Moncton Forum

From Mr Peter Watkins.

Sir, It has concerned me for some time that the current US administration has failed to see the benefits of invading Canada instead of wasting its time invading Iraq and now apparently considering an invasion of Iran.

The US has no more oil. Canada has enough to satisfy US demands for the next 100 years. The US needs electrical energy and fresh water. Canada has lots of both. Canada flooded 30 per cent of the province of Quebec to sell electricity to New York and all that fresh water in the Great Lakes would satisfy the thirsty ethanol crops in the Midwest. As climate change intensifies, a highly efficient shipping route, the North-West Passage, is opening up, and the US can't have Canada control that critical asset or the oil under the Arctic ice cap.

Conquering Canada would be easy - on any day, there are more tyres on cars in Manhattan than there are Canadians. As with Iraq, it is simply a matter of showing that Canada is harbouring weapons of mass destruction and building nuclear weapons. Falsified discovery of "yellowcake" from Niger will not be necessary as a pretext for invasion. Canada has dangerous "yellow snow", secretly deposited by Canadian men in winter. "Don't eat the yellow snow" is a warning every child is given from birth.

There would be an immediate response from the United Nations Assembly if the US presented this danger to them. Think of all those nuclear reactors that Canada has built. It would be easy to create the perception that Canada was selling, or better yet, planning to sell, the technology to evil-doers. If the WMD argument is wearing thin, there is justifiable retribution. In 1812, those terrorist Canadians invaded the US, sacked and burned Washington and butchered US citizens. Surely it is not too late to retaliate. The trick is to keep enough Canadians alive to protect the National Hockey League (NHL).

There may be a better solution without bloodshed. Let's get Canadians to vote to merge with the US. This is simpler than it might first appear. Just create a US separatist party in Canada for the next election and offer every Canadian US$1m to vote to merge with the US. This money would only be paid if the vote carries and, of course, would be tax-free. It would be a small amount to pay to acquire Canada's mineral and timber resources and save the billions of dollars the US has spent on the Iraq war to date.

There is some urgency for the US administration to proceed quickly as the US dollar is falling like a stone, and China or Russia might get the same idea. There would be no better way to recycle over a trillion dollars of devaluing US Treasury bills that China holds than to use them as a down payment in the purchase of Canada. Let's just hope a hedge fund doesn't figure this out.

Peter Watkins,

Toronto, Ont M4V 2T4,

Canada