The fact that Canada allows US military to operate freely on its territory, i.e. NORAD, depends on the US for defense, depends on the US for culture / entertainment, depends on the US for trade, etc. Allied with the US on almost every war in the last 100 years except Vietnam and Iraq.

28 comments

  1. Canada is not the only country that the US military operates in. Many Western European nations are included, along with Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and countries in Africa, Middle Eastern countries, and others. But Canada is certainly intrinsically tied to America more than most.

  2. No.

    One is a failed state run by a dictator and a puppet of an evil empire. The other is Belarus.

  4. If you ask this in AskACanadian please send me the link, I’d love to see how they respond to all the “depends on the US” statements.

  5. The US military operates freely on Canadian territory? Not…maybe…say…jointly? With permission perhaps?

    Not exactly US tanks driving willy nilly or the like

  6. >Sure that Murphy is faking, House confronts him when he returns to his apartment. After Murphy threatens to have him jailed for going into his apartment, he reveals he was sent to Vietnam by the Canadian military as a peacekeeper and lost his arm trying to save a 12-year old boy from a land mine. He then reveals he suffers from pain in his phantom limb and that it always feels like he’s grabbing that boy’s arm.

    https://house.fandom.com/wiki/Murphy_(neighbor)

  7. I dare you to ask that to r/askacanadian. Yikes.

    There’s no doubt that Canada benefits immensely from a neighbor that is highly armed and prepared (some may say too much so), and from the same neighbor being not only friendly but also a centuries-old military ally. Canada knows that any country who attacks them will be viewed by Americans as an attack against ourselves. Yes, NATO requires us to come to their aid. But even without NATO we would do it anyway. So they are able to take comfort in that.

    I would liken us more to Australia and New Zealand. One bigger and more influential than the other, but nonetheless close allies, partners, and co-owners of a very tight cultural bond that derives from England. I’d also add that we share in common the navigation of tricky relationships between the white governing majority and a displaced indigenous people (all four countries deal with this).

    Belarus is a puppet state of Russia. The last vestige of the Warsaw Pact. Canada is not an American puppet state. We have tremendous influence in what happens there, but that comes from being neighbors rather than some sort of threat that we will make their lives miserable if they drift away. Canada/U.S. is a relationship built on generations of trust. Russia/Belarus is built on fear and domination.

  8. Post this on askacanadian please God I can’t wait to see the passive aggressive replies there

  9. No. Belarus is a puppet state run by a dictator. The relationship is extremely one-sided in favor of Russia. There is little benefit to the citizens of Belarus in that relationship.

    Canada’s relationship with the US is very different. The trade between the two countries is somewhere between the GDPs of Ukraine (pre-war) and Hungary. It is the largest amount of trade between any two countries. The value of goods crossing the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor every year exceed the value of goods exchanged between the US and Japan.

    There’s plenty of other more specific examples of this as well. Nearly all oil and gas imported to the US comes from Canada. 10% of New England’s electricity comes from Quebec. These types of transactions inject American money into the Canadian economy.

    In exchange for this sort of cooperation, Canada doesn’t really need to worry about it’s defense, and the US will pretty much always back Canada, even more so than other NATO states. The recent spat with India is a perfect example.

  10. No not at all.

    Canada is a totally free actor that moves on its own. It has completely different immigration and economic policies than the US.

    Crossing the US Canadian border is actually more difficult than crossing the US Mexican border. It was closed for over a year during COVID.

    America and Canada have mutual defense agreements because we’ve been working together for over a century and it just makes more sense to pool our defense assets.

    Make no mistake this is NOT a US imposition upon Canada. This is a democraticly mandated choice between sovereign states.

    If the Canadians wanted us gone, They could evict us in a matter of weeks.

  11. Belarus is like Russia’s bitch.
    Canada to the USA is like a brother
    We may be significantly more powerful than them but we don’t threatened into submission when we do something.

  14. ​

    >The fact that Canada allows US military to operate freely on its territory, i.e. NORAD, depends on the US for defense, depends on the US for culture / entertainment, depends on the US for trade, etc. Allied with the US on almost every war in the last 100 years except Vietnam and Iraq.

    No. Here’s just some of the stuff Russia has done to Belarus over the centuries that has no equivalent in US-Canadian relations:

    -1796: Annexed Belarussia during the partition of the former Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth.

    -1830s & 1860s: Put down anti-Russian uprisings. Following this, Belarussian culture and language were officially suppressed.

    -A century of Belarus being bounced around between Russia and Germany commences.

    -The People’s National Republic has been a government in exile from Belarus since 1918, because of a Russian-created state being formed.

    -Belarus was a Soviet republic (and thus a political puppet of Moscow) from 1944-1991 (when the Soviet Union took a header and died.) During this time, Stalinist policy (Carried on) was to isolate Belarus from the international community culturally and economically, in order to preserve its hold over it.

    The United Kingdom would be interested to know it was somehow kept from influencing the Dominion of Canada, all those years, for example. The modern Commonwealth would probably wonder about it, too.

    – While American culture is available in Canada, CanCon provisions exist to prevent it being overwhelmingly so, and it produces a lot of TV, music, and film. These things were actively quashed in Belarus, by the Russians. A lot of it is available in French rather than English (a sort of bilingualism that the Russians obliterated, re: the Byelorussian language.)

    -During this time,[Soviet Repression in Belarus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_repressions_in_Belarus) killed, banished or otherwise “Vanished” something on the order of 2 million Belarussians. This, obviously, has no US/Canadian equivalent.

    -The US has never propped up a regime in Canada the way the Russians do Lukashenko. (Following the generally internationally-unrecognized, vote-tampered second Lukashenko election, he KGB were openly involved in the arrest of rioters and ***seven*** rival candidates) .

    -The US and Canada have never had a trade war comparable to (for instance) the Milk War between Russia and Belarus, or the Gazprom conflict.

    -Canada has never been used as a direct staging ground for an invasion of another country by the US, Belarus has been by Russia. Canada has actively denounced US military interventions (Vietnam, Iraq, as you yourself say), Lukashenko’s regime actively regrets *not helping* invasions in Ossetia (for example) *enough.*

    hate to finish on a meme, but *we are not the same.*

  15. Canada is a thriving democracy that is a close ally and trading partner of America, but America in general isn’t involved in Canadian politics and more than they are in other Western nations we are allied to.

    Belarus is a buffering puppet state of Russia who’s government would probably attempted to be overthrown if it tried to oppose Russia’s directives.

    So not the same.

  17. Canada is not a puppet dictatorship, our relationship with it is based on friendly commerce and commonalities of culture and ideals. Canada is our closest ally, and what makes Belarus Belarus is not that it is Russia’s closest ally, but that it’s merely a colonial satrapy run by an illiterate stooge.

  18. In some ways, yes.

    In most ways, no.

    For example, Russia is a federation made of 190 different ethnic groups – many with their own unique languages, beliefs and traditions. For example, 10% are Muslim – so there’s a lot of that religious and historic influence.

    Belarus is more of a monoculture.

    Canada is considered by many to be the
    most ethnically diverse country in the world – with immigration rate almost 25% higher than the U.S.

    So there’s one area your comparison doesn’t hold true.

    A better comparison would be Australia and New Zealand. Or Germany and Austria.

  19. Russia props up the Belarussian dictator by military force. Nothing like that has happened in Canada. Remember, Belarussians tried to get rid of Lukashenko, but Russia sent in the army and protesters were tortured and executed. Belarus does not support Lukashenko. It is a puppet state of Russia with no say in who its leader is. This does not strike me as the sort of relationship the US has with Canada.

  20. The US military does not “operate freely” in Canada. There’s less than 200 military personnel permanently stationed there as part of the joint NORAD command, but that’s it. Other than occasional joint training exercises, the US military largely stays out of Canada. The Canadian military is more likely to train in the US than vice versa.

  21. NORAD is a joint command, and while our military is far larger than theirs i would not say they depend on us for defense.

    Nor do they depend on us for entertainment. Shit, a not so small percentage of our entertainment is made in Canada.

  22. No, Canada freely lets any discontents known and very public.

    Funny, but Canadian politics can be just as wild as the US’s. People like to treat them as some liberal utopia, but the conservatives there are just as crazy as in the US

  23. Absolutely not.

    For one, Canada can actually depend on the US to defend it if someone attacks Canada. Belarus can not say the same for Russia: See: Russia’s failure to stop the Azerbaijanis and Armenians from killing each other despite both being in Russia’s cheap, useless knock-off NATO.

    As for the second one, the US doesn’t exercise a large amount of control over Canada. Biden certainly doesn’t have goons in Ottawa waiting to blow Trudeau’s brains out if Biden gives the word and replace him with another puppet. On the flip side, Canada also isn’t using the threat of American military intervention to prevent Trudeau from being removed by the people of Canada. Like him or hate him, Trudeau has been voted in… or his party has. I’m not entirely sure how the Parliamentary process works.

    The US also has no need to use Canada as a staging ground for any attacks. We actually have a functioning navy and multiple functioning aircraft carriers. Something that Russia lacks.

    America is in Canada by Canada’s choice. And if Canada wanted the US out, guess what… Just like when de Gaulle demanded it in 1966 for France, the US would leave Canada.

    >depends on the US for culture / entertainment

    This is unfair, not only to Canada, but also to Belarus.

    Now, I can’t comment on Belarus’ entertainment industry because I have no knowledge of it. But Belarus doesn’t depend on Russia for culture. That’s the biggest load’uh horseshit I ever done seen.

    Just because Russia attempted to genocide Belarus by way of Russification during the Soviet Union era (and arguably continues to this day) doesn’t mean Belarus depends on Russia for culture. Belarus has its own culture independent of Russia.

    For Canada, they actually make up a surprising chunk of the entertainment industry. A lot of actors and musicians hail from Canada. Hell, Reddit’s most beloved actor, Keanu Reeves, is Canadian. A lot of animation is also from Canada. As an example, *My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic* AKA: Gen 4 (Again, love it or hate it, it was a wildly successful show) was an American-Canadian production. The idea was created by an American producer, but the animation was done by a Canadian studio and two of the directors were Canadian.

    Canada also has its own culture, independent of America.

    Russia does not have alliances. It has puppets that it will abandon if the waves get too high.

    Canada is independent from the US and is free to make its own decisions.

  24. No, we never owned canada, nor do we believe we do. We may make jokes but canada is seen as a peer. We are close allies who trust each other. Some Canadian people may not like americans because theyre stuck up with preconceived ideas, and major hypocrisy. But our govts are fairly close and generally respectful of each other. And we dont have a nasty past with each other as russia does with the people they oppressed. Its more i think, like brothers, rather than dominating over them.

    Those things are done with permission and agreement and its done jointly. We fly over them, they fly over us. Sometimes they ask us for those things.
    Canada and the US trade heavily, in fact most of my cities food comes from canada

    Belarus has a dictator in putins pocket and is just an extension of russia, that only benefits russia

  25. Canada is our Baby Brother. They’re an independent country we have great diplomatic, trade, and military relationships with including a lot of similarities in terms of people and culture that Canadians would rather die then admit. We do have agreements and stuff but, the American Government isn’t trying to weasel its way into Canadian Politics in order to control Canada.

    Belarus is Russia’s little bitch Dictatorship. Plain and simple

  26. During the war of 1812, the US went to war with Canada to annex Canada and it was not successful. So fair to say Canada can hold its own.

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