Moving to Canada

I saw this article in Business week today about Americans planning to move to Canada after the impending US election. One section states:

 

Randolph McTavish, Deputy Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, also warned Americans against trying to slip across the border in the hopes of passing as Canadians: “It is very difficult, if not impossible, to pretend to like hockey.” Mr. McTavish said that he was sympathetic with those who might flee across the border in search of a new life and socialized medicine, but added, “At the end of the day, forty-seven per cent of Americans is more than Canada can handle.”

 

—Andy Borowitz, “Canada Tightens Border,” The Borowitz Report, The New Yorker, October 9, 2012.

The question that  the article raises is who will be the ones leaving because for the first time both the Obama and Romney camps have their bags packed if the other side wins. Usually the story is the tree hugging liberal hippies are the only ones planning to leave and the Google trend chart below demonstrates how in November 2004 when the Bush side won (the large peak on the left) the disappointed Democrats planned to leave for Canada but in November 2008 when Obama won there was no peak.  This time is different. In a Guardian news story in June of 2012, Republican Americans threatened to leave if Obama care was passed. As one pundit in the article said, “That’s like saying you’re moving to Hogwarts because you don’t believe in magic.” The meme is in full force on the web right now but will it really happen? According to a CTV news piece, it’s all about high unemployment in America and lower college tuition in Canada.

I think that one reason American right wingers consider relocating to Canada is the governing Conservative party of Stephen Harper having a majority in parliament. They don’t understand that conservatism in this country is a far cry from the Republican brand. On July 11, 2012, the finance minister, Tony Clement dedicated a new 2.5 million dollar visitor center in Gravenhurst, Ontario for the birthplace of Marxist hero and martyr, Norman Bethune.  An article in the Globe and Mail said:

Norman Bethune, who died while tending Mao Zedong’s troops in 1939, is an unlikely Conservative hero. But Bethune’s ideological impurity is offset by his value to Ottawa’s strategy in China – where the colourful Canadian expatriate is a national hero, memorialized by Mao himself for his “spirit of absolute selflessness.”

This is equivalent to one of Romney’s retainers celebrating the dedication of a statue to Fidel Castro and calling him a great hero of the Cuban people. This center’s construction cost was paid by the Harper government’s economic action plan.

 

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