Premier Furey absolutely captured this moment in time by referring back to Newfoundland becoming part of Canada and gaining Labrador as part of their province (there does have to be a gain). I remember this and the fear of losing their identity as proud Newfoundlanders. The war was just over by four years and they lost huge numbers of their men in battle. Their pride in self was huge but economically they were better off to be part of Canada but they remain proud Newfoundlanders and proud Canadians. Many of them are my cousins on my Knight side with surnames like Snook, Knight, Ellis, and there are many which I could list but will not at the moment. We in Ontario and Canada are willing to have a closer economic relationship but to be the 51st State we would lose both our representation in a much larger nation (2 senators is not adequate, we are basically 13 States) and our Canadian identity. We would lose the Westminster Model of Government which has stood us and the entire Commonwealth in good stead these years of growth and development. We would not have control over our natural resources to protect them into the future so that they are there for our great grandchildren to benefit from. I love the United States and if circumstances had been there I would be American if my husband had taken that job at the Library of Congress. He would have been a great value to them with his PhD and MLS. He was extremely knowledgeable. But I am here and I am first generation Canadian on my father's side and fourth generation Canadian on my mother's side and I am going on 80 years of age. I love being Canadian; it is my soul. Friends we have been for 200+ years. I stand proudly when the National Anthems of either of our countries are played. That is appropriate. That friendship is enviable around the world and profitable worth so much more than money can ever buy. Our trade deficit without oil doesn't exist; we buy far more from the United States than they buy from us (especially when you include the products made by American companies in Canada where the profits go back to the United States). We can sell our oil and gas to Europe which needs it desperately and at full price but the United States has benefited greatly from having our oil come to them by pipeline (cheapest way in the world) and then selling it at 3x what they pay for it (and we also sell it to them at a discount). We have many many American companies producing goods in their factories which we buy but not going to buy them if their isn't a Canadian component; we are not stupid our livelihood depends on that type of economic arrangement. We can make our own cookies for sure in a Canadian company but free enterprise being what it is our companies could not compete against much larger companies who arrived after NAFTA and either priced out the competition and then bought them out or just straight out bought them out. That is free enterprise and I am a believer in it. But if the world changes and NAFTA no longer supports a closer economic relationship then that is life and we move on. We need to concentrate on rebuilding those lost industries - make our own dishwashers, make our own refrigerators, cookies and all the rest. Seems a pity; it is like going back to the 1950s when trade was slow and no one was particularly wealthy outside of inherited wealth and the Iron Curtain had rolled down enslaving millions of people in Europe for another fourty years.
That sad day on the 11th of September 2001 completely changed my mind with regard to the future of Canada as I was probably pretty much on a limb for that. That day we saw what can happen when terrorists attack our friend to the south. They closed their airspace leaving thousands of Americans stranded on airplanes past the point of no return coming home. We stayed open even though they asked us to close our airspace and we did around Ottawa to protect the American Embassy. The airplanes safely landed we closed our airspace - the Americans were safe and we were very happy about that. But I knew then that the greatest protection for the North American continent is our separateness - we can react as an individual country protecting this space in the world that the First Nations kindly let us occupy. God bless North America and all who dwell in it.
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