The other day I got a piece of mail addressed to “Dear Occupant.” I don’t usually open these sorts of things, but it was a quiet day, so I slit it open and had a look.
It was from a firm called “Stars and Stripes Realty” and informed me that someone was interested in acquiring my property. This was rather surprising, as you can imagine, but they gave a toll-free number — 1-800-LIBERTY — so I decided to call and see what it was all about.
After a couple of rings a man answered, and I said I’d received their letter about my property and wanted to know more.
“Really?” he asked, with rather more surprise than I expected.
“Yes,” I replied. “You have someone who wants to buy my house? It needs a bit of work: the kitchen hasn’t been updated since we moved in, and the carpet probably needs replacing, but . . .”
He cut me off. “Oh, it’s not your house my client is interested in,” he said. “It’s your country he’s looking to acquire.”
This took me aback. “My country?”
“Yes.” I heard the sound of papers being shuffled. “He wants to . . . let me see here . . . ah yes. The entire country, lock, stock, and barrel. He’s particularly interested in the lumber, minerals, precious metals, and water. Especially water. It’s mentioned several times.”
It took a moment for this to sink in. “Then your client is . . .” I started to say, but he cut me off again.
“We don’t like to mention his name. A lot of people have — strong reactions.” His tone suggested that these reactions were not necessarily positive.
“I see,” I replied, even though I didn’t. “So you’ve sent this to other people as well?”
“We did a mail-shot last month; names picked at random.” His voiced dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “You’re actually the first person I’ve spoken to about this. I’m new; we have a high turnover rate.”
“Ah,” I said. “I’m not sure that I can help you very much. It’s not really my property to sell.”
“Oh, he doesn’t want to buy it. Not precisely, that is. I think he sees it more as a takeover.”
“That sounds hostile.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” he said in a hopeful tone.
“And I don’t think he’d like it very much,” I continued. “He moved his inauguration indoors because it was going to be -5 C. Here that’s barbecue weather. Plus I doubt he’d be able to handle Celsius.”
“I see.” I could hear that he was writing. “Anything else?”
“Oh yes. He also wouldn’t like our universal health care system, or Supreme Court, or gun laws, or stance on abortion, or maternity/paternity leave allowances, or reconciliation with First Nations, or support of LGBTQ+ rights, or education system, or . . .”
“Slow down,” he begged.
"Also, we’re polite, which isn’t really his thing. And he likes to be liked, and most people here don’t like him very much. He has an approval rating of about 19 per cent nationwide.”
“Ninety per cent? That’s pretty good.”
“No, 19 per cent. One-nine.”
He stopped writing. “That’s different.”
“Very. I think he sees us as wannabe Americans, whereas we very much wanna keep being Canadians.”
There was a pause. “So, what do you think about the proposal?”
“Do you really want to know? Well . . .” I spoke for about 15 seconds. When I stopped there was silence.
“I thought you said Canadians are polite,” he said at last.
“We are,” I assured him. “But you really don’t want to get us angry.”
“Understood. I’ll mark you down as a ‘no,’ then.” His voice dropped again. ”Look . . . I’m thinking of relocating soon. Can you tell me more about this universal health care thing? I kind of like the sound of that.”
“Happy to,” I replied. “After all, we’re nothing if not polite. And what are friends for?”
