51st state? No thanks, says B.C. MLA after receiving U.S. senator’s ‘nonsense’ pitch

The B.C. legislature is pictured as people walk in downtown Victoria, B.C., on Wednesday, April 23, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

A British Columbia legislator said he went from “disappointed” to “enraged” after receiving a pitch from a Republican state senator for Canada’s four western provinces to join the United States.

Brennan Day, with the Opposition B.C. Conservative Party, said his office had to first confirm the authenticity of the “nonsense” letter from Maine Sen. Joseph Martin after receiving it last week.

Martin’s three-page pitch said if B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba were to seek admission to the United States after referendum votes, it would have to be as full American states.

“This would not be annexation. It would be adoption — welcoming home kindred spirits, who were born under a different flag but who desire to live under our Constitution and accept our responsibilities, customs, and traditions,” he wrote in the letter shared by Day.

Martin said in the letter that his appeal is not a “fantasy of empire” but a “vision deeply rooted in American tradition” that would give the four provinces a chance to “leave behind failing ideologies.”

“For too long, Canadian citizens have been subjected to an illusion of freedom administered through bureaucratic means,” he wrote, adding that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, “while lofty in rhetoric, provides no absolute protection.”

He said this was in contrast to the U.S. Bill of Rights.

Martin said “millions of people currently frustrated by central authority, moral decay, and bureaucratic suffocation” would be rewarded by “liberty” if the four provinces were to join the United States.

“The welcome mat is out,” he concluded.

Day said the most shocking part of the letter was its attack on Canadian institutions, like the Charter of Rights, parliamentary government, monarchism, bilingualism, multiculturalism, and the dismissal of those cornerstones as “political baggage.”

Day said in an interview that Martin needed to look at “how heavy his luggage” is. He said Martin’s party was “hauling around wheeled trunks” of baggage in the United States where the Constitution was “being torn up by Republicans.”

Day said it was not clear why Martin wrote to him, but suspected it might be due to “rhetoric” coming out of Alberta that led Martin to believe British Columbians would be interested.

Martin did not immediately respond to a request for comment left by voice mail and text.

Day said he had written a response to Martin, in which he acknowledged that Canada has problems.

“But we don’t fix them by surrendering our identity, as you suggest,” Day said in his response. “We fix them by doing what Canadians have always done — rolling up our sleeves, listening to each other, and finding common ground.”

Day said in his interview that the “overwhelming majority of Canadians” like themselves just as they are.

“We have got a lot of work to do in improving our services, and making sure that we are spending our money wisely, and getting good value for it,” Day said.

“But I don’t think anybody here looks south and goes, ‘we want more of that.’”

This report by Wolfgang Depner, The Canadian Press, was first published Aug. 15, 2025.