Montana ‘sale’ to Canada gains traction
A SCENE in Rimini, Montana, where about 30 households can’t drink their tap water because groundwater was polluted by about 150 abandoned gold, lead and copper mines that operated from the 1870s until 1953 dpa African News Agency (ANA). A SCENE in Rimini, Montana, where about 30 households can’t drink their tap water because groundwater was polluted by about 150 abandoned gold, lead and copper mines that operated from the 1870s until 1953 dpa African News Agency (ANA).
More than 9000 people have signed a petition to “sell” Montana to Canada for 1 trillion dollars and use the proceeds to pay down the national debt - and it seems Canada would gladly welcome this bite out of the 49th Parallel (roughly 3500 kilometres of the US-Canada border follows the 49th paralle).
“We have too much debt and Montana is useless,” says the text of the Change.org petition launched last week.
To get Canada to agree, “Just tell them it has beavers or something”.
That’s the entirety of the “cause”, though the slew of comments tacked onto the end by people giving their reasons for signing fleshed that out, as names were being added every three to four minutes this week.
Commenters sing the praises of beavers, welcome Montanans to Canada, and offer them free health care, Tim Hortons (Canada’s largest quick service restaurant chain), and of course legalised pot. Montanans like the idea because, Canada.
“Will save me the cost of moving to Canada,” wrote one commenter.
“MT resident here that will gladly join Canada. The US is a mess and POTUS is an embarrassment,” said another, referring to President Donald Trump and the current climate of unease gripping the nation.
Montana’s Great Falls Tribune, which first reported on the petition, had some questions of its own - including, but not limited to, “Would Montana still be named Montana or would we be Southern Alberta? Better Saskatchewan?” and “Does the universal health care start right away or is there a waiting period?”
There would be cultural differences too, the newspaper noted. For one, would Montanans get to keep their guns? As well as, “What line comes after ‘O Canada!’ in the national anthem? And then all the other lines.”
Clearly there would be a number of details to iron out. But with the signatures piling up, there would be plenty of people willing to work on them.
The original poster, incongruously, is someone listed as Ian Hammond from Alabama, who submitted the tongue-in-cheek petition under the name “Christian moms against private education”.
While the petition’s entertainment value is increasing with each signature and comment, it would not make much of a dent in the national debt even if it were true. Currently the number is 22 trillion dollars, CNBC reported. dpa African News Agency (ANA)