Why should Canada be independent of the US?

Great Debates
21

In the extraordinarily unlikely event that y’all Canadians come to your senses and accept our superior American culture/the Canadian hordes come swarming down across the border to conquer and rule/the U.N. Commission on Boundary Rectification rationalizes the political boundaries of North America/whatever, I can’t really see why we would do anything but accept each province as a state. (The territories would presumably continue to be territories.) On the one hand, Ontario would only be about the sixth most populous state in the newly enlarged U.S., Quebec would be way down at number 13 or so, and certainly no other province even comes close to needing to be split up purely on population grounds. On the other hand, it’s deeply ingrained in our Constitution that state = equal representation in the Senate (to the point that officially speaking even a Constitutional amendment can’t deprive a state of equal representation in the Senate); and since the Canadian provinces have each been distinct political entities for many years it doesn’t really seem likely any of them would be forced to merge. The only one whose population would be seriously out of line would be Prince Edward Island, which is markedly smaller than the current least populous U.S. state.

At least many of these issues are largely determined at the state level, so it’s not as if Ontario would necessarily have to accept Mississippi’s idea on, say, gun laws any more than Illinois does.

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Of course, we’re talking about a purely political union. Sending your taxes and your representatives to Washington instead of Ottawa (or maybe the other way around, that’s a detail :wink: ). That woudn’t make you guys any worse or nastier or crazier . . . would it?

Well, maybe . . .

23

Besides, in what the Republic of Texas claimed to be in its jurisdiction when it was annexed, there are already parts of modern-day New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma and Kansas. So we can say they already got their “five states” .
It’s sort of like a law of political physics – given free choice about it, societies already constituted into sovereign states are expected to and will resist the diminution of that sovereignty EITHER by annexation OR by seccession, in the absence of a compelling beneficial interest to be gained from it; and societies that are not completely sovereign will seek to increase *their * effective sovereignty either by obtaining greater participation in the parent entity’s decision-making, or greater autonomy (up to and including independence).

24

Despite the similarities between Canada and the U.S., there are many differences. Subtle, yet numerous. And to my surprise, even though I live in the U.S. now, as a Canadian I often find it easier to hang out with Europeans from a variety of countries – we just have more in common, and have similar interests.

Because let’s face it: there’s more to culture than what you watch on TV. French Quebeckers often argue that mass media is culture, and that English Canada is the same as the U.S. But that’s not the case, as people who have lived in both countries can tell you. Don’t believe me? Ask elfbabe, Ginger of the North, fishbicycle and others.

The OP berates the CRTC for mandating Canadian content laws, yet conveniently fails to mention that those same Canadian content laws (and, by extension, funding for Canadian programming) helped create and support French-language media as well. (Valteron is in a better position to research this than I am, but didn’t TQS start out airing almost nothing but dubbed U.S. TV shows and movies? Isn’t that still the case?)

How much funding from Telefilm Canada has supported Quebec-based artistic endeavours? In the early 90’s I used to work with fledging film-makers in Montreal, and as I recall there was plenty of government money going around, from Ottawa and from Quebec, for their work.

By that same token, please provide a citation indicating how much BellGlobeMedia and Thomson (the publishers of Maclean’s) get as tax breaks – tax breaks that aren’t duplicated for the publishers of L’actualite.

Patently untrue! Trade between provinces and states is restricted all the fricking time!. Here in the U.S., there was a recent court decision saying states had to drop some, but not all, of their restrictions on shipping alcohol across state lines. Similar restrictions exist in Canada, which is why it’s tough to procure Big Rock, Granville Island, or Keith’s in all parts of the country.

Again, patently untrue. There is no earthly reason, even if the two countries were to merge, for francophones to give up the french language. It ain’t the 20th century any more. Heck, in New Hampshire and Maine, many people descended from Quebecois expatriates are taking french lessons!

25

That’s another thing . . . Except for the island possessions, it has become a tradition in the U.S. that territories are not to continue in that status permanently; a territory is something on its way to becoming a full state. Where would Yukon and Northwest and Nunavut fit into that?

Of course, it goes without saying they would be included in the union on some terms. Yes, we’ll have Nunavut! :smiley:

[BrainGlutton vanishes from cybersight under mound of hurled rotten vegetables]

26

Personally, I see immense value to both nations in an independent Canada separate from the U.S., demonstrating to the world that there are two different ways to be a North American “melting pot” democracy. Canadian patriotic attitudes are a bit more downplayed than the flag-waving Star-Spangled Banner-playing American style. but nonetheless quite real and heartfelt.

It might further be noted, given the “provinces become states” scenario, that in addition to the three territories, Prince Edward Island is extremely small and low population by comparison to U.S. states. It’s marginally larger than Delaware in area, and only about a quarter the population of Wyoming. Quebec is marginally larger than Alaska in area, and Ontario is about 1.55 times the sixe of Texas. One Ontario district (~county), Kenora, is larger than probably half the U.S. states.

I’ll simply add a quip from Heinlein (Time Enough for Love) to the mix: “Vancouver: It was an American city made up of people smart enough to find a good way to avoid sending their taxes to Washington.” :wink:

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But we couldn’t do that! Then we’d have to deal with America-hating terrorists sneaking in through Ellesmere Island and Nunavit! :smiley:

Seriously though, I don’t think the differences of Anglophone Canada and the U.S. should be diminuated. Canada is a different country that remained–and does remain–loyal to the Crown and has its own history, founders, pioneers, and form of government. In my opinion there is much good there that I would not want to see smooshed into the United-Statesian mass, and thereby lost.

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OTOH, don’t forget that Canada’s Mother Country is not the UK, but the U.S. English-speaking Canada hardly existed before the Revolution. It was formed as a nation mostly by United Empire Loyalists fleeing the U.S. in the Revolution’s wake, plus voluntary Yankee emigrants in the following decades. That’s your “hearth culture.” From Vietnam: The Necessary War, by Michael Lind:

In Canada’s case, later waves of British immigrants would have assimilated to the culture of the American settlers. The effects are still visible. E.g., Canadians speak a distinct dialect of English, eh? But it sounds a lot closer to American “Anchorman English” than to any British dialect. In fact, it resembles “Anchorman English” more than does the Southern drawl or Boston honk. A Brit visiting the U.S. will be spotted as such immediately. Nobody’s going to guess you’re Canadian unless you bring it up.

29

Regarding the above, Lind goes on to explain how political scientists attribute the different political cultures of America (“Traditional” in the South, “Individual” in the Mid-Atlantic, “Moralist” in New England and Greater New England (the Upper Midwest and Pacific Northwest, settled first by New Englands)) to the different regions of Britain from which their first settlers originated (New England from Puritan East Anglia, etc.). And I’ve heard Canada’s welfare-state culture attributed to the “Tory Paternalism” of the upper-class United Empire Loyalists.

30

Regarding the above, Lind goes on to explain how political scientists attribute the different political cultures of America (“Traditional” in the South, “Individual” in the Mid-Atlantic, “Moralist” in New England and Greater New England (the Upper Midwest and Pacific Northwest, settled first by New Englands)) to the different regions of Britain from which their first settlers originated (New England from Puritan East Anglia, etc.). And I’ve heard Canada’s welfare-state culture attributed to the “Tory Paternalism” of the upper-class United Empire Loyalists.

31

The problem with this is that

  1. Canada really does not have much more of a “welfare state” than the United States does,

  2. What differences there are mostly after World War II, a bit late to be ascribing much influence to the UELs, and

  3. A “Welfare state” culture would have been utterly foreign to United Empire Loyalists. There was no such thing as a “welfare state” in 1780.

32

No, but (as I heard the theory explained) there was a general sense of noblesse oblige, on the part of the elite and, consequently, the state. As in Britain, long before the National Health system was conceived of. Read any novel that features a country squire; he’s expected to be the leader in charity, etc.

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E.g., Great Expectations. Why does Miss Havisham pay for Pip’s indenture? Because doling out patronage is what a lady of her station does.

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Yes on all three counts, but only because power corrupts and Canada has virtually no power. :wink:

I would love to see North America mature enough to form one huge Union with but one very small border. I would love to see it, but I do not expect to ever see it.
How do the sparcely populated territories of Canada compare to Wyoming’s. That is our lowest population at only 493,782.
I think the Yukon’s is ridiculous low to expect it to get any representation.
According to Wiki: 31,227.


Rank Name 	Population  Percentage of national
1   Ontario            12,541,400	38.9%	
2   Quebec       	7,598,100 23.5%	
3   British Columbia	4,254,500 13.2%	
4   Alberta       	3,256,800 10.1%	
5   Manitoba    	1,177,600 3.6%	
6   Saskatchewan	994,100	 3.1%	
7   Nova Scotia    	937,900	 2.9%	
8   New Brunswick	752,000	 2.3%	
9   Newfoundland 	516,000	 1.6%	
10 Prince Edward        138,100	 0.4%	
11 NW Territories 	 43,000	 0.1%	
12 Yukon	         31,000	 0.1%	
13 Nunavut        	 30,000	 0.1%

I would say 9 or 10 states at most for Canada. But maybe we can do away with our current state system and come up with a different method. Our two party system is not so great.

Jim

35

There are better solutions to that.

36

I don’t see anything about that in the admission of Texas, even after double-checking the original records from 30 March 1870.

(Oh, did you mean the old version?)

37

Wiki’s take

38

I don’t have a dog in this fight, as I think both state-supported/controlled and free-market culture tends to mostly suck, but one could easily counterbalance your statement with another one: votes talk! If you don’t like state controlled culture, vote for people who want to bring in freer markets.

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[url=http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/us-tx.html]FOTW’s take.
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Quoting FOTW, which quoted some Texas law:

40

More at Snopes. (The purpose of the agreement, at the time, was to provide a safety valve to maintain the slave state-free state balance in the Senate.)