If Canada completely broke apart, I think you’d see something like this:
BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan joined together. This would make a very strong little nation - BC has the ocean ports and plenty of interior resources like timber and Okanagan fruit. Alberta is an oil powerhouse. Saskatchewan has tons of farmland and major uranium resources among other assets. If Alberta diverted the money it pays in equalization to helping build up the economies of BC and Saskatchewan, we’d see a very viable, growth-oriented country.
Manitoba might throw it’s lot in with the west, but my guess is that it would go with Ontario, and the maritimes might join with Ontario, leaving Quebec to itself.
The other possibility is that Manitoba and Ontario would join the west, and the Maritimes would become U.S. states, I suppose.
Since Canada isn’t in any danger of breaking up right now, what form a breakup takes depends on the nature of the pressures driving the breakup in the first place. If it’s Western alienation the results will be a lot different than if it’s Quebec leaving.
A more natural split in North America might be more east-west than north-south. People in Oregon have lots in common with people in BC. People in Alberta aren’t much different than people in Montana. And Windsor has lots in common with Detroit.
How about splitting North America right down the middle, with the border roughly going from the east side of Texas up through to the east side of Manitoba?
As a Newfoundlander, I need to fight some ignorance.
OP, you left out Newfoundland entirely from your “split up” of Canada.
Newfoundland is an Atlantic province, NOT a maritime province. I see this all the time and it’s appeared several times in this thread. Please, get your facts straight when it comes to the East Coast of Canada.
You know what I hate? When people call Newfoundland a province.
As an East Coaster, I need to fight some ignorance.
Newfoundland is NOT a province. I see this all the time and it’s appeared several times in this thread. Please, get your facts straight when it comes to the Atlantic provinces of Canada.
Shamozzle, if the federal government were to POOF out of existence, what would happen, really, is that the Canadian people would demand its reconstitution. For all the whining and bitching, we do like being Canadians.
Most Ontarians and Albertans don’t mind their good fortunre helping the poorer provinces. It’s when they whine and bitch about it and refuse to fly Canadian flags that one starts to wonder if maybe we shouldn’t use our political power to find a way to cut all that money off. He who pays the piper does, after all, call the tune, and he who’s cashing the welfare checks and drinking all winter shouldn’t complain too loudly.
Correct. I don’t think that blindly giving people money helps them in the long run. They just keep doing more of what keeps them in debt. There is no incentive to change and adapt.
It’s funny, you know? I asked a guy I knew who was from NL why Newfoundland and Labrador were one and he said that way back when, the powers that be thought the two were connected.
I never considered that he might have actually been referring to dogs…
