Talk Elections

Suppose the new Liberal minority government has a breakdown with the Prairie provinces and Wexit somehow occurs. Alberta and Saskatchewan quickly find they can't go it alone and ask the US to admit them as states. Presumably, if admitted, they would vote Republican, albeit by lower numbers than they vote Conservative.

Historically, states were admitted in pairs to balance interests. Puerto Rico and DC would likely both vote Democratic, meaning they would likely off-set AB and SK in the Senate. Alberta and Puerto Rico have essentially the same population and SK has only about 300k more people than DC, but Dems could conceivably pick off congressional districts based around Calgary/Edmonton/Regina while the GOP would have a hard time winning any CDs in PR or DC. This means the change to the composition of the House is very minor as well.

Ignoring the improbable events to get us to that point, it seems like a pretty fair trade to me.

To be honest, you are delusional if you think Alberta and Saskatchewan would vote R if in the US.

You don't think provinces which vote 70% Conservative might vote ~55% R? I guess you'd take the deal then, right?

Alberta will vote for whoever is more pro-oil. I don't think that's AOC's party.

30% Liberal creates a Democratic floor of that much. Democrats then need to win about 30% of the Conservative vote. I think this is a very easy task for Democrats to do considering differences in the 2 nations political systems, as most Canadian Conservatives are in an ideological range similar to Charlie Baker and Heidi Heitkamp, and still very much to the left of Larry Hogan and Joe Manchin, let alone comparisons to Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.

Stephen Harper would disagree . He was more conservative than Mitt Romney was and many Republicans are and not only did he dominate Alberta he was the PM of Canada for almost 10 years

Yeah, the liberalness of Canadian politics is way overstated.  This isn't Sweden or France.  Harper and other Reform-style Conservatives mesh very well with Republican ideology, and that's especially the case in SK + AB (not as much in ON or QC, but that's not in question here)

Today I learned Andrew Scheer, Stephen Harper, Jason Kenney and Doug Ford would be moderate Democrats in the USA.

I’m glad to hear the horde of Atlas opinion is finally swayed, two years after I got ridiculed for saying the party of Stephen Harper would vote for the likes of Obama or Clinton, much less Sanders or Warren.

It would be interesting to see if the republicans recent ability to lose even conservative cities would extend to Edmonton and Calgary though.

Exactly

I'm not exactly sure why, but Wexit sounds like a condition that would require you to wear an adult diaper.

24 years ago, Quebec almost voted to leave Canada. Now many in the west want to leave Canada because of a Québécois.

The Incontinental Congress? Sounds about right.

Last time we did anything similar to this, we were a union divided between slave states and free states, and admitted new states only on the basis of preserving the delicate balance between the two.

It didn't end well.... 

Well, we kinda did the same thing with AK and HI, only they ended up voting opposite of what was expected.

Yeah, Alaska was expected to vote Dem, and Hawaii was expected to vote Rep.

Kind of? But Puerto Rico has yet to demonstrate it wants statehood. Also, I’m a little uncomfortable with the idea of blatant saying our nation accepts states based on partisan politics.

Alberta & Saskatchewan would both vote Republican if they had long traditions of being in the U.S., but if they were cut out and annexed now, both would vote Democratic, if only to protect their healthcare systems. No one in Canada, not even conservatives, would trade their healthcare system for the American one, and "American-style healthcare" is often used as a scare term in Canada.

This myth of Canadian politics being way to the left of US politics needs to die. AB and SK would be just as Republicans as the US states right below them, if not more.

Puerto Rico has had two referendums in the past decade, both with statehood winning. Also we've always accepted states based on partisan politics. As stated by others, HI and AK were given statehood because it was expected Alaska would vote D, Hawaii R (while the reverse ended up being true). Dakota Territory was in two split by Republicans in 1889 explicitly because of politics after they won majorities in the 1888 elections.

Isnt healthcare run though at the provincial level , I can bet if a deal was made to make them states they would get to keep that.

FTFY

Yes, but there shouldn't be any deals. PR, DC, and Guam should be states regardless of how they'll vote. All Americans deserve to be represented in Congress and to vote for president. Arrangements should be made for the rest of the territories too.

And I would admit any Canadian province as a state, regardless of how it would vote, as well, assuming the people there legitimately wanted it.

Neither referendum had a majority of voters favoring statehood thanks to boycotts of those nonbinding referendums by opponents.

I don't understand why we care about boycotts/turnout in statehood referenda but not for virtually any other type of referenda.

That's their own fault. In the Developed World, you don't get to boycott an election and then claim it doesn't count.

If Trump knows he's about to lose and tells his supporters not to vote, and then claims the resulting Democratic landslide isn't valid, should we listen?

Presidential elections are binding. (notwithstanding various electoral college technicalities and the like) A nonbinding referendum is, by definition, purely an exercise of political expression/temperature-taking. A boycott is a perfectly valid form of participation in such an exercise.

They weren't counting regardless of whether they participated in a PNP publicity stunt.

This is a very strange and delusional thread. If Ottawa is seen as too distant and too prone to consistently place the concerns of a culturally very different Central Canada over Western interests, what exactly do you think this would make Washington? Please stop embarrassing yourselves with your ignorant fantasies.

I would prefer not to admit the District of Columbia on the basis that it is the federal capital; on the other hand, yes, I would call this a viable compromise.

Both new states would probably vote Dem so...no.

Why are you the way that you are, Al?

AB and SK are most similar to Minnesota politically, for what I've seen. This does not include oil influence/presence.   

Their prescription drug prices would skyrocket.