Please Advise! Some Canadian Tough Love for Yanks?

[Editor’s note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a PhD in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]

Dear Dr. Steve,

In the wake of the leaked draft of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that will potentially overturn the legal right to an abortion, some Americans are saying Canada should make abortions freely accessible for Americans.

What do you think?

Signed,

R.V. Wade

Dear R.V.,

The long-running American drama series — it's a show you'd like to unsubscribe to but no one at customer service is answering. Ideally you'd like to think of Canada as having a front-row seat at a wild and crazy movie, but it's not really like that. It's more like a live theatre event where blood keeps splashing on our popcorn and the performers keep begging to come home with us.

This week our southern neighbours confirmed sneaking suspicions that constructing a Supreme Court with an accused rapist, the spouse of an insurrectionist and at least a few professional perjurers may have a downside. Somewhere deep in their tacky supervillain lair, Volcan-a-Lago, Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell are toasting each other with Diet Coke:

“You're the worst!”

“Me? YOU'RE the worst! A truly hypocritical, devious bastard!”

“I'm blushing! But I am merely Darth Vader to your Emperor Palpatine. I bow before your shameless iniquity!”

“To evil!”

Meanwhile angry and desperate Americans turn north once more, seeking aid. The Detroit Free Press was just one paper asking, “Can Michiganders go to Canada for an abortion?”

Well of course if it comes to so desperate a situation, the moral thing is to provide the medical services pregnant Americans should by rights be able to access. Though waiting lists are long here, and as one report puts it, Americans’ ability to get on them is “complicated.”

Still, it’s natural to ask, if we can help those in dire need, why not?

Maybe because there's a disturbing pattern developing here. Canada has become a handy alternative option for beleaguered American liberals. Democrats loudly claimed they would move to Canada when Trump won the presidency. Part of Sen. Bernie Sanders' campaign for the White House involved a plan to get cheap prescription drugs from Canada. And now this. The time has come to ask ourselves: Are we neighbours or enablers?

Canada cannot continue to be liberal America's back-door squeeze, its northern booty call. Housing affordability is bad enough here already without a flood of Hollywood types and Beltway big shots driving up list prices. What if Republican never-Trumper George Conway flees to Canada as he has hinted he might, but brings his top Trump trumpeter wife Kellyanne with him?

my future application for asylum in 2025 appears to be coming along nicely pic.twitter.com/mNz936RINe

— George Conway🇺🇦 (@gtconway3d) May 4, 2022

What if Matt Gaetz finds out Canada is the hot new spring break destination?

Canada must encourage Americans to stay home and deal with their own issues. Happily, there is one simple and effective way to do it. Canadians need only embrace the leadership of Pierre Poilievre. The Conservative leadership candidate is opting for a Trumpian political strategy in his bid for power. Should he win the party contest and later become prime minister, it will change the North American political landscape drastically. Suddenly Canada will no longer look like anybody's cozy backup option. No more headlines about running off to Canada to escape ideological despotism. Once Canada gets its own political dumpster fire going, perhaps Americans will wake up and clean house.

We've already seen proof that Canada can set a perfectly fine bad example. The anti-vaxer truck convoy that turned Ottawa into a massive open-air Three Stooges Fan Club meeting in February was later copied by would-be U.S. imitators who failed miserably to duplicate its media impact. The Washington version of the truck convoy was the kind of flop that made the Beer Hall Putsch look like the French Revolution. It's proof that when we try, we Canadians can out-loony our American friends any day of the week. And with some effort we can make this country into a place no self-respecting progressive American would ever consider a refuge.

Someday Canadian snowbirds will no longer go south only for the weather — they will be fleeing the government of Prime Minister Poilievre, seeking relief under the protective wing of, say, President Stacey Abrams.

Of course the way things have been going down in America lately, they could keep going down and down and down. If President Ron DeSantis takes office, it would be heartless to deny our American friends a warm welcome to the new Disneyland Sudbury. So fine, Yanks, come visit. Just don't tell Matt Gaetz where you're going.