A satirical pitch for merging Canada and Australia into one nation, citing shared constitutional monarchy, universal healthcare, and G20 membership. The speaker jokes about combining their landmasses, GDP, and cultural quirks like apologetic citizens and poutine versus Vegemite, while acknowledging time zones and French language policy as real obstacles.
Chapters
And now, a proposal so obvious that it is frankly embarrassing that no one has floated it seriously yet. Canada and Australia should merge into one country. Ah, before you swipe away, hear me out. We share the same king, what's his name, the Westminster parliamentary system being overshadowed by louder English-speaking countries. We both pack both our citizens into a thin strip while pretending the enormous empty interior is a selling point. The combined land area would be 17 million square kilometers. We would be the largest country in the world. Between us, we're already the sexiest, although the Aussies are carrying most of that weight for us. The cultural fit is so good, it is almost suspicious. We both have universal healthcare, although Canada will be happy to upgrade Australia to our better version of it. We both produce excellent athletes, mediocre action movies, and citizens who apologize when a stranger bumps into them. "No, sorry, that was me. Sorry about that, really sorry. You go ahead." "Sorry again." Australia has Vegemite, Canada has poutine, neither makes any sense to outsiders, and both inspire an almost religious fervour among locals. How has this not happened yet? We're already the same country! Separated by what, like, an ocean? A few billion years of continental drift, which is about how long it takes the average American to find either of our countries on a map. Our combined GDP? $4 trillion. We're both already in the G20, both OECD members, we both have resource-heavy economies sitting on absurd national wealth. Iron ore, oil sands, coal, lithium, uh, wheat, timber, passive aggression, all under one flag. We would basically be a giant warehouse store that also has free doctor visits and a surprisingly good film tax credit. Now, there are complications. Obviously the time zone thing would be a bureaucratic nightmare, really. The Aussies have 3, we have 5. 5 and a half in Newfoundland. National animal? The beaveroo. National sport? Fuck, I don't know, ice cricket? Sportyball? We'll figure something out. Then there is the subject of language. We would have to teach the Aussies French. And since the Québécois are busy, it would fall on us Anglophones, which means a lot of time spent asking which library Jacques and Marie should search for the pencil in. The flag writes itself. Take the maple leaf, just throw throw it on there a bunch of times, problem solved. The bigger question is what we call it. AusCanada sounds like a pharmaceutical company. CanAustralia sounds like someone mispronouncing an Italian city. My personal suggestion is we just call ourselves The Country. But let's do this: tell me in the comments what we should name this thing, and I will pick the best and formally petition both governments into merging. You think I'm joking? I have never been more serious about anything in my life, and I once spent 40 minutes writing to VIA Rail about their soup. Look, we've built entire national identities around not being American and surviving seasons that try to kill us. That's a foundation. That's a constitution. Somebody draw up the papers.
