Why Difference Still Matters

What some Americans get wrong about Canada

July 2025

At some point during the winter—January, I think—I was deep into Zone 4 on the Peloton. Heart pounding. Legs burning. The usual. On hard rides, I like to listen to something smart, something thoughtful. Enlightenment through suffering, basically. This time, it was a podcast from The New York Times.

That’s when Ross Douthat started making the case that Canadians should just become Americans.

According to him, the differences between us are negligible. Culturally, economically, even politically, we’re basically the same. Meanwhile, the U.S. president had been referring to Canada as the 51st state and openly threatening to use economic pressure to annex the country. Douthat’s argument was that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

This wasn’t a fringe-right podcast. It wasn’t some bro-y corner of the internet. It was the New York Times Opinion section. The paper of record. And the writer? Well, he had the credentials. His great-great-grandmother was born in Saint John. So obviously, full authority.

I nearly fell off the bike.

I don’t usually get angry. I meditate. I try to listen. I work hard to live lightly. But this? I was livid. Betrayed. And not in a distant, policy-wonk kind of way. In a deeply personal, this-is-my-life kind of way.

Geopolitics Are a Funny Thing

I was raised on the U.S.–Canada border, in a French community that was literally split in two by a line on a map drawn in 1842.

That line came out of the Treaty of Webster–Ashburton, which ended the Aroostook War, a mostly forgotten international incident between the U.S. and the U.K. over where, exactly, Maine ended and New Brunswick began. The real issue was lumber. Naval powers, still recovering from a century of war, wanted ship-ready forests. There wasn’t much fighting, just lumberjack posses and militias on edge.

And people like my ancestors, Acadians who had already fled British rule twice before, got caught in the middle.

Back in 1755, the British had deported Acadians from Nova Scotia. We’d refused to take sides in the French and Indian War, which didn’t go over well with imperial powers. So my family fled north along the Saint John River, settling in Pointe Sainte-Anne, now known as Fredericton. Eventually, we fled the British again, this time to the confluence of the Madawaska and the Saint John. Further upriver. Further from power.

We were pragmatic people. You had to be. Know when to go.

The land we settled belonged to the Maliseet, who were themselves being pushed off their territory by Loyalist land grants and waves of newcomers. In 1785, when the first Acadian refugees reached Madawaska, we struck a deal with the Maliseet: land in exchange for defense. A rough, painful kind of alliance, born of shared displacement.

Fast forward a few decades. The region, tired of being pulled between empires, declared independence. Briefly. We called it the Republic of Madawaska. There was a flag. Some currency. And one particularly ambitious American mill owner named John Baker, who was done waiting for the U.S. government to annex land north of the Saint John River.

The British arrested him and fined him twenty-five pounds. So it goes.

The rebellion didn’t last. The British cracked down, built a shiny new fort, and renamed the community Edmundston, after the Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick. But locals kept calling the region the Republic of Madawaska anyway, and kept visiting each other across the new border.

So yes, I’ve always felt close to Americans. As a kid, I’d cross the border to get McDonald’s fries before we had one in town. No passport. No adult. Just two legs, a few coins, and broken English with a thick French accent. International relations were simpler back then.

Most people in my extended family are bilingual. We learned English because we wanted to be part of the conversation, to make our own choices. I still do.

I joined the military to pay for school, left when I could, and built a career a little farther down the border. That’s no surprise. Most Canadians live within 100 kilometers of it. I kept in touch with my family, even if the route I chose made me a little strange to them. We talk all the time. I try to make them laugh.

The place I’m from has changed too. Immigrants from Francophone countries have brought both new life and new tension to the region. Aside from the sizable Maliseet population, Edmundston was very white when I grew up. I didn’t meet a person of colour until I joined the military. But the community is learning. That’s what we do. We adapt.

I didn’t stumble into my identity as a Canadian. I chose it, imperfectly, deliberately, over time, to learn English, to serve, to stay connected.

Crossings

I’ve spent most of the last decade traveling to the U.S. for work—cybersecurity, mostly. Helping school boards, hospitals, utilities. Normal people, trying to fight off ransomware and keep their systems running.

I’ve worked with Americans in military and civilian life and made friends, the kind of friends you hug hard in hotel lobbies and pick up with mid-sentence like no time has passed.

But there are moments.

Like last year in Santa Fe. I was having breakfast before a workshop when the waitress sat down at my table. No other guests. She told me how glad she was someone was finally promising to do something about immigration. She was Hispanic. So was half the town.

But she was worried about money, about her family’s safety. She’d been told she should be afraid. And she believed what she’d heard would make things better.

I listened. I thanked her. I kept my doubts to myself.

The Problem With Erasure

Back to the bike. Back to the podcast. Why did this one hit so hard?

Because this wasn’t just analysis. It was erasure. It was someone from a global platform shrugging off a country, a culture, a history—not his own—as if it were just an administrative convenience.

That kind of language is never innocent. Every country that’s ever annexed another starts by making light of the differences.

"They’re not really a separate people."

"They don’t really need their own country."

If you don’t believe me, read what Russian media said about Ukraine before the 2014 annexation of Crimea. Or the 2022 invasion.

Canada has things the U.S. wants. Water. Rare earth minerals. Lumber. Oil.

We’ve also got a system of government that values compromise, a culture that generally prioritizes well-being over bravado, and a history of finding messy, imperfect ways to live alongside one another.

We were one of the first countries to recognize same-sex marriage. Not because we were perfect or bold or fearless, but because, even if it made some people uncomfortable, we understood that discomfort isn’t a reason to deny someone rights. You get over discomfort. People shouldn’t have to get over injustice.

The gay agenda, as far as I can tell, includes looking fabulous, caring for each other, and making sure there’s milk in the fridge.

We believe in compromise because we have to. Cold doesn’t care who’s right. Winter is coming.

What Happens Next

I was mad for months. The kind of mad that simmers, slow, steady, because it feels like history is repeating. A familiar script: distant powers making decisions that reshape the lives of people who have no say. It’s the story of the Acadians. Of the Maliseet. Of Madawaska. It’s my story.

We have a history of being treated as disposable. And we remember.

But here’s the twist. I wasn’t the only one who noticed. This time, Canadians didn’t just shrug or retreat. We responded. With our usual politeness, sure, but also with resolve.

We set aside rivalries. We analyzed the situation. We realigned the economy. We strengthened old alliances. We reinvested in defense. Not because we want a fight, but because we want to preserve what we’ve built.

We want to live side by side. Not inside someone else’s idea of who we should be.

We can be close. But closeness isn’t the same as sameness. Friendship lasts longer when we remember that.

Because you can be friends with someone and still insist they respect your difference.