Canada’s Potential New Immigration Challenge…

WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THOSE DARN YANKEES ESCAPING DONALD TRUMP…

Preface:  This is the thirteenth installment of this series by Jim Murray  and me. The series has been strongly supported by readers who have on the whole accepted our often outlandish bantering in the spirit in which it is offered. And we trust that this openness of attitude will survive this foray into political black humor (or as Canadians spell it "humour".) By the way, for the record, Jim is a Canadian and I still hold permanent Canadian Alien Resident status, having spent more than fourteen years of my adult working life in Canada.

Oh, and also by the way, I recently put together and published an index of all the installments of He Said He Said, which includes live links to all of the posts. To find that index, click here:  INDEX OF HE SAID HE SAID SERIES

Now, let's get on with the bashing. As always, your comments and criticisms are both invited and welcome. Please feel free to join the conversation.

"Who says my hands are small? You can see they're huge... huge! And let me tell you, it's all okay down there, if you know what I mean... I can tell you I am one really well hung dude!"

JIM: Over the course of the last several months we have borne witness to the sheer insanity of millions of people actually taking seriously what started as a publicity stunt for Donald Trump, i.e. his ascension to the Republican presidential candidacy.

As an outside observer I have had a great deal of difficulty taking Trump seriously and have become a highly vocal opponent in social media.

But be that as it may, one of the side effects of this phenomenon is a startling number of Americans claiming that they will move to Canada if Trump gets elected.

Personally I don’t believe this will happen, for the simple reason that Trump’s actual popularity has been blown out of all proportion by the US news media, by the fact that they are covering his antics 24/7.

However, stranger things have happened. And so, as a Canadian and a humanitarian, like most Canadians are, we need to prepare for an influx of Americans. Or Trumpugees if you will.

Fortunately these Americans are the sane ones and not the nut-bars who have thrown their lot in with Trump, hoping to get a job building the HUGE Mexican wall.

So two questions inevitably arise:

1. What will Canada do to welcome our American brothers and sisters?

2. What is the expectation of the American Trumpugees?

Over to you, sir.

PHIL: I share your bewilderment over the fact that what began, I believe, as a humorous orgy of Washington-bashing has become a political freight train headed to disaster.

When the  primary campaigns began, I myself thought the “Trump Phenomenon” would be just a passing entertainment, so ludicrous was the persona of the former husband of Ivanna and the wearer of one of the world's worst comb-overs in the history of modern man. I actually believed that, when people tired of the joke, the U.S. would get back to politic-real. Clearly. I underestimated the siren appeal of jingoism and the latent ability of demagoguery to harness the power of hatred and ignorance.

But I digress. To get back to your questions…

My take is that Canada will do pretty much what it did when a significant number of politically disaffected U.S. citizens sought during the Vietnam era to emigrate north of the 49th parallel.

And when later, a large number of Ugandan citizens, fleeing the Idi Amin regime, were told by the English Lords that their British passports were all printed on funny paper and weren’t actually valid for entry to the UK.

And still later when a large number of Hong Kong Chinese sought to arrange relocation, as the deadline for the return of Hong Kong by Britain to China approached.

Specifically, Canada found ways to take them all in. Because Canadians are, at base, a pretty decent lot.

As to what the Trumpugees might expect, I am not exactly sure… yet.

However, I anticipate they will at least need special continuing education courses in:

1) Queueing up; 2) Holding doors open for others; and 3) proper Canadian pronunciation, including that of the last letter of the alphabet as “zed”, not “zeeee”, and “about” as “aboot”.

As well, they will have to be taught: 4) How to appear not to know the lyrics to O’Canada; 5) How to pay almost double for a Ford car or light truck as they would in the U.S., even though they are built right in Oakville, Ontario; 6) That you can’t snow ski in Ontario and Quebec in July; and 7) That it takes four Newfies to screw in a light bulb, one to hold the bulb, two to rotate the ladder, and a fourth to remind the guy with the light bulb that he’s supposed to be standing on the ladder.

And they’ll have to be coached in: 8) How not to vacate your restaurant table at a dinner within 27.15 minutes, although you haven’t yet even finished your soup; 9) That the absolute greatest, most authentic Maritime folk singer in musical history was a Canuck Potato Head from Prince Edward Island named Stompin’ Tom Connors; and finally...

10) That in Ontario, you can’t buy hard liquor from the same store where you buy wine, while you can buy it at a government store which looks like a post office and whose name rhymes with Ontarie-airie-oh, while you can buy beer just about everywhere because Molson owns the government – or at least, the parts of it that count.

In sum, Jim, as Justin “The Kid” Trudeau — whom I understand they’ve finally stopped carding at the LCBO — says, "Ask not what you expect from Canada, but what Canada expects from you."

JIM: These are all stellar expectations, Phil. I think you have pretty much nailed it. But, and I have this on good authority, there will be a number of conditions we will have to impose on the Trumpugees from our end as well, in order to maintain some sense of sanity and Candian-ness in addition to those you gave mentioned.

Here, through one of my highly placed government connections are just a few from the list that the Ministry of Immigration is currently working on:

1.Weapons: All semi and fully automatic weapons will be confiscated and held in storage at border crossings. We know the statistics regarding gun ownership and are fully aware that even the most democratic Americans can own at least 1.78 semi and or fully automatic weapons. Alternately, all bullets and clips should be left behind. Slingshots, bean shooters, Nerf rifles and cap pistol (with cap permit) are all allowed.

2.Tracers: All identity implants installed by the Trump administration should be surgically removed before entering the country. These tracking devices make it possible for the Trump defector death squads to locate and liquidate any Trumpugees on Canadian soil, thus creating an excess of paperwork for our police organizations.

Despite the illegality of such an act, we admit that our borders are ‘porous’ and that, in fact, these death squads can easily infiltrate the country through Alaska, where they are known as Palin Poppers.

3. Metrics: All Trumpugees entering Canada will be enrolled in remedial conversion courses in order to learn the metric system. Learning, for example, that our gasoline is approximately $1.00 per litre as opposed to a gallon, will eliminate any smugness Trumpugees may have regarding the real value of their dollar here in Canada.

5. French: Every Trumpugee will be expected to have the same level of command of the French language as the average Canadian. This currently hovers somewhere between 1 and 2%. Bonjour, S’il vous plait, merci beaucoup, bienvenue. That’s about it.

6. Sports: Hockey, Canadian football and lacrosse viewing is mandatory throughout both the regular season and playoffs if necessary. This is a deal breaker. But the good news is that all of these sports are as violent and reckless as NFL football. All TSN and Sportsnet channels will be provided as part of every Trumpugee’s cable TV package.

7. Accents: No Trumpugee will be allowed to keep his or her accent, as this can be an easy identifier for the Trump death squads. With the NSA’s listening capability expanded to Canada under the Trump regime,Americanc accents will definitely make them an easy target. Remedial accent removal classes are mandatory.

8. Idiomatics: In order to be proper integrated into Canadian society every Trumpugee will be required to attend idiomatics courses, which will teach them the proper usage of some of the key elements of our Canadian lingo. For example, the proper use of the simple exclamation ‘Beauty Eh?’ and the some of the various before and after verbal etiquette including ‘How’s It Goin’?”, “Hey”, ‘See ya later’ and 'So long, eh.’

This is very much a work in progress at present because we really do want to cover all the bases and make our American friends as comfortable and safe  as possible.

But Canada, being the insanely anal country that it is, will likely have developed several thousand of these rules by the time the Trumpugee movement starts in earnest.

Phil: Ya know, Jim, I tink (BTW, dat’s a French Canadian verb) we’re on to sometin’ here. I spent a lot of years in Taranna (the provincial capital of Ontario), so between you and me, I think we have the bona fides to cash in on all of this, Trump style, with a school for U.S. emigres to the land north of the forty-ninth. We can call it “Miss Maple Leaf’s College of Canuckian Knowledge.” And we can "up-sell it and make a fortune. And if we don't make enough money, we can put it through bankruptcy and leave the creditors holding the bag.

All of which would be, I think, genuinely funny — if the issues weren’t so serious. I was, for example, wondering the other day how many potential U.S. emigres to Canada understand that they would be moving into the NORAD buffer zone for intercontinental ballistic missiles coming over the North Pole from Russia or elsewhere. I wonder if they know that those missiles will be shot down over Canada. Indeed, I wonder how many Americans even think about those kinds of threats anymore, obsessed as we’ve become over the threat presented by hordes of illegal emigrants from Mexico.

I know, I know, we’ve lived with NORAD for decades. But the specter of a Trump presidency in the U.S. makes me ever so much more nervous — not in the least because I am concerned about having anyone in a position of such power, who gets so bent out of shape when the size of his hands are denigrated and by implication the size of his… uh, other appendage, and goes on national television to say publicly that he is adequately “hung”.

JIM: Well that puts a suitable exclamation mark on this discussion. Trump’s anatomy isn’t anywhere near as much a concern to me as his whole attitude, which of course is totally driven by his ego.

The people who have told me they are coming to Canada in the event of a Trump presidency would definitely be a welcome addition, since despite the Valhalla-like perception of our country, we are not without our fair share of hosers. These enlightened individuals will do a lot to restore the hoser-to-normal person balance.

As for your Miss Maple Leaf’s College of Canuckian Knowledge,  I think this is a huge idea, which would consolidate all the necessary Trumugee learning in one institution. At the appropriate time, I will forward this proposal to Mr. Trudeau, as I have his personal email address. (We all do. He’s just that kind of guy.)

The bottom line here is that the concept of a Trump presidency and its attendant absurdity has been a real inspiration for Phil and I. Being a rather obsessed Trump watcher, one of the things I have been able to figure out has more to do with simple mathematics than complicated politics. As things stand right now, the best Trump can do, by my reckoning about 30% of the popular vote if God is smiling on him.

And honestly, God does not smile on people like Trump too often.

Please do not forget that he has, during the course of this farcical campaign, alienated at least 50% of the population of the country and that’s just on the Republican side.

But seriously, I wish Donald Trump all the luck in the world. And if you believe that, I have some prime real estate just west of Casa del Friedman in Miami that you might be interested in.

That’s a wrap.

Author's notes:  Jim Murray can, and always will speak for himself. So direct any hate mail to him at his beBee address.

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About me, Phil Friedman:  With 30 some years background in the marine industry, I've worn numerous hats — as a yacht designer, boat builder, marine operations and business manager, marine industry consultant, marine marketing and communications specialist, yachting magazine writer and editor, yacht surveyor, and marine industry educator. I am also trained and experienced in interest-based negotiation and mediation. In a previous life, I taught logic and philosophy at university.

The (optional-to-read) pitch: As a professional writer, editor, university educator, and speaker, with more than 1,000 print and digital publications, I've recently launched an online program for enhancing your expository writing: learn2engage — With Confidence. My mission is to help writers and would-be writers improve the clarity of their thought, master the logic of discussion, and strengthen their ability to deal confidently with disagreement.

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Text Copyright ©  2016 by Phil Friedman — All Rights Reserved
Images Credits:  Phil Friedman and Jim Murray

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