"Insurance rates are based on risk, arent they?"Yes, but they are more defined by who gets to undemocratically draw the [red] lines. My point is that there is should be one line, the Michigan borders, and the total amount of risk be divvied up. Why should someone who lives in a secure property in Detroit and commutes to a job in a suburb pay more than someone from that suburb who commutes to Detroit? Insurance companies use red-lining as a divide and conquer strategy allowing them to charge higher rates to everyone but getting people in lower rate areas to think "At least I am not paying as much as they are." A single rate district for the state would allow consumers to contest the insurance companies rate policies and even form consumer unions to negotiate lower rates for all of us.
"The difference between the two countries is like night and day, and Canada LIKES it that way." Yes many in Canada do like the separation and treaty will not affect sovereignity, but now that the requirement for Americans to have passports for reentry into the US, their tourism industry is being greatly impacted. Also the cost of delays of commerce which runs into the hundreds of millions annually is a loser for all. None of this waste exists in the European Union.
As for the countries being as different as day and night, I defy you to name any two neighboring countries who have less differences than we do. From our language, outside the Quebec, area, standard of living, dress styles, tastes, culture, our at-parity currencies and more we are almost indistinguishable. Unlike many countries of the European Union, we have not murdered millions of each other citizens in wars, have been at peace for almost two centuries and are allies in war now and in the past. If anything our mutual civility has worked against such a treaty.