by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Canada, these days, is a dirty word in the USA. Right-wing pinheads like Pat "Soviet Canuckistan" Buchanan, Tucker Carlson and the lunatic Ann Coulter dismiss us placid, pacific northerners for being, in a word, pussies. Maybe they have a point: we don't have a predisposition for firearm homicide or invading Third World countries.

And we like it that way. So does Russell Aminzade, a 52-year-old Burlington, Vermont, resident who's proposed that his state secede from the Union and become Canada's 11th province. He started his movement and Web site, www.vermontcanada.org, in the days following a certain dark November day, when all hope of federal moderation seemed fleeting. In the days after the elections, Aminzade started taking a closer look at Canada's policies and realized that they were much closer to his vision of running a country than those of the red state creationist crowd.

"This started just as a way of pointing out issues that are important to me," he says. "I wanted to point out what this country could be if our policies were more like Canada's." To wit: universal health insurance, gay marriage rights, easier abortion and contraception access, ratifying Kyoto and, of course, a preference for diplomacy over war.

The plan is at little more than discussion level at this stage, but in 2006 Aminzade hopes that Vermont's annual town hall meetings will recommend that the legislature at least study the secession proposal. The precedents aren't great: the last time a state wanted to secede, the U.S. found itself in a very bloody civil war. Politically, things could be difficult as well. "Any politician, I think, would be well advised to stay as far away from this as possible," he adds.

While he admits that part of his motivation is to "tweak the nose of the right wing," it's not simply a running gag. "I fully intend to have fun with this and make it enjoyable," he says. "But if things in this country get seriously worse, we'll get serious very quickly."