Dateline: TORONTO—Thousands of Canadians are lobbying the United States government to allow them to vote as honourary Americans in US elections, despite their lacking US citizenship, because they know more about the United States than Canada.
According to their lobbyist, Hughie Sketcher, these Canadians “yearn to be politically active, but they lament the fact that Canada isn’t interesting enough to hold their attention even for a moment.”
Most of these “practically disenfranchised” Canadians live in Ontario, confirmed Sketcher, but that province “might as well be a crater on the moon, for all the rest of the world is concerned.”
One of the Ontarians seeking the right to vote in the US is John Smith. “No one outside of Canada knows where Ontario is,” said Smith. “No one else even knows that Ontario is a place. It’s richer and more populous than numerous whole countries, but because it’s objectively dull, no one cares, not even most Ontarians. So how am I supposed to summon the energy to study Ontarian politics? Do I look superhuman?”
By contrast, American politics is “infinitely amusing,” said Smith, “like a slapstick comedy or a Hollywood thriller in which there’s a sinister turn of events every two minutes.” American politics is thus irresistible to bored Canadians who just want to feel like they’re engaged citizens and who don’t want to “fall asleep at the voting booth.”
These Canadians admit to “studying American political shenanigans religiously,” said Sketcher. They follow the scandals on CNN and Fox News. “Meanwhile, nothing ever happens in Canada. It’s all in stasis there to maintain the peace in that multicultural society.”
“We talk about American politics all the time in Canada,” said Smith. “On the bus, waiting in line at the movies, at the water cooler, at a restaurant—the latest American political travesty is typically the hottest topic of conversation.”
Asked why these Canadians don’t leave Canada and become American citizens, Smith said, “We don’t want to actually live there and get shot in the streets or take a chance of dying as homeless bums with the rest of the bottom seventy percent. We’re not lunatics.
