‘Minnetoba’? Some Minnesotans want to join Canada as tensions flare with Trump administration

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As anger grows over the deployment of federal immigration agents in Minnesota, some in the state are calling for a novel solution — becoming Canada’s 11th province.

Jesse Ventura, the former professional wrestler who served as the state’s governor from 1999 to 2003, for one, pitched the idea last weekend.

“Instead of Canada becoming the 51st state of America and lose their health care … I’d like to see all of us become Canadians,” Ventura, now a political commentator, said on an episode of the of the SpinSisters podcast.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents shot and killed two people in Minneapolis this month amid massive protests and calls for them to leave the state. U.S. President Donald Trump sent agents into Minneapolis and St. Paul in early December, the latest cities in his administration’s ongoing and controversial immigration crackdown.

Ventura said it’s “obvious” Trump doesn’t want Minnesotans, and he’s sure Canada “would be happy” to take them. 

When the podcast hosts chuckled, he doubled down.

“I’m serious about this,” Ventura, who has a history of unconventional ideas, expressed bluntly. “I think someone seriously should contact Canada and ask them if they’re open to this.”

Not a new idea

For Minnesotans, the idea is not new.

They’ve mused about the possibility in online posts, and advocates have cropped up in local news outlets over the years, with renewed interest in recent months.

The state shares a border with Ontario and Manitoba, and its twin cities are farther north than Toronto.

• Just Asking wants to know: Minneapolis has been a flashpoint for the immigration crackdown in the U.S. What questions do you have about life in that city for the past few weeks? What would you ask organizers in Minneapolis? Send us your questions ahead of our Jan. 30 show.

John Vaughn, a resident of Stillwater, just outside St. Paul, wrote to the Twin Cities Pioneer Press last March suggesting Minnesota become Canada’s 11th province, citing similarities in accents, climate and love of hockey.

“I have long felt an affinity for our northern cousins,” he wrote, concluding that the new province could be called “Minnetoba.”

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Vaughn tells CBC News his “half-joking” proposal now seems “more reasonable” in light of recent events.

“Things have taken kind of a dark turn here,” he said.

Vaughn says he’s seen much of Canada, travelling to all the Prairie provinces, and is planning a trip to Nova Scotia.

He even turned his “Minnetoba” gag into bumper stickers, which he says his family members are too embarrassed to put on their cars.

Jokes aside, Vaughn is still worried about ICE’s presence in his home state.

“I share a lot of the sentiment with my neighbours that it’s just difficult for us to believe that this is happening,” he said. “It’s basically an invasion, and we all wish that it would stop soon.”

‘Not in the cards’

Such sentiments reflect a growing anger among Minnesotans as “masked agents of the U.S. government are killing American citizens in the streets,” said Asa McKercher, the Hudson Research Chair in Canada-US Relations at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia.

“I think it gives a sense of what a flashpoint Minnesota has become,” he said.

McKercher says residents of the Democrat-run state have a lot in common with Canadians, including similar social programs and community mindedness.

Calls to swap countries have also come from north of the border, if only in jest.

Earlier this month, in response to Trump’s threats to both ramp up tariffs and annex Canada, Ontario Premier Doug Ford told reporters he would make a counter-offer to buy Minnesota and Alaska.

However, McKercher notes that the U.S. Supreme Court established after the Civil War that a state cannot secede from the union without agreement from all other states.

The only other way to leave would be by force.

“No state has a right to do this unilaterally. So, legally, it’s just not in the cards,” he said.

A memorial for Alex Pretti stands Thursday at the site where he was shot by federal immigration agents, in Minneapolis. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)