Forget Mexico: 41% of Americans want wall to keep Canadians out

The last time folks from Canada invaded the U.S., they burned down the White House.

No wonder Americans still hold a grudge against the Great White North, two centuries after the War of 1812.

Four in 10 Americans now agree erecting a wall along the 8,850-kilometre border between the otherwise friendly nations is a good idea, according to the latest Bloomberg Politics poll.

The notion has some Canadians considering an asset swap if the two countries agree to such a hostile separation.

“While you’re at it you should ship the Statue of Liberty to Canada, too, because you’re no longer welcoming the huddled masses,” said Thomas Caldwell, chairman of Caldwell Securities Ltd. in Toronto, tongue firmly in cheek. “I’m in favour of putting up a wall. There’s not a horde of Canadians rushing to get into America, let me tell you.” Of the 1,001 U.S. adults polled by phone from Sept. 18 to 21, 41 per cent said if a wall is built along the Mexico-U.S. border, one should be built along the Canadian one as well, including 20 per cent who strongly agree with the notion. Almost half of Americans in the southern states agree with the need for a wall.

“They don’t even know where Canada is!” said David Cockfield, a fund manager at Northland Wealth Management in Toronto.

“Seriously, what we should do is improve our relations with Cuba so all the snowbirds fly down there instead of to Florida.”

The idea of building a wall between Canada and the U.S. — the world’s longest continuous straight international border, according to the bilateral International Boundary Commission — entered the political debate after failed Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker from Wisconsin said the idea was worth additional study.

While Republican front-runner Donald Trump has pledged to build a wall along the Mexico-U.S. border, he told CBC News he wouldn’t do the same to Canada. “I love Canada,” Trump said. Gord Brown, a Conservative incumbent running in the 2015 federal election in the riding of Leeds— Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, near Ontario’s border with New York state, said the logistics of even building such a wall are mind-boggling.

“How do they plan on building a wall on the water?” Brown said. “I can see the United States from my home (across the river). I wonder how that engineering marvel of that wall would come about.”

The wall might have unintended consequences. Will Andrew Wiggins, the first pick in the NBA draft last year for the Minnesota Timberwolves, stay in his hometown of Thornhill? Will maple syrup stop flowing south from Quebec to U.S. pancake houses?

What about all that oil? Canada is the biggest supplier to the U.S., after all.

Will they leave a door open along the wall for hockey players to go south or will they hop over the wall, like the boards at NHL hockey rinks? Will actor Donald Sutherland, already miffed that he can’t vote in his native land in the Oct. 19 election, move back? Will he bring rocker Neil Young with him?

And while the residential status of famous Canadians who live in the U.S., such as singer Céline Dion and hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, would be up in the air, one Stratford, Ont., native — Justin Bieber — can probably stay right where he is, Cockfield said.

“They can have him,” he said with a laugh.