Huh? Canada’s been the virtual 51st State for decades...;)
But it’s really about economic protection. We account for 75% of their imports and 86% of their exports (higher than California’s equivalents to the rest of the US).
Canada accounts for 20% of our imports, and 16% of our exports. That’s a lot of our GDP that’s directly tied to our Northern neighbor. Not to mention being our biggest source of oil.
Canada hasn’t maintained the infrastructure nor staff to assist in a major catastrophe. Canada had a long-standing rule that foreign troops from ANY country could not operate in Canada.
What happens now if the Great White North has a massive natural disaster, say a huge earthquake hits the Seattle area, all the way up through Vancouver (the ONLY Canadian port on the Pacific)? Well, currently they’re screwed - we can’t send aid like we did to Indonesia after the Tsunami. Or like we’ve done around the world for massive natural disasters, deploying our troops to assist in recovery.
This agreement seems to make sense to me - it assures that Canada will not suffer as much as they would now if a major disaster happens. And that - in the long run - is the best thing for the US.
Thanks for the reasonable analysis. There aren’t enough Canadian troops to do much in the US, so the hysteria from the US Right is a bit much. And ... frankly ... if the Quebec-ers eventually vote to pull out of Canada and join France (and they will), the USA is probably going to pick up several new states in the aftermath (some of them — like the Provinces of Alberta and Manitoba — being fairly conservative, and all of them being Resource-rich). This agreement may be a precursor to that to facilitate the operations that would be called for to secure the natural resources of those orphaned Provinces (France can’t be allowed to gain access to the Yukon and all the natural resources throughout the rest of Canada).
Robert A Heinlein was right ... British Canadians are Americans who have figured out how not to pay taxes to Washington.