=AtG=
Trudeau is well-known for talking the talk, especially if it’s about women’s reproductive rights, racial inequality, separately singling out Canada’s shitty treatment of the First Nations, and so on. The new Canadian government is still relatively young and many of us are waiting for results. While a sizeable and noisy minority of Canadians who would fit right in with American Republicans bitch and moan about increased taxes (wahh, wahh, my yacht will take a whole extra payment to pay off now!), Americans are looking at Trump and saying they’ll move to Canada if he wins.
Trudeau explains why you probably won’t: this happens, literally every election, and the immigration numbers don’t ever change. But he’s optimistic that Trump’s extremism will move more people to vote. I think he’s miscalculating. Clinton induces a polarized response herself, for some reasons better than others.
I wish I could be more smug about the American election, but they’ve historically kept Canada on a tight leash and I’d rather my country not be dragged into more interventionist shenanigans where we pretend we’re totally not continuing the Cold War by projecting national anxieties onto the Middle East. The way I see it, both Clinton and Trump will drag Canada along; the only difference is whether we’ll be dragged through mud or shit.
-Shiv
I realize most Americans are joking when they talk about moving to Canada if X wins an election, but it always annoys the heck out of me. If Trump wins, we’ll need every vote we can get to purge him from the body politic at the first opportunity, and you say you’re going to cut and run, and just leave the poor and helpless to his tender mercies? I want to tell them, if he gets elected, maybe it was because YOU didn’t work hard enough to stop him, and you should vow to work twice as hard next election instead of cutting and running!
Americans who move to Canada can still vote in American elections.
Sure — but they can’t go door to door canvassing their neighbors. I plan to do a lot of that this summer.