CND/US border should have been North to South, humour

It’s The Pitts: United States Of Canada (Best Of)
CattleNetwork_Today 3/5/2007

Somebody messed up. When the politicians and the mapmakers divided up North America longitudinally it was one of the worst mistakes of all time. Instead of a border running from East to West it should run from the North to the South. The Western United States would then be joined with British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, the Yukon and the Northwest Territory forming a new country which would then be called The United States of Canada. The eastern provinces and states would be united as a new country too... French North America.

I am not suggesting this because I just want Canada's wealth... we already have quite a few of their best hockey players. It’s just that we westerners have much more in common. And I realize that this would create hardships for those good folks in the deep South who’d have to be forever linked to those damn Yankees. I’m terribly sorry that all my friends in the South would have to learn the metric system and how to speak French but, darn it, someone has to be willing to make such a sacrifice.

The dividing line would be the Mississippi River and the Manitoba line. Iowa, Missouri, Louisiana and Arkansas would be sort of a demilitarized zone between the two new countries. Such a division would make it possible for Alaska to feel like it was more connected to the rest of us. And it would also mean that Canadian honkers could fly South for the winter without flying over foreign air space.

French North America would get the politicians and cabinet ministers but we get Texas. Those in the East can have their grain boards, Revenue Canada, the IRS and the CME and we'll take oil rich Alberta. They can have the CIA and we'll take the Royal Mounted Police.

I realize that under such an arrangement French North America would get the industrial states and provinces. But if they get Ontario and Quebec they also have to keep Cincinnati, Chicago, New York, and Cleveland. Besides, what are their factories going to run on without our great reserves of petroleum and natural gas. Speaking of natural gas... they can keep the President and the Prime Minister too, they won't even have to move. But we get the Calgary Stampede. We'll take Washington (the state) but they can have DC.

French North America can have Canadian Thistle, Liberals and acid rain but we get the prairie provinces, the great western cattle country and an all English speaking country. We'll keep Pacific Northwest salmon, Vancouver, Victoria and the western work ethic of the farmers, ranchers and roustabouts. We will be giving up Niagara Falls but we get to keep North Dakota.

I realize this division is going to cause some hardships. Without the newsprint from the great British Columbia forests the liberal east coast media won't get to print all those nasty things they are constantly saying about us in the West. And what will they eat? It wouldn’t surprise me to hear in the future that urbane easterners would eat endangered red legged frogs and fairy shrimp if they get hungry enough. They can have French food... we’ll take hamburgers and French fries. And they can keep their cod and escargot.

I want to be fair. With such a concentration of politicians in the east they’re going to need some place to send their criminals. I suggest we rent them some of our space... in the frozen wasteland of the Arctic. But anybody else who wants to come west for a vacation is going to need a passport and all the proper vaccinations. Even then I’m not so sure we should let them in. The only downside I can foresee with this new division of the continent is that we in the west are really going to have to tighten up our immigration policy and put armed guards on our eastern borders.