{"id":76047,"date":"2025-08-17T09:37:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T09:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/76047\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T09:37:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T09:37:13","slug":"b-c-legislator-enraged-by-american-state-senators-pitch-to-voluntarily-become-the-51st-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/76047\/","title":{"rendered":"B.C. legislator enraged by American state senator\u2019s pitch to voluntarily become the 51st state"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

MLA Brennan Day says his office had to first confirm the authenticity of the ‘nonsense’ letter it received from Maine Sen. Joseph Martin.Sean Kilpatrick\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

A British Columbia legislator said he went from \u201cdisappointed\u201d to \u201cenraged\u201d after receiving a pitch from a Republican state senator for Canada\u2019s four western provinces to join the United States.<\/p>\n

Brennan Day, with the Opposition B.C. Conservative Party, said his office had to first confirm the authenticity of the \u201cnonsense\u201d letter from Maine Sen. Joseph Martin after receiving it last week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Martin\u2019s three-page pitch said if B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba were to seek admission to the United States after referendum votes, it would have to be as full American states.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis would not be annexation. It would be adoption \u2013 welcoming home kindred spirits, who were born under a different flag but who desire to live under our Constitution and accept our responsibilities, customs, and traditions,\u201d he wrote in the letter shared by Day.<\/p>\n

Martin said in the letter that his appeal is not a \u201cfantasy of empire\u201d but a \u201cvision deeply rooted in American tradition\u201d that would give the four provinces a chance to \u201cleave behind failing ideologies.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFor too long, Canadian citizens have been subjected to an illusion of freedom administered through bureaucratic means,\u201d he wrote, adding that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, \u201cwhile lofty in rhetoric, provides no absolute protection.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said this was in contrast to the U.S. Bill of Rights.<\/p>\n

Martin said \u201cmillions of people currently frustrated by central authority, moral decay, and bureaucratic suffocation\u201d would be rewarded by \u201cliberty\u201d if the four provinces were to join the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe welcome mat is out,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n

Day said the most shocking part of the letter was its attack on Canadian institutions, like the Charter of Rights, parliamentary government, monarchism, bilingualism, multiculturalism, and the dismissal of those cornerstones as \u201cpolitical baggage.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Day said in an interview that Martin needed to look at \u201chow heavy his luggage\u201d is. He said Martin\u2019s party was \u201chauling around wheeled trunks\u201d of baggage in the United States where the Constitution was \u201cbeing torn up by Republicans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Day said it was not clear why Martin wrote to him, but suspected it might be due to \u201crhetoric\u201d coming out of Alberta that led Martin to believe British Columbians would be interested.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Martin did not immediately respond to a request for comment left by voice mail and text.<\/p>\n

Day said he had written a response to Martin, in which he acknowledged that Canada has problems.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we don\u2019t fix them by surrendering our identity, as you suggest,\u201d Day said in his response. \u201cWe fix them by doing what Canadians have always done \u2013 rolling up our sleeves, listening to each other, and finding common ground.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Day said in his interview that the \u201coverwhelming majority of Canadians\u201d like themselves just as they are.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have got a lot of work to do in improving our services, and making sure that we are spending our money wisely, and getting good value for it,\u201d Day said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I don\u2019t think anybody here looks south and goes, \u2019we want more of that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: MLA Brennan Day says his office had to first confirm the authenticity of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-76047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}