As many of you may not know (I didn’t until this morning), there is a movement in both Canada and Turks and Caicos, an island nation in the Caribbean, to join somehow. There is are even some people who think it could be made a province.
I know fairly little about the issue, but it was evaluated and rejected in the 80’s. Some resons for that were: racial tensions (?), having to support a poorer population on medicare, free trade issues (?). The main reasons in favour of this plan that I have read include: having a safe, Canadian place where Canadians can spend their money on vacation, shipping advantages.
So, what do you guys think? I’d love to have a Canadian vacation spot in the Caribbean, but I’m not very experienced in forseeing political and economic ramifications.
My lord. Silly me, I figured it was too obscure a topic to even bother searching for. Well, I am chastized. On the other hand, that thread was almost a year ago, and this issue is appearing again in the papers.
Well the issue of immigration controls kind of jumps out at you given the joy that is Haiti.
Still, I can see them becoming a new territory (1 Senate Seat, 1 in the House) but that entails a suite of federal money transfers. The current territories take $16k, $25k, and $15k respectively (NW, Nunavut, Yukon). Let’s roughly take the average for federal transfers per person to be $18k. Now there about 19,000 people down there so we might be looking at a federal transfer of $342 million. Maybe less given we’re dealing with a warm and sunny climate.
On the upside the place is structured to make integration into confederation easy. It has a single executive + executive council, a unicameral legislature and history of British law and custom.
It would make an interesting experiment in 21st century citizenship. You want to be Canadian? Come on in just sign up.
Well, this Yanqui gringo has vacationed in Provo, and had no problem finding prople to take my greenbacks, no passport, and a great time. I don’t see the percentage in it. It already has all the things a Canadian could want, without having to pay to support it. What does Canada get out of this that it doesn’t have already and it can’t keep letting the UK pay for?
There’s really no ramifications worth noting aside from the possibility of paying out more transfers. I pay enough tax dollars to other provinces as it is.
Of course, T&C could never be a province, it having maybe 12% of the population of PEI. In fact, were they to become Canadian citizens, they could all move to Canada and you’d hardy notice the increase in immigration. So you might end up with nobody left in the T&C to run the tourist joints.
I heard a comment, only half joking, that this would be the new place where all the Newfies looking for work would end up. It’d be a more agreeable climate than Ft. McMurray, anyhow.