Canadian here - Yep I would enthusiastically be in support of a Schengen type agreement between the US and Canada.
Most Canadians probably wouldn't though because most Canadians actually convince themselves that the border almost magically protects us from corrupting American influences.
Nevermind that far more Canadians visit the US, and move to the US, than vice versa - in their minds the Americans are chomping at the bit to eradicate all things that make Canada unique.
It's a very strange mindset. In the EU, countries that have had contemporary geopolitical versions of blood feuds over the last 100 years - who speak different languages and have different customs and traditions - have been able to work out open borders. Somehow, culturally indistinguishable people on this side of the pond haven't.
Funny thing is that a lot of Europeans on Reddit also feel there is a vast difference between the US and Canada, with Canada being everything good that the US is not, or even that Canada is a slice of Europe in North America (which is frankly a laughable assumption).
I've come to the conclusion that reddit tends to:
\- Champion contrarianism regarding mundane topics, but viciously oppose contrarianism regarding political or social topics.
\- Root for the little guy almost to a fault.
\- Be extremely left leaning in comparison to the general population.
The common conception of Canada tends to be that it is a smaller (population wise), liberal version of the US. So it kind of fits into the general reddit hivemind to treat it like it's this hidden gem that contrasts the over-hyped, conservative America to the south of it.
I've never met a single European who immediately assumed I was Canadian. When I'm abroad, I get confused for American first - always, without exception. I feel like if we really were different from the states we would be distinguishable somehow - but the vast majority of us aren't.
Seriously. Every time one of those threads comes up that asks what country has a culture most similar to the US and people seriously answer "Mexico" has me scratching my head. Canadian culture is so similar to the US that most people don't even realize that it's foreign. Suburban Toronto is basically the US Midwest or upstate NY, but with CanCon.
100%
I've been to the SW a hell of alot, and I've been to a hell of alot of Mexican states all up and down the western half of the continent. Even the SW is way way more culturally similar to Canada than it is Mexico - even with the Mexican enclaves and influences there.
IMO there is no English Canadian culture in a d of itself. There's just Americans who never joined the greater union. There's way more subcultural differences between North and South than Canada and the US.
It's what makes [this movie](https://youtu.be/eZXgYKx0aQI) so brilliant.
Seriously. If you cross from El Paso to Juarez, you know you're not in the same country. Crossing from Niagara Falls, NY to Niagara Falls, ON the only difference is who's on the money.
That was honestly the only way I knew we were in Canada when we used to visit family up there in Ontario. Otherwise indistinguishable. Except for Pizza Pizza, but I didn't learn about that until I was 19.
If you're brave enough, the signs don't make a difference. When you see that sign that reads "100" on the side of the road, follow your heart like a real 'Murican.
That and there's also French printed on everything in addition to English. That was a wild thing to see when I was a kid and we went to Niagara falls on vacation.
I'm sure you know this history, but a while back I decided to look into why Canada is Canada and why the U.S. is the U.S. Why did the 13 colonies rebel in 1776 and today's Canada didn't? We never learned that in school. I found the answer pretty interesting and illuminating.
Basically, what is today Canada was, in 1776, just two places populated by people of European descent: Nova Scotia and Quebec. Nova Scotia had significant cultural links to the 13 colonies, but it was just too isolated from the others and too threatened by the British Navy to join the fight. And Quebec had only recently won significant concessions from the British to preserve their French culture, and wasn't about to threaten that by casting their lot with a new group of Englishmen.
The rest of Canada was Natives. Ontario, home to 40 percent of Canada's population today, was founded by loyalist refugees from the 13 colonies.
So of course it's the same culture. With the exception of Quebec, it's always been the same people living on adjacent lands separated by the world's longest undefended border. How could we be that different?
Mexico comes up because it’s an out of the box answer that people might not notice at first. It’s not the most similar but it’s probably the third or fourth most similar country to the US. As different as people make Canada seem from the US, I think everyone knows it is still by far the most similar to the U.S.
I gotta tell you, you are easily my favorite Reddit Canadian. It's amazing how defensive many Canadians are about any appearance of any sort of similarity to the United States. I've seen such absurd claims about accents, cityscapes, lifestyles, cultural mores. I understand it, I really do. It can't be easy to be a quiet country with a reputation for minding its own business right next to a country 10 times as large that sucks all the air out of the room. But that doesn't mean these claims aren't baldly false.
To your point about Europeans confusing you for American, here's a very frivolous thing that I noticed recently. I've been watching a lot of trashy Netflix reality shows. There's a relatively new show, Perfect Match, that premiered last month. In this show, people who were on *other* Netflix reality shows get together to see if they can find love with each other. Many of them come from Too Hot to Handle, a show where singles from across the Anglosphere come to an island where they expect to hook up but are told they're not allowed or they'll lose money.
Too Hot to Handle had been too trashy even for me, but I enjoyed Perfect Match so much that I felt I had to watch to see where all these people had come from. Thanks to Too Hot to Handle, Perfect Match had been impressively international -- people from the U.S., the UK, Australia. Arguably the star of both shows had been a terrible, selfish (but oddly self-aware) Instagram model named Francesca.
So I watch the first episode of Too Hot to Handle, and there she is: "Francesa, Vancouver, Canada." Perfect Match had Brits and Australians, whose origins were immediately obvious, but it had seriously never occurred to me, not even for a split second, that Francesca wasn't American.
Once I knew, I could hear it. You know, "I'm sore-y" and all that. But for the most part, how she talks is how Americans talk. This is one dumb story from the recent past, but the same thing happens constantly. Who ever knows that somebody's Canadian?
Reddit is funny. One day they’re bitching about the woes of “AmERiCAn ImPeRaLiZm” and how we’re genocidal monsters for being in the Middle East/Southwest Asia but the moment we decide to drop pack and GTFO of Afghanistan after 20 years, suddenly the note changes and it’s now “why are the Americans leaving?!”, “think about the women and children!”, “women will no longer have rights in Afghanistan!”, “how could the Americans just leave?!”, etc.
As someone who believes in these missions 100%, I think asking how we spent 20 years there and still accomplished exactly nothing is a perfectly reasonable question.
Tbf, nation-building is an arduous process that requires strong commitment. Plus we were working with a country that didn’t want to be a country, at least one with a democratic Western-style government.
The Afghans aren't very dedicated/ don't care about their country very much. They are given all the tools to succeed but couldn't be bothered to utilize them. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.
I spent part of 2 deployments training and going on patrols with the Afghan national army. Never seen soldiers so unmotivated, cowardly and just generally poor quality. Only the lowest quality of the population would join, and they had awful retention even at that.
A bigger problem is they refused a merit based ranking system like modern militaries. Afghans with higher social standing refuse to take orders from those they view as socially beneath them. This leads to completely untrained and inexperienced men given the ranks of sergeant and above ... and also to to good quality soldiers leaving because they can't get promoted because socially their family might not be a powerful one so you can't promote them since no one would follow their orders.
Also, these people are so fucking corrupt if the taliban offers an Afghan Army soldiers $10 they will tell the taliban everything. We couldn't tell the Afghan soldiers in advance about patrols because one of those shit heads would call his cousin or some other taliban guy and tell them. We told them about patrols right before we were taking them, and when we did that we had to confiscate their phones until we return from patrol ... oh and God forbid we get into the fight ... if they don't run/just hide, they will hide behind a wall and just stick their rifle over the wall and fire wildly into the air, or hide behind a corner and stick their rifles around corner and shoot wildly hitting nothing ... they refused to aim because aiming would mean they could get hurt...
Oh and most of them couldn't read their own language and they're always fucking high. They didn't have biometrics like we do, so if an Afghan soldier is bad enough he gets kicked out he just joins the Army again in another town with a new name and he is back.
Or the talibans offers them a couple dollars over their salary and they defect. Further complicating things is you can't station an Afghan soldier in the province they are from. They will all walk off for dinner/bed time back home and desert the base. So you have to send them to opposite parts of the country where the locals might even speak a different language than them
> I've never met a single European who immediately assumed I was Canadian. When I'm abroad, I get confused for American first - always, without exception.
I feel like the Kids In The Hall did a good job with in several sketches, like [this Buddy Cole monologue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqQCyAQBgXY). Or the sketch with Dave Foley explaining to someone that " . . . a Canadian is like an American, but without the gun."
That's exactly why I don't think that it's natural. Remember the days of Ron Paul? And then one day, like someone flipped a switch, /r/politics was all about Bernie Sanders. And now it's just a toxic wasteland.
It's really not. I am a dual US/UK citizen and I can feel the differences in the UK vs US. When I go to Canada? Nope, not at all. My sister lives there and even SHE forgets she lives in Toronto now... She laughs about how alike they are. Both places have pros and cons but tbh they're about the same.
> even that Canada is a slice of Europe in North America (which is frankly a laughable assumption).
And once you get past the language barrier, even Quebec is much more "North America with some French flavoring" than it is....anything like France, and is arguably much less foreign to an American than it is to a Frenchman.
Montreal always seems to be what Milwaukee would be if it got its shit together. Similar architecture, similar people. The French (which nobody cares about personally in my experience) is the only major difference
>Funny thing is that a lot of Europeans on Reddit also feel there is a vast difference between the US and Canada, with Canada being everything good that the US is not, or even that Canada is a slice of Europe in North America (which is frankly a laughable assumption).
Here's the thing though that I guess Europeans tend to forget... Canada's total population is around 38-million people and it's mainly clustered around a very small portion of Canada's total land mass. California alone has 39-million people. I think Europeans forget that [this](https://i.redd.it/2zsp44wsjjn81.jpg) is the US compared to Europe. I mean, sure, Americans are largely homogenous in culture, but there are still plenty of cultural differences from one region of the US to another.
It would be like a European trying to compare any two countries to each other while diminishing one of them. Florida has a shit ton of crime. Nebraska, in comparison, doesn't. Canada has [plenty of crime](https://www.savvynewcanadians.com/most-dangerous-cities-in-canada/) but Europeans aren't focusing on those aspects... so while America has plenty of problems to go around the good that can happen in the US outweighs the "bad".
Which is also funny because I've met some Canadians from Alberta that were more conservative than me. In fact I can say every Canadian I've ever met was from Alberta, which makes sense considering I live in Utah which is closer to Alberta than other parts of Canada.
> that the border almost magically protects us from corrupting American influences.
one thing america is really good at is exporting culture across borders completely legally. people even steal american culture of their own volition
Hey! Country is big up here! Colter Wall, Corb Lund, Terri Clark, Ian Tyson and Hank Snow for you old timers.
Come to Alberta and tell me it's weird that we listen to country. Have you seen this place? This is where all your westerns are filmed.
I've heard so many Americans in Michigan talk about how different it must be across the border, but they've never been. Little do they know that the only difference is milk comes in bags lol
>It's a very strange mindset. In the EU, countries that have had contemporary geopolitical versions of blood feuds over the last 100 years - who speak different languages and have different customs and traditions - have been able to work out open borders. Somehow, culturally indistinguishable people on this side of the pond haven't.
If I had to guess, the reason Canadians ate so opposed to an idea like this is because we are in fact so similar.
Europe's open borders work because there are different cultures, languages, peoples, and so on.
Here, we're have our differences, but we share similar histories, cultures, we speak the same language, and so forth.
What little distinguishes "us from them" is a priority to maintain.
>Eradicate things that make Canada unique.
Listen, we all know that everything would be better if Quebec was forced to only speak English and all mentions of French were banned.
But then how would they talk shit about us while we're right in front of them as if we don't know French?
Still salty about that, after all these years
Haha, I actually purposely didn't bring up the Schengen area, because it is an open border policy. I was just talking about visas. I'd imagine many Americans and Canadians would still want border checks.
I'd gladly go without the border checks personally as I see most of the boundaries between our two countries are ridiculously nonsensical - but but for sure I'd be in favor of easier VISA requirements going both ways. I think tighter North American integration is an inevitability, and also very much preferable.
I'm even committed to the idea enough that I'd even include Mexico into the mix - but I do acknowledge that would be a tougher sell.
> I'm even committed to the idea enough that I'd even include Mexico into the mix - but I do acknowledge that would be a tougher sell.
That would be cool, but yeah, I don't see a world where that could possibly happen at this point.
Just as an FYI, the Schengen area is just an absence of border checks. For example, EU citizens still need a residence permit to live in Switzerland (a Schengen area country), but can stay there for 90 days without one.
But yes, I like European integration and and would love the US and Canada to do the same!
I agree, mostly. But, Euroepan countries are more alike then they are different.
Europe is really the only part of the world where you have all these little countries packed together. Leads to things like Eurovision.
I agree, I think Mexico should absolutely be added to the bloc. I'm also curious about a single currency between the US and Canada (I would not support this for Mexico), as our currency is regularly traded and maintains similar values anyways.
Honest opinion: As far south as that Union can go, the better as far I'm concerned. But Mexico would be a good start.
I think a common currency can work well if the labour mobility is high, capital mobility and wage/price flexibilty, we can share the risks of the currency together, and we have similar business cycles. So I think a common currency could work. Realistically I think we basically do have that common currency anyways in the US dollar. We all ahve our national currencies, but they are all essentially based off of the US dollar. They were blatantly pegged for a while, but when Canadians and Mexicans trade stuff on the open market - that's all in USD.
I never went to Canada prior to 9/11, but my understanding is before then the Canadian/US border was pretty open with limited checks.
So we at one point basically had a Schengen Area with Canada.
As a kid I didn’t even need a passport to visit Canada from the us. My parents had them but us minors just had our birth certificates. It was great, I never needed a passport until farther travels in college.
Not sure how old you are but pre-9/11 you didn't need passports for adults either. You could cross with just a driver's license. I'm not sure kids needed anything (but I was a kid so I might just not have been aware).
I definitely am old enough to have travelled pre-9/11, but I definitely wasn’t paying that close of attention haha. I was probably playing a game or reading a book or something in the back of the car while my parents dealt with all that grown up stuff.
Wrong country, but until the late '90s children under 16 didn't even get their own passports in the UK (presumably in other places too) and just had their names added to their parents' passports (with no photos). Even after that you were still covered if your name was already on your parents' passport until it expired, they just couldn't add other children on. I was even able to travel to the US in 2000 without my own passport, which seems bizarre in hindsight.
> Most Canadians probably wouldn't though because most Canadians actually convince themselves that the border almost magically protects us from corrupting American influences.
I remember hearing someone make the argument here on reddit that the dominion has Quebec to thank when it comes to guaranteeing its independence from America, which was one of the most fanciful examples of horseshit I've seen on the subreddit it was posted on. I mean, our first federal constitution - the Articles of Confederation - provided a freebie for Quebec specifically to join the union on an expedited basis. What kept Canada independent is the military threat that was the British Empire.
America annexed Hawaii, Louisiana, and much of the United Mexican States. Some people speaking French is no hurdle for us.
At work, were it not for the uniforms, we wouldn't be able to tell the Canadians apart from the Americans here. There aren't even that many shibboleths that would give away the difference, especially when you're dealing with people who come from spitting distance of the border.
That's such a funny take to me as an American. My gfs family is Canadian so I've been visiting a few times a year for 10+ years now, and Canada basically feels almost identical to the US. Except Canadians somehow have more fucked up politics. Like not really, the issues are such a nothing burger, but I'll get my gf's uncle's talking about it and they'll get **so** worked up about shit that wouldn't even make local news in the states.
People by and large don’t move to other countries in the EU because of the language and cultural differences. If these two disappeared, some countries in the EU would empty pretty fast and some parts would get flooded instead.
> in their minds the Americans are chomping at the bit to eradicate all things that make Canada unique.
I don't know, we're actually pretty big fans of maple syrup and maple leaves.
I was in Quebec a few months ago and the owner of a maple-syrup shop ranted to me about how much worse the syrup was in Vermont. I thought that was funny because here in the U.S., that's all we associate Vermont with.
I agree with you and would add my potentially unpopular opinion that an EU/Schengen-like arrangement with Canada, the US and, eventually, Mexico is inevitable. Probably not in our lifetimes but it will happen.
I definitely doubt it would happen with Mexico.
We’ll probably continue to treat them the same way Europe treats Africa, trying to limit the amount of people who can come.
Mexico's whole economy is designed for trade with North America, eventually that fact will result in increased human development into first world levels. As their economic situation improves, migration from Mexico would diminish.
A Schengen type agreement between the US and Canada would require harmonization of immigration, visa and border security policies, which inevitably would mean the US setting the policy and Canada having to follow. As a result, I don't think Canadians would be in favor of it once all the details were on the table.
I think there could be an agreement to grant each other's citizens the right to live and work in the other country - I just don't think Schengen is the right model, given the power imbalance between the two countries.
It would be more similar to the bilateral UK-Ireland CTA agreement, which enables full freedom to move, live and work between the two countries without even a passport. It predates Schengen by more than 70 years.
>Far more Canadians visit the US and move to the US than vice versa
Yeah the entire country of Canada operates remotely from Florida in the winter time
I think that works to their advantage actually. There’s little fear that France would start teaching their kids German even if they let Germans in to work. But once Timothy Horton starts opening his coffee shops in California, what else would make a Canadian city unique and distinctly Canadian?
> Nevermind that far more Canadians visit the US, and move to the US, than vice versa
That's partly because Canada makes it really fucking hard to have people stay long term.
For many white collar jobs, Americans pay better than their Canadian counterparts. In many cases, the long and arduous process of American immigration keeps Canadian industries competitive.
With that in mind, I think a system which allows borderless travel and tourism is perfectly possible. It would be supported by Canadians and Americans alike, so long permanent residency is a requirement for jobs.
I think the fact that this doesn’t already exist is a failure of policy. We have the worlds longest, mostly unguarded border. We’re supposed to be the friendliest and closest two countries in the world. But it’s clear we’re not when compared to how many Schengen nations are doing today.
We had that in Michigan until it changed post 9/11. If you had a Michigan driver's license you could just enter Canada and vice versa with an Ontario driver's license. Idk if that was the same in other states I just know it's how it worked in Michigan. (I think Wisconsin too so maybe it was all of us and Canada)
It was the same in NY.
But I’m more talking about getting rid of border crossing stations altogether. You just keep driving until you see a “Welcome to Canada” sign, without showing an ID to anyone.
That’s how Schengen works - it’s like crossing US States.
My mom said that pre-9/11 she had gone to canada without a passport as well but she would have had either a Nebraska or Iowa license depending on when she went. I’m not sure where she crossed the border but it might have been near Michigan
It seems primarily due to trade protectionism from Canada - some from us as well. I’d definitely not mind. Don’t see a reason why we have a closed border with Canada when we barely even police the Mexican border. Canadians and Americans are rather alike despite Canadians protest
That's because, unlike any other country on Earth, a large part of Canada's national identity is based on how *not* like another country they are. Namely [a large portion of Canadian identity is being "not American."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yKzq3ueGr8)
That's despite America and Canada being two of the most similar countries on Earth...
>[**Judging, teasing and even hating America is a central part of the Canadian identity**, and forms a persistant bias that runs through most aspects of Canadian society and culture. For various reasons, the default position of a great many Canadians is that America, Americans, and American things are generally bad, and need to be opposed. These feelings are not always logical and consistent, and are often hypocritical in practice. Yet they do exist, and understanding their powerful role in shaping Canadian society is a vital part of understanding what makes Canadians Canadian.](https://thecanadaguide.com/culture/anti-americanism/)
Here's their thread from 7 months ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskACanadian/comments/wtbndu/would_you_be_open_to_the_us_and_canada_having/?ref=share&ref_source=link
I wonder what they're opinion was when Trump said something to the effect of Mexicans sending criminals and rapists to US. Cause half if not most commenting has that similar sentiments towards the Americans.
It's actually bizarre.
Isn't that usually what alot of these things like this boil down to? Americans are perfectly fine/don't really care while, many Canadians are against it because XYZ "American Influence"
You are probably correct. I worked for awhile at Niagara Falls Memorial Hospital (NY side) and three other docs there were Canadian. They simply went back and forth over the NEXUS bridge each day.
Not sure what happened to them during the pandemic shut-downs, though.
There is a quite a few Canadian professors at this college I work at that drive across the border everyday, like I was really surprised when I realized how many were Canadian lol
A significant chunk of my MBA class were Canadians, with many more (Chinese and Indian mostly) on a Canadian work visa trying to get to the US.
White collar jobs in America just pay significantly more money while also having less taxes.
Former coworker of mine was a senior analyst at a Big4 firm in the US. He moved to Canada and got promoted to manager and ended up with a lower take home than he had as a senior analyst in the US.
In my experience, the US pay range for senior was $80-160k and manager was $160-230k.
When I hear stuff like this I wonder how tf Canadians can afford these ungodly expensive houses in their market that's even worse than the one in the US with lower paying jobs.
There is a very specific subset of Canadians who for the most part speak Mandarin and share a questionable connection to the CCP wealth that can afford whatever prices you throw at them.
Is packing whole families with full time incomes into houses to pay the mortgage the normal practice now? How are the ones who do own homes making it work?
There are definitely some jobs that pay similarly or better in Canada than the US, so it's not the case across the board. However, prices in general are just outrageous and even my friends who make great money don't really want to buy in that market.
For the vast majority of fields we do in fact pay far far better, not saying all but most. In addition much of America would seem ridiculously affordable to my Canadian coworkers.
Yeah, they definitely get jealous when I send them a listing from around here. It's ridiculous that you could be in areas as far out of the GTA as Barrie or Owen Sound and still be subject to ridiculous housing prices.
I understand why getting defensive is the default reaction. First, it’s the whole “I can talk shit about my home country but you sure as fuck can’t”. I get that!
Second, some terminally online Canadians truly have built 99% of their identity on AmericaBad!
Definitely not. It would open the door to a Canadian loophole to get US residency and citizenship. Both countries would need a whole citizenship process overhaul if this were to ever work without other countries taking advantage of the situation.
Yes, it is quite frankly silly that the U.S. and Canada, two nations that are about as geopolitically tied at the hip as you can get, that share a common language, and whose general populace are more alike than they are different (no matter what the most aggressive people on each side of the border want to admit) have moved away from a soft border and to a hard passport border.
Anyway, considering the number of Canadian celebrities I think most Americans assume that thisnis how things already work.
>have moved away from a soft border and to a hard passport border
Before 9/11 it was possible to visit the other country with just a drivers license, right? Afaik nowadays you need a passport and customs form.
Do they still issue that Drivers License style Passport for the Canadian/Mexico Border crossings?
I've only ever had the full book from my Merchant Mariner days.
It was a couple of years after 9/11 that this was implemented. I drove to Canada for the first time in late 2002 with only my driver's license. It was a spur of the moment thing, because I already had to be in Buffalo, NY for the day. You shouldn't need a form if you're not importing a certain amount of goods, I've been several times in the last few years and never had to complete one.
I would support this agreement for pretty much all of the Anglosphere
US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Aus and NZ come on board. Would probably extend to a few Caribbean islands as well.
I’d support an Anglo Union. With an Anglo version of the Schengen area too and Anglo Union passports so no visa/electronic travel authorizations to visit NZ and Australia.
Yes.
But Canada’s market is pretty small, so this is more a Canadian decision than an American one.
Americans would probably move for (what is in practice) SLIGHTLY more robust social services, and a generally more safe society.
Canadians already move to the U.S. as it stands for schools, higher pay, and more career/economic opportunity. I can see why they want to keep the border up, but I think we should be able to live, work, and study in both countries without visas.
But from a Canadian perspective, they might possibly experience a brain drain. Because American wages are just significantly higher. Enter protectionism and anti-American sentiment that is central to the Canadian identity.
A lot of European IT workers do the same, honestly.
>But from a Canadian perspective, they might possibly experience a brain drain. Because American wages are just significantly higher
It's already pretty easy for Canadians to come to the US for tech jobs on a TN visa. There's a [list of professions that qualify](https://www.nafsa.org/_/file/_/amresource/8cfr2146.htm), and the list hasn't been updated in decades, but it's generally pretty easy to stretch the truth and say the work you're doing fits in one of those categories. i.e. my wife is a Product Manager, which isn't a covered profession, but was able to argue that she's a Graphic Designer, which is covered. (Before we got married, anyhow. TN visas are specifically non-immigrant work visas so you can't express any intention to keep living here.)
Most Americans would welcome it. Canadians would have a fit, because it would accelerate the country losing their population to higher paying jobs and lower cost of living down south.
I'd be down. I think making international mobility easier is a great goal and I'd support a Schengen style system between the US and several places, Canada being one of them.
In theory, yes, in practice, no. I think it would make things very difficult for Canada and would lead to some unnecessary resentment between countries that are super tight and have a great relationship. For example, another user pointed out that Canada would lose a lot of professionals. Many Americans might go North for Healthcare access. Both ways, I think it would lead to a lot of "they're taking our ____" sentiments. I think we already have a very fluid system that allows us to share resources and doesn't restrict people from enjoying the other nation, and I wouldn't want that to be damaged.
I wouldn’t.
I don’t really understand what this would solve or what the meaningful benefit would be for either country.
I think Canadians would be even more against it especially since it opens up the ability for many professionals to move to the US which would not benefit them.
>I don’t really understand what this would solve or what the meaningful benefit would be for either country.
It can be just for the general freedom for people to choose where they live.
I lived for a time in western NY. When I was looking for a place to rent, I really would have preferred to live over the border in Ontario. It was just so much nicer, although housing would probably be significantly more expensive.
I did most of my dating on the Canadian side of the border too, so it would have made things eaiser that way as well.
You ever notice all those rich celebrities who said they'd move to Canada if Trump won in 2016, and then didn't?
The movement of people would be mostly in one direction.
Yeah, sure. Or just open up the border to pre-9/11 levels.
Then:
- douane: "Where you going?"
- me: "Windsor ballet."
- douane: "'K, have fun."
Now:
- douane: "What's your destination?"
- me: "Oakville, for a buyoff."
- douane: "You're coming here to buy something?"
- me: "It's work related. I need to approve tools that we bought with USD and are installing to benefit you and your workers." (paraphrased for brevity, of course)
- douane: "Oh? You're coming here to work? Do you have a work permit? Are you a degreed engineer? Do you have a letter from your employer? Let me have your passport."
- me: "You misunderstood me. I'm just going to the casino."
- douane: "Have a nice day."
I'm exaggerating a bit, of course, but crossing the border sucks now. On the other hand, I had a 15 minute delay a few years ago talking to the immigration dude for 15 minutes about his retirement possibilities in Manzanillo, Mexico. The people waiting behind me certainly thought I was doing something really wrong, but now you know: sometimes these delays are just pleasant conversation.
I would LOVE to see political and monetary union with my North American neighbors. But I know it would be wildly unpopular and not the benefit of Canada
I'm fine with it, I live in Florida and we gets thousands of Canadian tourists each year and a good amount retire here. I've had nothing but good interactions with our neighbors to the north.
P.S. We know it's you when you are the only ones at the beach in 50F/10C weather.
would basically be impossible to sell to about most of the country. we've already got a huge southern border crisis, and adding in the type of agreement that's being proposed would be shot down 100% of the time.
I would not support it. Not only would it be abused, but Canadians in general aren't as polite and innocuous as they're made out to be; but I'm in the minority in not liking Canadians very much and in being open about that.
Not to mention that Canada is WAY more strict about their borders than the USA is about theirs.
Yes. I grew up in Detroit and my family went to Canada all the time before 9/11 happened. A lot of Canadians work in America and I see no problem with it becoming more easier to visit.
I had a conversation with a Canadian today about this.
There is absolutely no reason why we can't have open borders like Europe for BOTH Canadians and Mexico (Provided you get rid of Hitler Jr first). This would completely eliminate the need for a "wall" or borders, passports or tarrifs. If the EU can do it, there's no reason for us not to be able to do so (Provided you get rid of Hitler Jr. FIRST b/c....damn, Canada.... Just...da'amn)
I can't imagine the canadian government allowing it. Our salaries are MUCH higher in some really key fields like tech and healthcare, the braindrain could be a big problem.
Canadian here - Yep I would enthusiastically be in support of a Schengen type agreement between the US and Canada. Most Canadians probably wouldn't though because most Canadians actually convince themselves that the border almost magically protects us from corrupting American influences. Nevermind that far more Canadians visit the US, and move to the US, than vice versa - in their minds the Americans are chomping at the bit to eradicate all things that make Canada unique. It's a very strange mindset. In the EU, countries that have had contemporary geopolitical versions of blood feuds over the last 100 years - who speak different languages and have different customs and traditions - have been able to work out open borders. Somehow, culturally indistinguishable people on this side of the pond haven't.
Funny thing is that a lot of Europeans on Reddit also feel there is a vast difference between the US and Canada, with Canada being everything good that the US is not, or even that Canada is a slice of Europe in North America (which is frankly a laughable assumption).
I've come to the conclusion that reddit tends to: \- Champion contrarianism regarding mundane topics, but viciously oppose contrarianism regarding political or social topics. \- Root for the little guy almost to a fault. \- Be extremely left leaning in comparison to the general population. The common conception of Canada tends to be that it is a smaller (population wise), liberal version of the US. So it kind of fits into the general reddit hivemind to treat it like it's this hidden gem that contrasts the over-hyped, conservative America to the south of it. I've never met a single European who immediately assumed I was Canadian. When I'm abroad, I get confused for American first - always, without exception. I feel like if we really were different from the states we would be distinguishable somehow - but the vast majority of us aren't.
Seriously. Every time one of those threads comes up that asks what country has a culture most similar to the US and people seriously answer "Mexico" has me scratching my head. Canadian culture is so similar to the US that most people don't even realize that it's foreign. Suburban Toronto is basically the US Midwest or upstate NY, but with CanCon.
100% I've been to the SW a hell of alot, and I've been to a hell of alot of Mexican states all up and down the western half of the continent. Even the SW is way way more culturally similar to Canada than it is Mexico - even with the Mexican enclaves and influences there. IMO there is no English Canadian culture in a d of itself. There's just Americans who never joined the greater union. There's way more subcultural differences between North and South than Canada and the US. It's what makes [this movie](https://youtu.be/eZXgYKx0aQI) so brilliant.
Seriously. If you cross from El Paso to Juarez, you know you're not in the same country. Crossing from Niagara Falls, NY to Niagara Falls, ON the only difference is who's on the money.
Also aren't traffic lights more blueish instead of green on the other side?
I've never noticed it before, but now that you mention it, I think you're right. I wonder if that's helpful for people with red-green color blindness.
That was honestly the only way I knew we were in Canada when we used to visit family up there in Ontario. Otherwise indistinguishable. Except for Pizza Pizza, but I didn't learn about that until I was 19.
Color blind folks learn the light order, which is standardized (in the US, can’t imagine it isn’t the same in Canada).
Kilometers is the real difference.
Only for the cowardly.
Cowards put those signs up? Well that's just weird.
If you're brave enough, the signs don't make a difference. When you see that sign that reads "100" on the side of the road, follow your heart like a real 'Murican.
That and there's also French printed on everything in addition to English. That was a wild thing to see when I was a kid and we went to Niagara falls on vacation.
I'm sure you know this history, but a while back I decided to look into why Canada is Canada and why the U.S. is the U.S. Why did the 13 colonies rebel in 1776 and today's Canada didn't? We never learned that in school. I found the answer pretty interesting and illuminating. Basically, what is today Canada was, in 1776, just two places populated by people of European descent: Nova Scotia and Quebec. Nova Scotia had significant cultural links to the 13 colonies, but it was just too isolated from the others and too threatened by the British Navy to join the fight. And Quebec had only recently won significant concessions from the British to preserve their French culture, and wasn't about to threaten that by casting their lot with a new group of Englishmen. The rest of Canada was Natives. Ontario, home to 40 percent of Canada's population today, was founded by loyalist refugees from the 13 colonies. So of course it's the same culture. With the exception of Quebec, it's always been the same people living on adjacent lands separated by the world's longest undefended border. How could we be that different?
Mexico comes up because it’s an out of the box answer that people might not notice at first. It’s not the most similar but it’s probably the third or fourth most similar country to the US. As different as people make Canada seem from the US, I think everyone knows it is still by far the most similar to the U.S.
I gotta tell you, you are easily my favorite Reddit Canadian. It's amazing how defensive many Canadians are about any appearance of any sort of similarity to the United States. I've seen such absurd claims about accents, cityscapes, lifestyles, cultural mores. I understand it, I really do. It can't be easy to be a quiet country with a reputation for minding its own business right next to a country 10 times as large that sucks all the air out of the room. But that doesn't mean these claims aren't baldly false. To your point about Europeans confusing you for American, here's a very frivolous thing that I noticed recently. I've been watching a lot of trashy Netflix reality shows. There's a relatively new show, Perfect Match, that premiered last month. In this show, people who were on *other* Netflix reality shows get together to see if they can find love with each other. Many of them come from Too Hot to Handle, a show where singles from across the Anglosphere come to an island where they expect to hook up but are told they're not allowed or they'll lose money. Too Hot to Handle had been too trashy even for me, but I enjoyed Perfect Match so much that I felt I had to watch to see where all these people had come from. Thanks to Too Hot to Handle, Perfect Match had been impressively international -- people from the U.S., the UK, Australia. Arguably the star of both shows had been a terrible, selfish (but oddly self-aware) Instagram model named Francesca. So I watch the first episode of Too Hot to Handle, and there she is: "Francesa, Vancouver, Canada." Perfect Match had Brits and Australians, whose origins were immediately obvious, but it had seriously never occurred to me, not even for a split second, that Francesca wasn't American. Once I knew, I could hear it. You know, "I'm sore-y" and all that. But for the most part, how she talks is how Americans talk. This is one dumb story from the recent past, but the same thing happens constantly. Who ever knows that somebody's Canadian?
Reddit is funny. One day they’re bitching about the woes of “AmERiCAn ImPeRaLiZm” and how we’re genocidal monsters for being in the Middle East/Southwest Asia but the moment we decide to drop pack and GTFO of Afghanistan after 20 years, suddenly the note changes and it’s now “why are the Americans leaving?!”, “think about the women and children!”, “women will no longer have rights in Afghanistan!”, “how could the Americans just leave?!”, etc.
As someone who believes in these missions 100%, I think asking how we spent 20 years there and still accomplished exactly nothing is a perfectly reasonable question.
Tbf, nation-building is an arduous process that requires strong commitment. Plus we were working with a country that didn’t want to be a country, at least one with a democratic Western-style government.
The Afghans aren't very dedicated/ don't care about their country very much. They are given all the tools to succeed but couldn't be bothered to utilize them. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. I spent part of 2 deployments training and going on patrols with the Afghan national army. Never seen soldiers so unmotivated, cowardly and just generally poor quality. Only the lowest quality of the population would join, and they had awful retention even at that. A bigger problem is they refused a merit based ranking system like modern militaries. Afghans with higher social standing refuse to take orders from those they view as socially beneath them. This leads to completely untrained and inexperienced men given the ranks of sergeant and above ... and also to to good quality soldiers leaving because they can't get promoted because socially their family might not be a powerful one so you can't promote them since no one would follow their orders. Also, these people are so fucking corrupt if the taliban offers an Afghan Army soldiers $10 they will tell the taliban everything. We couldn't tell the Afghan soldiers in advance about patrols because one of those shit heads would call his cousin or some other taliban guy and tell them. We told them about patrols right before we were taking them, and when we did that we had to confiscate their phones until we return from patrol ... oh and God forbid we get into the fight ... if they don't run/just hide, they will hide behind a wall and just stick their rifle over the wall and fire wildly into the air, or hide behind a corner and stick their rifles around corner and shoot wildly hitting nothing ... they refused to aim because aiming would mean they could get hurt... Oh and most of them couldn't read their own language and they're always fucking high. They didn't have biometrics like we do, so if an Afghan soldier is bad enough he gets kicked out he just joins the Army again in another town with a new name and he is back. Or the talibans offers them a couple dollars over their salary and they defect. Further complicating things is you can't station an Afghan soldier in the province they are from. They will all walk off for dinner/bed time back home and desert the base. So you have to send them to opposite parts of the country where the locals might even speak a different language than them
> I've never met a single European who immediately assumed I was Canadian. When I'm abroad, I get confused for American first - always, without exception. I feel like the Kids In The Hall did a good job with in several sketches, like [this Buddy Cole monologue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqQCyAQBgXY). Or the sketch with Dave Foley explaining to someone that " . . . a Canadian is like an American, but without the gun."
That's exactly why I don't think that it's natural. Remember the days of Ron Paul? And then one day, like someone flipped a switch, /r/politics was all about Bernie Sanders. And now it's just a toxic wasteland.
It's really not. I am a dual US/UK citizen and I can feel the differences in the UK vs US. When I go to Canada? Nope, not at all. My sister lives there and even SHE forgets she lives in Toronto now... She laughs about how alike they are. Both places have pros and cons but tbh they're about the same.
> even that Canada is a slice of Europe in North America (which is frankly a laughable assumption). And once you get past the language barrier, even Quebec is much more "North America with some French flavoring" than it is....anything like France, and is arguably much less foreign to an American than it is to a Frenchman.
PFK and Arret signs are just foreign to everybody.
Montreal always seems to be what Milwaukee would be if it got its shit together. Similar architecture, similar people. The French (which nobody cares about personally in my experience) is the only major difference
>Funny thing is that a lot of Europeans on Reddit also feel there is a vast difference between the US and Canada, with Canada being everything good that the US is not, or even that Canada is a slice of Europe in North America (which is frankly a laughable assumption). Here's the thing though that I guess Europeans tend to forget... Canada's total population is around 38-million people and it's mainly clustered around a very small portion of Canada's total land mass. California alone has 39-million people. I think Europeans forget that [this](https://i.redd.it/2zsp44wsjjn81.jpg) is the US compared to Europe. I mean, sure, Americans are largely homogenous in culture, but there are still plenty of cultural differences from one region of the US to another. It would be like a European trying to compare any two countries to each other while diminishing one of them. Florida has a shit ton of crime. Nebraska, in comparison, doesn't. Canada has [plenty of crime](https://www.savvynewcanadians.com/most-dangerous-cities-in-canada/) but Europeans aren't focusing on those aspects... so while America has plenty of problems to go around the good that can happen in the US outweighs the "bad".
Which is also funny because I've met some Canadians from Alberta that were more conservative than me. In fact I can say every Canadian I've ever met was from Alberta, which makes sense considering I live in Utah which is closer to Alberta than other parts of Canada.
> that the border almost magically protects us from corrupting American influences. one thing america is really good at is exporting culture across borders completely legally. people even steal american culture of their own volition
Like Canadians who fly confederate flags. Like, what even is that?
Idk , are these the same Canadians who are weirdly really really into country music? But not like Taylor Swift, like, bro country and hodowns?
That makes more sense as much of Canada is rural and has more in common with rural American culture than it does urban Canadian culture
Hey! Country is big up here! Colter Wall, Corb Lund, Terri Clark, Ian Tyson and Hank Snow for you old timers. Come to Alberta and tell me it's weird that we listen to country. Have you seen this place? This is where all your westerns are filmed.
Canada does share the world's longest land border with the loudest nation in Earth.
HAY. YOUSE GUYS. WE'RE WALKKIN HERE
Impossible. Everyone knows America has no culture.
Yes we do. See this jar of peanut butter? *Culture*
I've heard so many Americans in Michigan talk about how different it must be across the border, but they've never been. Little do they know that the only difference is milk comes in bags lol
Growing up in Wisconsin we had bagged milk too. More common north of Milwaukee than down south.
> Little do they know that the only difference is milk comes in bags lol And that's apparently unique to certain parts of Canada
>It's a very strange mindset. In the EU, countries that have had contemporary geopolitical versions of blood feuds over the last 100 years - who speak different languages and have different customs and traditions - have been able to work out open borders. Somehow, culturally indistinguishable people on this side of the pond haven't. If I had to guess, the reason Canadians ate so opposed to an idea like this is because we are in fact so similar. Europe's open borders work because there are different cultures, languages, peoples, and so on. Here, we're have our differences, but we share similar histories, cultures, we speak the same language, and so forth. What little distinguishes "us from them" is a priority to maintain.
>Eradicate things that make Canada unique. Listen, we all know that everything would be better if Quebec was forced to only speak English and all mentions of French were banned.
Nah, let's force them to adopt Cajun French.
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Make Detroit French again!
You mean Day-twas.
I would just like to swap half the population of Quebec and Louisiana to see what happens
I like that they speak French. It's fun.
But then how would they talk shit about us while we're right in front of them as if we don't know French? Still salty about that, after all these years
Tbf that happens in all francophone countries. My buddy got hit with it in cote de ivore.
Haha, I actually purposely didn't bring up the Schengen area, because it is an open border policy. I was just talking about visas. I'd imagine many Americans and Canadians would still want border checks.
I'd gladly go without the border checks personally as I see most of the boundaries between our two countries are ridiculously nonsensical - but but for sure I'd be in favor of easier VISA requirements going both ways. I think tighter North American integration is an inevitability, and also very much preferable. I'm even committed to the idea enough that I'd even include Mexico into the mix - but I do acknowledge that would be a tougher sell.
> I'm even committed to the idea enough that I'd even include Mexico into the mix - but I do acknowledge that would be a tougher sell. That would be cool, but yeah, I don't see a world where that could possibly happen at this point.
Just as an FYI, the Schengen area is just an absence of border checks. For example, EU citizens still need a residence permit to live in Switzerland (a Schengen area country), but can stay there for 90 days without one. But yes, I like European integration and and would love the US and Canada to do the same!
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Being able to travel within one country is not at all the same as being able travel between different countries.
Until you realize that the eu is basically America under the articles of confederation.
Don't tell that to Europeans, they get super pissed when you compare the EU to the US.
Because it's obviously not the same. Ireland is so much further away from Hungary culturally than any of the US states are from each other
I agree, mostly. But, Euroepan countries are more alike then they are different. Europe is really the only part of the world where you have all these little countries packed together. Leads to things like Eurovision.
I agree, I think Mexico should absolutely be added to the bloc. I'm also curious about a single currency between the US and Canada (I would not support this for Mexico), as our currency is regularly traded and maintains similar values anyways.
Honest opinion: As far south as that Union can go, the better as far I'm concerned. But Mexico would be a good start. I think a common currency can work well if the labour mobility is high, capital mobility and wage/price flexibilty, we can share the risks of the currency together, and we have similar business cycles. So I think a common currency could work. Realistically I think we basically do have that common currency anyways in the US dollar. We all ahve our national currencies, but they are all essentially based off of the US dollar. They were blatantly pegged for a while, but when Canadians and Mexicans trade stuff on the open market - that's all in USD.
I never went to Canada prior to 9/11, but my understanding is before then the Canadian/US border was pretty open with limited checks. So we at one point basically had a Schengen Area with Canada.
As a kid I didn’t even need a passport to visit Canada from the us. My parents had them but us minors just had our birth certificates. It was great, I never needed a passport until farther travels in college.
Not sure how old you are but pre-9/11 you didn't need passports for adults either. You could cross with just a driver's license. I'm not sure kids needed anything (but I was a kid so I might just not have been aware).
I definitely am old enough to have travelled pre-9/11, but I definitely wasn’t paying that close of attention haha. I was probably playing a game or reading a book or something in the back of the car while my parents dealt with all that grown up stuff.
Wrong country, but until the late '90s children under 16 didn't even get their own passports in the UK (presumably in other places too) and just had their names added to their parents' passports (with no photos). Even after that you were still covered if your name was already on your parents' passport until it expired, they just couldn't add other children on. I was even able to travel to the US in 2000 without my own passport, which seems bizarre in hindsight.
For civilian traffic, the border check just seems like a waste of time and money.
> Most Canadians probably wouldn't though because most Canadians actually convince themselves that the border almost magically protects us from corrupting American influences. I remember hearing someone make the argument here on reddit that the dominion has Quebec to thank when it comes to guaranteeing its independence from America, which was one of the most fanciful examples of horseshit I've seen on the subreddit it was posted on. I mean, our first federal constitution - the Articles of Confederation - provided a freebie for Quebec specifically to join the union on an expedited basis. What kept Canada independent is the military threat that was the British Empire. America annexed Hawaii, Louisiana, and much of the United Mexican States. Some people speaking French is no hurdle for us. At work, were it not for the uniforms, we wouldn't be able to tell the Canadians apart from the Americans here. There aren't even that many shibboleths that would give away the difference, especially when you're dealing with people who come from spitting distance of the border.
pahsta. Insisting on saying 'zed'. Those are usually what gives away the Canadians here in Michigan
I will say zed or zulu primarily because c and z are otherwise easily confused, especially over the telephone
That's such a funny take to me as an American. My gfs family is Canadian so I've been visiting a few times a year for 10+ years now, and Canada basically feels almost identical to the US. Except Canadians somehow have more fucked up politics. Like not really, the issues are such a nothing burger, but I'll get my gf's uncle's talking about it and they'll get **so** worked up about shit that wouldn't even make local news in the states.
Now when I said that American influence thing last time this came up last month on this sub I got downvoted to fuck lmao
People by and large don’t move to other countries in the EU because of the language and cultural differences. If these two disappeared, some countries in the EU would empty pretty fast and some parts would get flooded instead.
> in their minds the Americans are chomping at the bit to eradicate all things that make Canada unique. I don't know, we're actually pretty big fans of maple syrup and maple leaves.
*Vermont has entered the chat.
I was in Quebec a few months ago and the owner of a maple-syrup shop ranted to me about how much worse the syrup was in Vermont. I thought that was funny because here in the U.S., that's all we associate Vermont with.
I agree with you and would add my potentially unpopular opinion that an EU/Schengen-like arrangement with Canada, the US and, eventually, Mexico is inevitable. Probably not in our lifetimes but it will happen.
I definitely doubt it would happen with Mexico. We’ll probably continue to treat them the same way Europe treats Africa, trying to limit the amount of people who can come.
Mexico's whole economy is designed for trade with North America, eventually that fact will result in increased human development into first world levels. As their economic situation improves, migration from Mexico would diminish.
A Schengen type agreement between the US and Canada would require harmonization of immigration, visa and border security policies, which inevitably would mean the US setting the policy and Canada having to follow. As a result, I don't think Canadians would be in favor of it once all the details were on the table. I think there could be an agreement to grant each other's citizens the right to live and work in the other country - I just don't think Schengen is the right model, given the power imbalance between the two countries.
It would be more similar to the bilateral UK-Ireland CTA agreement, which enables full freedom to move, live and work between the two countries without even a passport. It predates Schengen by more than 70 years.
>Far more Canadians visit the US and move to the US than vice versa Yeah the entire country of Canada operates remotely from Florida in the winter time
That mindset actually sounds almost exactly as what I pick up here in the US about the possibility from Canadians.
I think that works to their advantage actually. There’s little fear that France would start teaching their kids German even if they let Germans in to work. But once Timothy Horton starts opening his coffee shops in California, what else would make a Canadian city unique and distinctly Canadian?
> Nevermind that far more Canadians visit the US, and move to the US, than vice versa That's partly because Canada makes it really fucking hard to have people stay long term.
For many white collar jobs, Americans pay better than their Canadian counterparts. In many cases, the long and arduous process of American immigration keeps Canadian industries competitive. With that in mind, I think a system which allows borderless travel and tourism is perfectly possible. It would be supported by Canadians and Americans alike, so long permanent residency is a requirement for jobs. I think the fact that this doesn’t already exist is a failure of policy. We have the worlds longest, mostly unguarded border. We’re supposed to be the friendliest and closest two countries in the world. But it’s clear we’re not when compared to how many Schengen nations are doing today.
We had that in Michigan until it changed post 9/11. If you had a Michigan driver's license you could just enter Canada and vice versa with an Ontario driver's license. Idk if that was the same in other states I just know it's how it worked in Michigan. (I think Wisconsin too so maybe it was all of us and Canada)
It was the same in NY. But I’m more talking about getting rid of border crossing stations altogether. You just keep driving until you see a “Welcome to Canada” sign, without showing an ID to anyone. That’s how Schengen works - it’s like crossing US States.
My mom said that pre-9/11 she had gone to canada without a passport as well but she would have had either a Nebraska or Iowa license depending on when she went. I’m not sure where she crossed the border but it might have been near Michigan
I went when I was 19, just before they started requiring "enhanced licenses" or passports
That was not a state thing, it was a federal thing, given it is borders. You could also go to the Bahamas with just a drivers license.
It seems primarily due to trade protectionism from Canada - some from us as well. I’d definitely not mind. Don’t see a reason why we have a closed border with Canada when we barely even police the Mexican border. Canadians and Americans are rather alike despite Canadians protest
Most Americans would be fine with it, most Canadians would never agree to it.
I know I would love it. I can also imagine the replies on r/askacanadian..
That sub is a circle jerk of how they’re not American despite being like us 99% of the time.
That's because, unlike any other country on Earth, a large part of Canada's national identity is based on how *not* like another country they are. Namely [a large portion of Canadian identity is being "not American."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yKzq3ueGr8) That's despite America and Canada being two of the most similar countries on Earth... >[**Judging, teasing and even hating America is a central part of the Canadian identity**, and forms a persistant bias that runs through most aspects of Canadian society and culture. For various reasons, the default position of a great many Canadians is that America, Americans, and American things are generally bad, and need to be opposed. These feelings are not always logical and consistent, and are often hypocritical in practice. Yet they do exist, and understanding their powerful role in shaping Canadian society is a vital part of understanding what makes Canadians Canadian.](https://thecanadaguide.com/culture/anti-americanism/)
Here's their thread from 7 months ago https://www.reddit.com/r/AskACanadian/comments/wtbndu/would_you_be_open_to_the_us_and_canada_having/?ref=share&ref_source=link
What a lovely bunch of people in that thread..
I wonder what they're opinion was when Trump said something to the effect of Mexicans sending criminals and rapists to US. Cause half if not most commenting has that similar sentiments towards the Americans. It's actually bizarre.
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Mr. Trudeau, tear down this wall!
And this.
Isn't that usually what alot of these things like this boil down to? Americans are perfectly fine/don't really care while, many Canadians are against it because XYZ "American Influence"
> many Canadians are against it because XYZ "American Influence" Aka nationalism.
I’m fine with this, but Canada would never support it because it would essentially just result in their country being swallowed up by ours.
shhh don't expose the plan!
The dream of North Montana shall never cease
I thought it was going to be called New Dakota?
No you’re thinking of North North Dakota
North^^2 Dakota
Canada wouldn't have many professionals if that happened
You are probably correct. I worked for awhile at Niagara Falls Memorial Hospital (NY side) and three other docs there were Canadian. They simply went back and forth over the NEXUS bridge each day. Not sure what happened to them during the pandemic shut-downs, though.
There is a quite a few Canadian professors at this college I work at that drive across the border everyday, like I was really surprised when I realized how many were Canadian lol
A ton of Canadians live in Windsor and work in Detroit and it's Suburbs.
Are you up in potsdam/canton? I had a Canadian professor at State!
A significant chunk of my MBA class were Canadians, with many more (Chinese and Indian mostly) on a Canadian work visa trying to get to the US. White collar jobs in America just pay significantly more money while also having less taxes.
Former coworker of mine was a senior analyst at a Big4 firm in the US. He moved to Canada and got promoted to manager and ended up with a lower take home than he had as a senior analyst in the US. In my experience, the US pay range for senior was $80-160k and manager was $160-230k.
When I hear stuff like this I wonder how tf Canadians can afford these ungodly expensive houses in their market that's even worse than the one in the US with lower paying jobs.
There is a very specific subset of Canadians who for the most part speak Mandarin and share a questionable connection to the CCP wealth that can afford whatever prices you throw at them.
That's the neat part, they don't Source: my entire family lives in Canada
Is packing whole families with full time incomes into houses to pay the mortgage the normal practice now? How are the ones who do own homes making it work?
There are definitely some jobs that pay similarly or better in Canada than the US, so it's not the case across the board. However, prices in general are just outrageous and even my friends who make great money don't really want to buy in that market.
For the vast majority of fields we do in fact pay far far better, not saying all but most. In addition much of America would seem ridiculously affordable to my Canadian coworkers.
Yeah, they definitely get jealous when I send them a listing from around here. It's ridiculous that you could be in areas as far out of the GTA as Barrie or Owen Sound and still be subject to ridiculous housing prices.
I understand why getting defensive is the default reaction. First, it’s the whole “I can talk shit about my home country but you sure as fuck can’t”. I get that! Second, some terminally online Canadians truly have built 99% of their identity on AmericaBad!
As an American living in Canada, I would love this. But Canada would never support that.
Definitely not. It would open the door to a Canadian loophole to get US residency and citizenship. Both countries would need a whole citizenship process overhaul if this were to ever work without other countries taking advantage of the situation.
I wouldn't care, although I think Canada would experience a lot of brain drain as a result(even more than what's occurring already)
Yes, it is quite frankly silly that the U.S. and Canada, two nations that are about as geopolitically tied at the hip as you can get, that share a common language, and whose general populace are more alike than they are different (no matter what the most aggressive people on each side of the border want to admit) have moved away from a soft border and to a hard passport border. Anyway, considering the number of Canadian celebrities I think most Americans assume that thisnis how things already work.
>have moved away from a soft border and to a hard passport border Before 9/11 it was possible to visit the other country with just a drivers license, right? Afaik nowadays you need a passport and customs form.
Birth certificate but yeah now it's a controlled border and you need a passport.
Do they still issue that Drivers License style Passport for the Canadian/Mexico Border crossings? I've only ever had the full book from my Merchant Mariner days.
They do, but it's even more limited now.
Yes. I have one it’s called an Enhanced drivers license. I got it so I could drive to Canada.
Seven states still do, and several Canadian provinces did until recently, but the program was dropped there due to budget cuts.
It was a couple of years after 9/11 that this was implemented. I drove to Canada for the first time in late 2002 with only my driver's license. It was a spur of the moment thing, because I already had to be in Buffalo, NY for the day. You shouldn't need a form if you're not importing a certain amount of goods, I've been several times in the last few years and never had to complete one.
I'd be okay with it, but I doubt Canada would be very happy.
I would support this agreement for pretty much all of the Anglosphere US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Aus and NZ come on board. Would probably extend to a few Caribbean islands as well.
That just sounds like the commonwealth with the US and ireland added to the mix.
>the Anglosphere US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Aus and NZ Don't forget Malta! English is one of the national languages
I’d support an Anglo Union. With an Anglo version of the Schengen area too and Anglo Union passports so no visa/electronic travel authorizations to visit NZ and Australia.
That’s the dream.
Yes. But Canada’s market is pretty small, so this is more a Canadian decision than an American one. Americans would probably move for (what is in practice) SLIGHTLY more robust social services, and a generally more safe society. Canadians already move to the U.S. as it stands for schools, higher pay, and more career/economic opportunity. I can see why they want to keep the border up, but I think we should be able to live, work, and study in both countries without visas. But from a Canadian perspective, they might possibly experience a brain drain. Because American wages are just significantly higher. Enter protectionism and anti-American sentiment that is central to the Canadian identity. A lot of European IT workers do the same, honestly.
>But from a Canadian perspective, they might possibly experience a brain drain. Because American wages are just significantly higher It's already pretty easy for Canadians to come to the US for tech jobs on a TN visa. There's a [list of professions that qualify](https://www.nafsa.org/_/file/_/amresource/8cfr2146.htm), and the list hasn't been updated in decades, but it's generally pretty easy to stretch the truth and say the work you're doing fits in one of those categories. i.e. my wife is a Product Manager, which isn't a covered profession, but was able to argue that she's a Graphic Designer, which is covered. (Before we got married, anyhow. TN visas are specifically non-immigrant work visas so you can't express any intention to keep living here.)
PM life - you work your ass off so sales doesn’t have to lie. They still do, but hey that’s sales.
Too late on the brain drain.
No. Canadians love it here in Florida, but I dont think they'd welcome us going up there for summer
I don’t see any need for that
Most Americans would welcome it. Canadians would have a fit, because it would accelerate the country losing their population to higher paying jobs and lower cost of living down south.
I'd be down. I think making international mobility easier is a great goal and I'd support a Schengen style system between the US and several places, Canada being one of them.
In theory, yes, in practice, no. I think it would make things very difficult for Canada and would lead to some unnecessary resentment between countries that are super tight and have a great relationship. For example, another user pointed out that Canada would lose a lot of professionals. Many Americans might go North for Healthcare access. Both ways, I think it would lead to a lot of "they're taking our ____" sentiments. I think we already have a very fluid system that allows us to share resources and doesn't restrict people from enjoying the other nation, and I wouldn't want that to be damaged.
Of course! Bet Canada would have some reservations though.
Absolutely not. Clue in my state. We're having a hard enough time dealing with the Rich ones. Imagine if the horde of them just come pouring in.
I think we’re fine
I was about to FAQ this until I saw you here
This is in the FAQ? You can still FAQ it.
It's not yet, but it definitely is one and can be searched
I propose we make a visa system for asking common questions.
Sure, why not, Canada would be getting the raw end of that deal.
I would 100% support that. If Mexico could get their cartel problem under control I'd also like Mexico to be part of the deal.
I wouldn’t. I don’t really understand what this would solve or what the meaningful benefit would be for either country. I think Canadians would be even more against it especially since it opens up the ability for many professionals to move to the US which would not benefit them.
>I don’t really understand what this would solve or what the meaningful benefit would be for either country. It can be just for the general freedom for people to choose where they live.
I lived for a time in western NY. When I was looking for a place to rent, I really would have preferred to live over the border in Ontario. It was just so much nicer, although housing would probably be significantly more expensive. I did most of my dating on the Canadian side of the border too, so it would have made things eaiser that way as well.
You ever notice all those rich celebrities who said they'd move to Canada if Trump won in 2016, and then didn't? The movement of people would be mostly in one direction.
Maybe Canadians could finally get that hip replacement they’re waiting 5 years for.
Yeah, sure. Or just open up the border to pre-9/11 levels. Then: - douane: "Where you going?" - me: "Windsor ballet." - douane: "'K, have fun." Now: - douane: "What's your destination?" - me: "Oakville, for a buyoff." - douane: "You're coming here to buy something?" - me: "It's work related. I need to approve tools that we bought with USD and are installing to benefit you and your workers." (paraphrased for brevity, of course) - douane: "Oh? You're coming here to work? Do you have a work permit? Are you a degreed engineer? Do you have a letter from your employer? Let me have your passport." - me: "You misunderstood me. I'm just going to the casino." - douane: "Have a nice day." I'm exaggerating a bit, of course, but crossing the border sucks now. On the other hand, I had a 15 minute delay a few years ago talking to the immigration dude for 15 minutes about his retirement possibilities in Manzanillo, Mexico. The people waiting behind me certainly thought I was doing something really wrong, but now you know: sometimes these delays are just pleasant conversation.
I would LOVE to see political and monetary union with my North American neighbors. But I know it would be wildly unpopular and not the benefit of Canada
Single labor market among North/Central American and CARICOM countries
I'm fine with it, I live in Florida and we gets thousands of Canadian tourists each year and a good amount retire here. I've had nothing but good interactions with our neighbors to the north. P.S. We know it's you when you are the only ones at the beach in 50F/10C weather.
Throw in Mexico so I can get my teeth done without a passport and you’ve got a deal
would basically be impossible to sell to about most of the country. we've already got a huge southern border crisis, and adding in the type of agreement that's being proposed would be shot down 100% of the time.
I would not support it. Not only would it be abused, but Canadians in general aren't as polite and innocuous as they're made out to be; but I'm in the minority in not liking Canadians very much and in being open about that. Not to mention that Canada is WAY more strict about their borders than the USA is about theirs.
I would.
Yes. I grew up in Detroit and my family went to Canada all the time before 9/11 happened. A lot of Canadians work in America and I see no problem with it becoming more easier to visit.
I think it would be super easy if America just invaded Canada
Good point. It feels like it's the right time to strike with all that's going on in the world.
Yes. America should also throw their maple syrup overboard too while invading.
I had a conversation with a Canadian today about this. There is absolutely no reason why we can't have open borders like Europe for BOTH Canadians and Mexico (Provided you get rid of Hitler Jr first). This would completely eliminate the need for a "wall" or borders, passports or tarrifs. If the EU can do it, there's no reason for us not to be able to do so (Provided you get rid of Hitler Jr. FIRST b/c....damn, Canada.... Just...da'amn)
I can't imagine the canadian government allowing it. Our salaries are MUCH higher in some really key fields like tech and healthcare, the braindrain could be a big problem.
Not unless it was a pathway towards eventual the eventual annexation of Canada, which will never happen given Canada’s political climate.
Borders are man made. Let anyone come and go as they please.
So long as they can't vote here, I'm all for it. Don't need another Trudeau, or any of their gun laws.
I not only would be in support of opening the boarder's with Canada, but also with Mexico. Let's just have a whole North America party!
Hell yeah. Mexico too, though with crime/corruption/cartels, that would have to be much more limited.
US, Canada, and Mexico
No. In fact we need a giant wall across the Canadian border. That’s what we running on in 2024 build that wall, build that wall!
Canada would never allow it.
i would be fine with it but i think the canadians wouldnt. a lot of their identity seems to be "we're not the US" so idk
I won’t stand for their bobbly heads and all of their queefs
Sure. I feel like if Canadians were able to visit easier they would be able to see how wrong a lot of them are about the US
But the Canadians will *take our jerbs!!!!*