Regarding the possibility of an American absorption of Canada? Let's set aside all the emotional and patriotic nonsense in this question. I am just a simple blue-collar Canadian citizen trying to live a comfortable life, and here is my view.

I moved back to the East Coast of Canada in the late 80s from Toronto, when my wife was pregnant with our first child. One of the main reasons I did this was BECAUSE they installed metal detectors at her old high school, which she once attended. I did not want my children exposed to that. I can't imagine the crime in Toronto now with the influx of blacks and other uneducated foreigners who have been allowed to flood in, but I suspect it's much worse. I am taxed at 43%+ and don't see much benefit from that extortion? Our "Leaders" give away/steal billions of our tax money and call it foreign aid or economic development, while three (3)steaks at Costco cost me over 100 dollars. I pay double for gasoline compared to an American, while my nation has massive oil reserves. Our cell and internet costs are the highest in the world because our paid-off politicians won't allow competition. I still have to pay for medical and dental insurance, and my wife pays hundreds of dollars monthly on drugs for her geriatric mother, who lives in an old folks' home. So much for 'free health care'. My Politicians, who are supposed to represent me, are pushing through bills to limit my freedom of speech, and our 'first past the post' electoral system is the opposite of what a democracy should be. Where else can a party get 35% of the vote and get 100%of the power/majority? They are now busy crafting a way to take away my guns and are following the mental midgets in Europe to a confrontation with Russia, which, by the way, should be one of our closest allies behind the USA and China. Lastly, we are told that, if we were absorbed by the Americans, we would get our Canadian Dollars converted, one for one, with the American Greenback and before people start talking about the American debt, look at Canada's! So, unless my leaders offer me a better deal than that of the Americans with their God-given power of the constitution, anyone's argument on staying 'Canadian' is as weak as our spineless and incompetent Political Class that, from where I sit, offers me nothing but guaranteed decline.