‘Minnetoba’? Some Minnesotans want to join Canada as tensions flare with the Trump administration
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As anger grows over the deployment of federal immigration agents to Minnesota, some in the state are looking for a novel solution — to become Canada’s 11th province.
Jesse Ventura, former champion wrestler who was the governor of the country from 1999 to 2003, launched this idea last weekend.
“Instead of Canada becoming the 51st state of America and losing health care … I’d like to see us all become Canadians,” Ventura, now a political analyst, said in an episode of the SpinSisters podcast.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents shot and killed two people in Minneapolis this month amid massive protests demanding they leave the state. US President Donald Trump sent agents to Minneapolis and St. Paul in early December, the latest cities in his ongoing and controversial immigration administration.
Ventura said it’s “obvious” that Trump doesn’t want Minnesotans, and he’s sure Canada would be “happy” to take them.
When the podcast hosts laughed, he doubled down.
“I’m serious about this,” Ventura, who has a history of unconventional ideas, said bluntly. “I think someone should contact Canada and ask them if they are ready for this.”
It is not a new idea
For Minnesotans, the idea is not new.
They have speculated about the possibility in online posts, and advocates have appeared in local news outlets over the years, with renewed interest in recent months.
The province shares a border with Ontario and Manitoba, and its twin cities are further north than Toronto.
John Vaughn, a resident of Stillwater, just outside of St. Paul, wrote to the Twin Cities Pioneer Press last March suggesting that Minnesota be Canada’s 11th province, citing similarities in names, climate and love of hockey.
“I have long felt in love with our northern cousins,” he wrote, concluding that the new province could be called “Minnetoba.”
Donald Trump has signaled that he wants to end the tension in Minnesota after a second fatal shooting by federal agents in the state, but the US president’s promise is met with skepticism by protesters and fears of immigration raids.
Vaughn tells CBC News his “ridiculous” proposal now seems “reasonable” given recent events.
“Things have changed a lot here,” he said.
Vaughn says he has seen most of Canada, going to all the Prairie provinces, and is planning a trip to Nova Scotia.
He even turned his “Minnetoba” hat into giant stickers, which he says his family members are embarrassed to put on their cars.
Jokes aside, Vaughn remains concerned about ICE’s presence in his country.
“I hear a lot from my neighbors that it’s hard for us to believe that this is happening,” he said. “It’s an attack, and we all wish it would stop soon.”
‘Not in the cards’
Such sentiments reflect the growing anger among Minnesotans as “masked agents of the US government kill American citizens in the streets,” said Asa McKercher, Hudson’s Research Chair in Canada-US Relations in St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia.
“I think it gives the sense that it has become a flashpoint in Minnesota,” he said.
McKercher says citizens of the Democrat-run country have many things in common with Canadians, including similar communication systems and social thinking.
Calls to switch countries have also come north of the border, if only as a joke.
Earlier this month, in response to Trump’s threats to raise tariffs and annex Canada, Ontario Premier Doug Ford told reporters he would make a deal to buy Minnesota and Alaska.
However, McKercher notes that the US Supreme Court established after the Civil War that a state could not secede from the union without the agreement of all other states.
The only way to go would be by force.
“No state has the right to do this unilaterally. So, legally, it’s just not in the cards,” he said.
