First, on 1 April 1999, the Northwest Territories was split into two parts. The western part is still called the Northwest Territories and the capital is still Yellowknife. The eastern part is called Nunavut, and its capital is Iqaluit. The territories were roughly split down the line between the territory of the Dene Indians and the Inuit, with Nunavut (meaning “Our Land”) intended to be an Inuit homeland.
With regard to their status, they have less power than provinces (i.e. power relating to their affairs is more centralized in Ottawa than power relating to provincial affairs).
As others have mentioned, there is very little likelihood of all of Canada merging with the United States, because Quebec has about as much interest in joining the U.S. as France and Great Britain do with each other.
The key outstanding question is what would happen if Quebec became independent. Depending on how the arctic regions were divided up, you would likely end up with Canada in two pieces, i.e. a east and west Canada. And we all know how well East and West Pakistan worked out.
What I’ve seen floated is the thought that if Quebec became independent, east Canada, i.e. the maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland, might decide they have more in common with Maine and New Hampshire than with either Ontario et al. or Quebec. (And these three provinces are already conveniently state-sized.)
And if Joe Homeless needs a liver transplant because of his alcohol abuse, or a lung transplant because he smokes, or treatment for AIDS because he shot up smack, should peaceful honest people minding their own business have their property seized and pillaged, with the remainder doled out to his clinic?
What is with this sudden (as far as I can tell) wealth fetish of yours? And this manifest determination that you will manipulate peaceful honest people to further your own ends? No wonder you ascribed some horrible metaphor to Libertaria General. What gives? And please spare me the explanations about how you care about poor people. So do I. But I don’t believe that gives me (or you or Senator Fatcat) the right to steal even one cent from Bill Gates.
A quick side note–if one or more Canadian province did join the United States, would the name of the country be changed to the USPA, i.e. the United States and Provinces of America?
A point I forgot to note is that the United States allows individual states a fair amount of flexibility, so this question of health care is not necesarily an “all or nothing” proposition–it may be possible to set up some sort of “one nation–two systems” setup. Since individual states have the right to tax their own citizens, some of the former provinces could go ahead and work out their own health care system for their own residents. They might even get some of the original U.S. states to join in on a combined plan. I suspect this wouldn’t be as comprehensive as the current Canadian setup, but they might be able to come up with a “lite” version. It would be up to the voters to decide what they wanted.
Some of the posts seem so oblivious to the Canadian dislike for being confused with Americans. I’m sure they have absolutely no interest.
The regrettable part is that in a de facto sense a lot of it has happened. They work unnoticed in our cities, our film industry, they get our newspapers and television shows (no wonder they’re annoyed!) and Toronto looks a lot like a lot of American cities. But their own level of annoyance is such that they are all aglow over some silly beer commercial supposedly pointing out the differences between Americans and Canadians–they struggle pretty hard to find some, btw, judging by how trivial some of the comments are. But such is life.
Matt: I for one am perfectly well aware of the Francophone culture, something of its history, and how it resists being submerged in an Anglo-American melting pot. And it’s fascinating to see how many people (everybody but you and me, I would venture to guess) equate “French Canada” and “Quebec.” Parts of Quebec are as monolingual Anglophone as rural Kansas (though not with the same accent!). And there are Francophone communities in several provinces – New Brunswick and Ontario at least, and I remember reading about a Manitoban community’s efforts to preserve its French-Canadian culture.
The one thing that gripes me about Quebec (albeit as an outsider with no real right to an opinion) is the Francophone insistence that Canada be a bilingual country (fine by itself) but that Quebec as a province be aggressively French-speaking, so that an Anglophone without French is at as much a loss trying to deal with his/her affairs there as he/she would be in, say, Ouagadougou. Either would be acceptable in my view, though I would favor across-the-board bilingualism; both together are contradictory. I can understand the rationale – preservation of a regional minority culture – but it is nonetheless a case of having one’s cake and eating it too. And I fear that down the road it will backfire on the Francophone community.
I’d welcome your feedback on these views as a Quebecois. (By the way, does Channel 2 CBFT still insist on playing “O Canada” in French only?)
Lib., I’ve always been concerned for the poor. I may never have mentioned that my wife is a Third Order Anglican Franciscan and I’m affiliated with the group. But it has been an issue dear to both of us, and a part of our Christian vocation, to advocate for them and try to help them in practical ways. It’s not a “wealth fetish” – it’s simple recognition that those with minimal resources may need what I can do to help more than those with more.
I find “loving your fellow man” and “leaving peaceful honest people alone to run their lives as they will” quite rational – until you get to the point that sometimes they are unable to “run their lives as they will” – because what they need costs more on the open market than what they are able to pay. Yes, I do take your examples of self-abuse requiring medical care seriously. You would therefore suggest that all AIDS research be terminated? Or the benefits of it restricted to those of “sterling moral character (presumably by Jesse Helms standards)?” I don’t mean to return snideness for snideness, but my point earlier about anything to extremes being unethical is I think valid here. I presume Libertaria will levy taxes for those particular activities that it considers a government appropriate for. In my opinion, which I am not attempting to thrust upon you, the degree of health care I specified above is a proper use for taxation – and far more so than the running of economic development zones, government-supported product-promotion activities, and so on. I think I understand where you are coming from politically, and can accept how you fit it into your vision of your Christian duty; please do me the courtesy of allowing me to disagree with you and accepting that what I think fits into my vision of mine, albeit at the cost of warping one of your ethical principles into near-oblivion.
Mark, just what Canadians are going unnoticed? Jim Carrey, Shania twain, Celine Dion, Bare Naked Ladies, Bryan Adams, William Shatner, James Doohan, David Foster, Fred Rogers, Neve Campbell, Keifer Sutherland, Donald Sutherland, Mary Pickford, Michael J. Fox, Wayne Gretzky, and the list could go on and on.
We do not like being identified as Americans because we are Canadians. There is a difference. America does bombard us with their media all the time and more than a few Americans I know have been ticked off over that little beer ad. What about the IamCanadian ad gets you upset? The line where Joe says he can proudly sew his flag on his backpack? Maybe when he says he believes in peacekeeping and not policing? Maybe just having someone say that his country is the greatest on earth when it isn’t America?
For all our similarities we are still not you and I damn proud of that simple fact. I like Americans but that doesn’t mean I want to be one.
Our two countries differ enough that I do not see them becoming one for a very long time, if ever.
I see what you’re saying. However, look at it from the other side: how easy would it be for a French person to get services in French from the provincial government in Regina? Correct answer: not very. And why is that? Because Saskatchewan is an Anglophone province. And Quebec is a Francophone province. And since Canada is a federation of Anglophone and Francophone provinces, it is a bilingual country.
Much as I dislike the PQ, I have to say that their rhetoric about “the best-treated minority” is at least broadly accurate; as regards availability of services in their mother tongue, an Anglophone in Montreal fares quite a bit better than, say, a Francophone in Iqaluit.
By the way, I should clear up a misconception: I’m a Quebecer, but I’m not a Quebecois. Of course, en français je suis québécois because that means both “Quebecois (pure laine de souche)” and “Quebecer (resident of Quebec)”.
Quebecer is a geodemographic term, Quebecois an ethnic term, and québécois both.
A corollary question is what would have happened if the 1770-1780s U.S. struggle for independence had failed. It is possible that these lower British possessions would have successfully risen up in revolt again later. However, if the people waited until Great Britain peacefully granted the area independence, would the mother country have set up a single North American confederation, or two or more entities? (Remember that Newfoundland didn’t join Canada until 1947, if I remember correctly).
Thanks for the clarification, Matt. I was under the impression that every government entity was required to provide its services in both languages (though for West Fleabite, Saskatchewan, having the local librarian on call to translate is quite adequate).
Lib., a non-answer. Rather than hijack this thread again (and the “health-care war” was sufficient hijack to start with), let me take some time to read your “Ask the L.O.C.” in depth (which I haven’t done yet) and then respond there or in a new thread to the implication of your question – which I understand to be, more or less, “In your opinion, Poly, when if ever is it moral to compel some standard of behavior by government power?” Is that acceptable?
Feynn I meant that Canadians go unnoticed not as people but as CANADIANS in the USA. They blend in. People here assume those you have mentioned are Americans. They are often shocked to find otherwise.
BTW, considering that my post was largely in defense of your viewpoint, I don’t quite understand why you are so defensive.
Anyone for another round of “manifest destiny”? I submit that many of our current conflicts are due to the British tendency to split up its former colonial possessions into competing countries (viz. the Middle East), instead of creating a more natural single, unified political entity.
Thus, I submit that it is the “manifest destiny” of the former British holdings throughout North America to put away their differences, and form a combined “Union of North America”. This would consist of the United States, Canada (sans Quebec, unless they ask nicely to be included), the Bahamas, Jamaica, and the other English speaking islands, and, why not, Belize too. Also, Quebec gets St. Pierre & Miquelon, because we don’t want those imperialistic French lurking off our shores.
Well, there are some states that don’t call themselves states…like the commonwealth of Massachussets. But we don’t call ourselves the United States and Commonwealths of America. If a province wanted to leave Canada and join the US, they’d be free to keep calling themselves a “province”, but they’d be a state for all other purposes. The new country would still be the United States of America…not Canada, since Canadians are always trying to point out that they live in America too…Canada is part of North America…
