April 28, 2005

The next five states in the Union?

Austin Bay has an interesting column up on whether Canada is the next failed state.

Crazy? Not really. As the AdScam scandal metastisizes (thanks in large part to Captain Ed), Paul Martin's Liberal Party is doomed. Think of what happened to the Republicans in the November 1974 elections, and imagine it as the signal to George Wallace to lead the South out of the Union (again). The analogy here is apt as to what the Liberal crack-up is going to do for the Parti Quebecois, the crazy nutters who want to overturn the injustice of the French & Indian War by becoming their own separate nation, seceding from Canada.

What happens to the pieces? This is where Bay does some interesting speculation:

Here's a thumbnail sketch of that analysis: Say Quebec does become a separate European-style nation-state -- a "people" with cultural, linguistic, religious and historical identity (never mind the objections of Mohawk and Cree Indians living in Quebec). Quebec has the people and resources to make a go of it, though the economic price for its egotism will be stiff. British Columbia also has "nation-state" assets: Access to the sea, strong industrial base, raw materials and an educated population.

Oil-producing Alberta might join the United States and instantly find common political ground with Alaska, Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma. Canada's struggling Atlantic provinces might find statehood economically attractive and extend the New England coastline. A rump Canada consisting of "Greater Ontario" -- with remaining provinces as appendages -- might keep the maple-leaf flag aloft. As for poor, isolated Newfoundland: Would Great Britain like to reacquire a North American colony?

British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Yukon, and Manitoba as American states? What would be the legal precedent for such a thing?

There actually is: it was the Eleventh Article of Confederation, approved back in 1781, and calls for the automatic admission of Canada into the United States.

ARTICLE XI Canada acceding to this confederation, and joining in the measures of the united states, shall be admitted into, and entitled to all the advantages of this union: but no other colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine states.

Stranger things have been known to happen.

UPDATE: More secession talk, this time in northern New England.

Posted by Steve at April 28, 2005 02:51 PM
Comments

I think you might have the "new states" wrong. Bay lists Alberta specifically, but I believe the Atlantic provinces he's talking about are New Brunswick, PEI, and Nova Scotia. He may be including Labrador also.

Not quite as glamorous, but full of seafood, so that's not so bad.

The remaining "rump Canada" would basically be Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nunavut, and the Northwest Territories. Lots of land, not many people outside three urban areas.

Posted by: Jimmie at April 28, 2005 03:15 PM

We live in a swamp, we need all the land we can get!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at April 28, 2005 07:31 PM

Manitoba and Saskatechewan have at least as much in common with Alberta as with Ontario. I can't see them staying in a rump Canada once Alberta and BC left. And I've been saying for years that I think Alberta, not Quebec, would be the first province to secede: once the extraction technology is cost-effective, the Albertan tar sands could make the Saudi oil reserves look like a drop in the ocean, and there's no way they're going to want Ottawa getting its hands on that.

Posted by: Dave J at April 29, 2005 01:39 AM

If there really is global warming, having the western provinces will offset the loss of Florida.

Posted by: RobertJ at April 29, 2005 11:41 AM

I can't see the Atlantic provinces applying for statehood, no matter how economically advantageous it might be; the disdain for the U.S. (not to be confused with anti-Americanism) is too high.

Something between a "mutual defense" pact where it is tacitly understood that the U.S. will do all the defending, and a Puerto Rican-style commonwealth arrangement might be palatable.

Posted by: John "Akatsukami" Braue at April 29, 2005 08:03 PM
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