I would love to see Canada be the 51st state. The Canadian citizens, if that happened, would get a very big tax cut — tremendous tax cut because they are very highly taxed — and you wouldn’t have to worry about military, you wouldn’t have to worry about many of the things. You’d have better health coverage. You’d have much better health coverage.

— President Donald Trump, Jan. 24.

Before you say “there he goes again,” maybe we should take some time to consider what a combination of the United States and Canada would mean.

First, it would improve our hockey teams (men’s and women’s) in the Winter Olympics, and it would almost certainly boost our prospects for medaling in curling, where Canada has generally outperformed the United States. 

Second, Canada is a bilingual country, so combining the two countries would add to our diversity and multiculturalism. Canada, like the United States, is a country of immigrants, and Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are great cities.

Third … um, there is no third. There is no reason for Canada and the U.S. to merge. Canada is its own country with its own history, and talk about the U.S. taking over Canada or Greenland or the Panama Canal is just plain........

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