True North Strong And Full Of Yankees

New Day Arises In True North Strong And Free; First President Of New Country Growls and Howls

Ottawa (CP) July 2^nd, 2020. The transition for the inclusion of former American states into provinces of Canada has been completed yesterday in time for Canada Day. The movement, which started during the 2013 Congressional shutdown of the American government, saw a growing desire to join a country not being run by nutcases. Many eyes looked north to Canada, where at the time, the seeds of the Conservative government’s destruction were already being sown, as a place of sanity where universal health care was not an unreasonable concept, but a decades old institution.

The movement grew over time, bypassing the rancour and gridlock of Washington, as more and more people saw the benefits of Canadian citizenship, reaching out to Canada and asking for inclusion. And so the steps had begun in the dissolution of the Union, and a new day for Canada. Aside from the states of Texas, Arkansas, and Kansas, state after state ratified the Twenty Eighth Amendment dissolving the country and motioning for Canadian citizenship during negotiations with the new Canadian government. Texas, Arkansas, and Kansas have formed a union of their own in the south, run by interim President Rick “Quick Draw” Perry. Members of the disgraced Tea Party, creationist hardliners, survivalist groups, and assorted wingnuts have fled to what is now being called the United States of ArKanTexas. Florida has been set aside, in a manner of speaking, demoted to junior provincial status instead of joining Confederation as a province. “It was inevitable,” Alison Porter, a spokesperson for the Prime Minister said. “With the way Florida screwed up the election in 2000, we really can’t rely on them to know what they’re doing while voting. So they need to sit at the kid’s table, so to speak, for the next few decades and learn the ins and outs of Parliamentary democracy before they can be trusted again. On the other hand, we let them into Confederation just because we like having someplace warm to go for winter break.”

It’ll be a learning process for the new Canadians. Education is being brought up to speed throughout the former United States, stressing not only the essentials of languages, science, history, math, and geography, but ways to transition to the essence of Canadianness. “We’re getting people of all ages to adjust their mindset,” Terence LeGault, an official with Canadian Heritage told reporters. “New Canadians are learning the natural instinct of apologizing when someone bumps into you, for example. They’re learning how to add eh into every sentence, and the best way to eat Canadian bacon and poutine. Getting them weaned off the imperial system and into metric will take some time. This also applies to getting them to drink real beer. And the same goes for proper spelling. They’ve spent a couple hundred years dropping the u out of a lot of words, and that’s the kind of habit that’ll take time to correct. We’re also coaxing them into being less obsessed with football and to start to really appreciate the intricacies of hockey. And we kind of have to demonstrate how to make love in a canoe, which is another essential element to being a Canadian. It’s a work in progress, but we’ll get there.”

New Canadians are also being fed doses of maple syrup into their veins, to kickstart the blood into producing a steady supply of what already flows in the veins of any Canadian born north of what had been the border. It’s an essential requirement of Canadian citizenship. On Parliament Hill yesterday, Prime Minister Rick Mercer, the former comedian turned unlikely political leader, celebrated Canada Day with a vast crowd of Canucks. “On this new day for our country, we welcome those who were our neighbours into the fold. You’re all Canadians now. Welcome to the land of the sane and the reasonable, where the craziest thing we do is play hockey on outdoor rinks in our underwear. In a blizzard.”

It’s been an adjustment for the ranks of law enforcement as well. The Mounties remain the top law in the land, and have begun to absorb former agents of the FBI and DEA, who are now undergoing training on differing procedures in the RCMP. For a time, legendary Mountie Inspector Lars Ulrich was considered for the top post of the Mounties, but he refused, preferring to remain out in the field instead of being, in his words, “condemned to a desk job where I’d end up just being the old man. And don’t you even think of asking if I’m with Metallica.”

While former Americans adjust to life wearing toques and using proper English spelling, their former countrymen in ArKanTexas are unhappy. Wayne LaPierre, the former head of the National Rifle Association, which transferred its national headquarters to Dallas two years ago, is now the Secretary of Frontier Justice in the new republic. “Damned Canadians, all acting so polite and nice. And all the time they were planning to take us over. Well, these good ol’ boys ain’t going quietly into the night, no sir! We’re all still patriots, and we’re armed to the teeth. Granted, we haven’t got nukes, otherwise we’d be using them... did I say that out loud?”

One time Alaska governor Sarah Palin and former Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann have taken positions in the Cabinet of the new republic. The former is the Secretary Of Education. The latter is the Secretary of State. They join such partisan figures as Todd Akin, recently named Secretary For Women’s Rights And Obligations, and Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, named co-Secretaries For Propaganda. “We’re gonna be teachin’ all the kids about Adam and Eve walkin’ around with the dinosaurs, you betcha!” Palin told reporters gathered in Austin. “I mean, really, forget something as minor as climate change. We all know that’s bunk, yep. All science is nothing more than a myth, and we’re bannin’ myths like that from the classroom.”

Bachmann nodded. “It’s a new day for America, and ArKanTexas is gonna fulfill the dreams and wishes of the Founding Fathers by being completely cluster**** insane in everything we do on the world stage. Starting by declaring war on Australia.”

Vice President Ted Cruz, from his home near Austin, shook his head as he spoke to reporters. “They’ll be back. I swear, they’ll be back. Once they realize how cold a Canadian winter is, all those simpering gutless cowards who thought being Canadian was a good idea will come begging us to let them back in. And that’s when we’ll really rub it in on them. Yes, it’ll take a lot more than just pleading for us to let them back into the greatest country the world has ever known. Til then, ArKanTexas is open for business, boys and girls, emphasis on boys, because, hey, we all think there was nothing wrong with the world back in the 1950s when Father Knew Best and women were in the kitchen.”

President Perry, from his Presidential Mansion in Austin, issued this statement. “We deplore the disgraceful betrayal by so many American citizens. I mean, just because things got a little hectic a few years back and Congress screwed the pooch. That don’t give people the right to ask to join a country that ain’t insane. Y’all ain’t got the right to up and quit on us. So as far as we’re concerned, the great experiment that is America still carries on. It’s right here, in the land of the free and the brave and the totally crazy, where we believe in liberty and happiness and guns for all. Where we know the world is only a few thousand years old, where Thanksgiving is always in November, and where y'all can drive down to the corner store with a missile launcher in the back of your pickup truck. Like Moses and Jesus said y'all could. Yee haw!”

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who moved to a new ranch in Texas before the dissolution of the Union, was reached for comment at home. “Didn’t have a choice,” he said. “I can’t live in a country run by socialists, which we all know Canada is. I mean, universal health care is a socialist idea! And I don’t look good in a toque, can’t be all polite and all, and don’t understand why anyone likes that awful maple syrup. Besides, at least in ArKanTexas, I’m still free to shoot a lawyer in the face whenever I want.”