member of the party of their choice and vote for the leader that may or may not become PM. So we do get to vote for PM in that way.
I read somewhere that the PM only gets about 25% of the decisions made making which seems to be different than the usa. I prefer it to be that way.
There are some ignorant people here who haven’t bothered learning about our parliamentary system that mistakenly thinks ours works like the usa… and thankfully we don’t - and they seem to come out of the woodwork on occasion and object. So you may hear some rumblings like that.
Trump supporters don’t know what a province or territory is. They have probably heard of states even if they can’t name many. Making Canada one state minimises the true size and strength of Canada to them. It only makes sense when you consider the audience.
Absolutely against invading the sovereignty of one of our closest allies and friends, but why tf would they make it one singular state? There’s no way they would pass up the opportunity to split it up into many states, likely along existing province lines, in order to keep numbers up much like gerrymandering does. The premise is stupid to begin with so I’m annoyed I’m entertaining the thought, but it’s so strange that it keeps coming up like it would be one state.
Obligatory it’s bullshit, will never happen, et cetera preface…
The problem with splitting it into multiple states is that each new state would get 2 senators. Our house is capped, the amount of reps we have is how many have, which means they can fuck around with the numbers a bit and potentially take democratic seats away to give to state of Canada, but with the Senate, if it were to split it into 10 new states, we’d have to add 20 additional senators, all of whom would be Democrats (or, at least, most of them). Some of the Canadian parties might last for a bit, but eventually the two party would take over, and they’d all become Democrats, and it would fuck the Republicans. Better to keep it as a single state, do some fuckery on who loses seats to add Canadian reps to the house, and only add 2 senators. Much easier to buy 2 senators than 20.
But honestly, the smartest route would be to make Canada a territory. No senators, no reps, no voting for president. But still citizens. Give it the Puerto Rico treatment.
Honestly, I think there is a path down which I could accept a Canada-U.S. merger. But it starts with adopting our Westminster-style political system and adding the electoral reform we need. While we could accept some specific institutions of theirs replacing ours, there isn’t a single part of the U.S. political system itself that’s remotely acceptable.
A Canada lead by Democrats is still a big step backward for us, even if we kept our services like healthcare at current levels.
Question from the American here. Does it ever bother folks that you don’t get a direct say in who the prime minister is? It’s a superior system to the bullshit we’ve got going on down here, and clearly, being able to directly vote for the head of state/government doesn’t guarantee shit, I’ve always felt like it not being able to choose the PM was kind of shitty
I think people who are unhappy with election results for other reasons sometimes make it an issue, disingenuously. But it doesn’t seem to me like anyone genuinely has a problem with it. PMs have considerably less power than presidents, and how much power they have is at least partly down to how the party chooses to govern itself. A PM who’s party has little power would be quite ineffectual. Maybe that isn’t great, but I’m not aware of a system that isn’t worse in that regard. Maybe the French system is slightly better, but their president’s power still depends a lot on majority party backing, at least for domestic issues. (And that’s a high-level not-super-informed opinion.)
In practice in Canada, the party leader shapes the party, and the electorate votes for the party shape they see, knowing who made it that way. In effect, we practically are voting for our PM. We’re just tempering that choice against local concerns. But even then the local MP who most aligns with our values is probably going to share a party with the party leader we’d most like as PM. We’re only divided against ourselves when that local MP happens to personally be a lousy politician while someone else is doing a much better job of representing their constituents.
Yeah, I was familiar with, like, the nuts and bolts part. It was the emotional reaction, I guess, I was looking for. So most people just don’t have a problem with it?
In the us, we used to not be able to vote for senators. We elected the house, and the house elected the senators, and that shit didn’t fly. Lol. One thing about Americans, we want to have opinions on shit. Even when we shouldn’t, we gotta voice ourselves. If we tried to switch to a Westminster system here, people would be up in arms about not being able to vote directly for the PM, like we were about senators. Even if it’s a better system. It’s not the greatest trait our country has.
I mean, I can’t really speak for 41 million people, but yeah that’s my perspective/anecdotal observation.
Of course you can! Just say it louder than other people, it works for politics in the US…
It doesn’t bother me. Everyone has the chance if they don’t have a membership in another party, to become a member of the party of their choice and vote for the leader that may or may not become PM. So we do get to vote for PM in that way.
I read somewhere that the PM only gets about 25% of the decisions made making which seems to be different than the usa. I prefer it to be that way.
There are some ignorant people here who haven’t bothered learning about our parliamentary system that mistakenly thinks ours works like the usa… and thankfully we don’t - and they seem to come out of the woodwork on occasion and object. So you may hear some rumblings like that.
On the whole, we are happy with our system.
Trump supporters don’t know what a province or territory is. They have probably heard of states even if they can’t name many. Making Canada one state minimises the true size and strength of Canada to them. It only makes sense when you consider the audience.