To remain Canadian, our northern neighbors should become a little more American

President Donald Trump isn’t the first U.S. leader to contemplate annexing Canada, though he may be the first to take the idea seriously in a long time—if he is serious. The “51st state” comments and maps of a unified North America could be an elaborate joke with no obvious punchline. If it’s a joke, Canadians aren’t amused; they’re upset and making plans to defend their country against a hostile takeover. Standing in the way, though, is their country’s pathetic excuse for a military, and the severe restrictions, relative to the U.S., that Canada’s government imposes on private weapons needed to resist an invasion. If they’re to avoid becoming Americans, Canadians need to become a little more American.

Annexing Canada Isn’t Popular Outside the White House

Thankfully, Trump stands pretty much alone in his obsession with absorbing our harmless northern neighbor. According to Angus Reid Institute pollsters, 60 percent of Americans, including 44 percent of Trump voters, have no interest in seeing Canada become part of the U.S. Probably, nobody wants to find out what that would do to America’s fraught political balance. Another 32 percent of Americans “and 42 per cent of Trump voters say they would only be interested if the idea was supported by Canadians.” Ninety percent of Canadians say, “no, thanks,” so that should be the end of that.

But what if Trump and company pushed the issue anyway? Hopefully, those number mean Americans, including those in the U.S. military, would refuse to comply with an invasion plan. At least, Canadians had better hope we would, because their military is in no condition to put up a fight.

Canada Is in Poor Condition To Defend Itself

The Canadian Armed Forces’ “objectives since the end of the Cold War have been to sustain four frigates for deployment, 18 CF-18 fighter jets for peacetime operations (12 on alert in Canada and six abroad for NATO), and a half brigade’s worth of soldiers (2000-2500) with ancillary capabilities,” defense expert Richard Shimooka wrote for Canada’s Macdonald-Laurier Institute in 2023. “Among Western states, this is a fairly small contribution.”

Worse, Shimooka added, the armed forces struggle to maintain even that minimal level of readiness, ensuring that “Canada’s military is less capable than ever.”

Canada’s former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reportedly told NATO allies that the country will “never” meet the alliance’s defense spending goal. Having piggybacked on American defense for decades, Canadian leaders ensured their country is ripe for the taking should the U.S. turn hostile.

That leaves Canadians relying on the prospect of a prolonged guerrilla war to resist a takeover.

“A military invasion of Canada would trigger a decades-long violent resistance, which would ultimately destroy the United States,” vows Aisha Ahmad, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto. “Trump is delusional if he believes that 40 million Canadians will passively accept conquest without resistance.”

Ahmad envisions resistance fighters retreating to Canada’s rough terrain to be trained by veterans of the country’s armed forces. Weapons would flow to the insurgents, she insists, from China and Russia.

In fact, Canadians are a bit better armed than Americans usually recognize. The country has an estimated 12.7 million firearms in private hands. That likely underestimates the total given the Canadian government’s long-gun registry fiasco, which met with widespread noncompliance before it was abandoned.

That said, the Canadian government has been trying to disarm its unfortunate subjects. Also, “restricted” weapons, including handguns and semiautomatic rifles—the most effective weapons for resisting an invasion—are subject to registration. Unless quickly purged, those registration records would be available for use in confiscation efforts by occupying troops.

Resistance Begins With Culture

Another concern is that resisting invasion requires an ornery culture that encourages noncompliance with authorities. In the absence of such independence, governments—whether elected or imposed—can exercise power over a docile population. And, despite that long-gun registry resistance, Canadians have a reputation for obedience.

“We all like to think in our hearts that we would fight to the bitter end, but I honestly don’t think that would be the case,” Howard Coombs, director of the Queen’s Centre for International and Defence Policy and a veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces, told The Canadian Press. “We don’t have a porous border that would allow the shipment of supplies to Canadians.… Is Russia going to ship stuff across Alaska to us? Are we going to get air drops from the U.K.?”

Ironically, it’s Americans who often have a tense relationship with their own government dating back to the founding of the country in revolution and through various (sometimes violent) acts of resistance to authority. In 1946, returning war veterans who found a corrupt gang in charge of Athens, Tennessee, and the surrounding county tossed them out with gunfire and dynamite.

Americans are well-armed with mostly unregistered guns. Making firearms at home is a popular pastime in the U.S. My family vacation this year will be a week-long defensive pistol class at the same facility where my wife’s rabbi and members of her synagogue trained to defend their house of worship.

This is the kind of culture that lends itself to fighting a hostile takeover.

Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that George S. Rigakos, a Carleton University professor of the political economy of policing, rests many of his hopes for Canadian sovereignty on American resistance.

“An attempted annexation would not only provoke resistance in Canada, but also ignite widespread unrest in the U.S.,” he wrote last month. “Combined with existing partisan divides, this would likely shatter U.S. political unity and inevitably lead to armed secessionist movements.”

This might well be true. But it’s another sad example of Canadians hoping Americans will save their bacon (both the real stuff and the ham slices Canadians call by the name).

Becoming More American To Remain Canadian

Canadians won’t want to hear it, but if they’re to remain Canadian, they need to drop some dysfunctional qualities they’ve adopted to distinguish themselves from their neighbors to the south. They should build a national defense worthy of the name. That will take time. More quickly accomplished is to permanently abandon registration of “restricted”—or any—firearms and ease the purchase and ownership of a wider range of weapons useful for personal and national defense. Armed people are harder to conquer.

While they wait for their government to change, Canadian salvation may lie with friends to the south. Despite President Trump’s ridiculous protectionism, the U.S. has a proud history of thwarting trade barriers with smuggling. Americans unsympathetic to annexation fantasies might help supply Canadians with the hardware necessary for an insurgency, for the right price.

To keep from being forcibly being converted to American—or any other nationality—Canadians need to become just a little more American.