WAS: Re: Alternate history BUT discussing Canada and stuff (OTish)

I'm answering 'cause the question was asked, and though it is veering
dangerously off topic, there might still be some other interested
viewers...

>Just a question...Back in the 80's I saw a TV program about Canada's
latest
>struggle to remain a country.	They were running around asking citizens
of
>various provences what they thought should happen if Canada did break
up.
The
>general consensous of those asked, (excepting Quabeck...OK my spelling
is
>lacking -- Sorry!  I live in Michigan, and there are places here I
still have
>trouble with!

FYI, that would be "Quebec".

if Canada did break up, they had no objections to joining
>the U.S.  Then I heard the Maritime provences stating that they
definitly
would
>join the U.S. upon breakup...Shortly thereafter, the vote was
supposedly
passed
>by one(or a handfull?) to remain a country...

Passed by a very thin majority.  Less than a percent.  Very, very
close...

But that wasn't a vote to break up Canada, per se.  That was a vote by
the
people of Quebec on whether they would attempt to negotiate separation
from
Canada...  But the question of what they were voting for was very
unclear,
and many voted "yes" because they thought it would send a strong message
to
the rest of Canada and the Canadian government to pay attention to
Quebec's
issues...

The actual percentage of hardcore supporters of Quebec succession has, I
believe, never been above 40% of the Quebec population.

As to who said what about what would happen next, the "official"
position
was to say that Canada wouldn't break up, so there was no point in
discussing breakup plans.  It is unlikely that the rest of Canada would
simply fall apart and petition to join the US in bits and pieces.  Some
provinces might try to do that if the situation in Canada became such
that
continuation of the country in a new form was impossible, but several
provinces might try to go it on their own (or stay together in a
"mini-Canada"...)


>
>Is what I heard back then the truth?
>Or was I having delusions?
>Or did I just hear it wrong?

Well, "truth" in this sort of case is a rather dodgy thing...

There has not yet been a single "truth" about all this mess here in
Canada.
 There has not been a vote by Quebec to succeed, and at the moment,
support
for Quebec separation is waning rapidly.  So it might be a non-issue.

Certainly Canada is not any time soon going to be interested in joining
the
US.  
Canada is, after all, the world's seventh largest industrial economy.
We're doing rather well, relative to much of the rest of the world. 
(Well,
as to that "7th largest" comment... that would be 7th largest national
industrial economy...  I think that New York and California might have
bigger economies.... but they aren't measured separately...)

>
>Could someone in the know please clear this up for me?
>
>If that was true...Then canada would eventually disappear and the U.S.
gets
>bigger.  The long term effects would be increased natural resources for
the
>U.S., and Canada would finally get a first rate post office.  (Or has
that
been
>fixed since then?  So hard to get news of other countrys...)
>

Canada Post certainly is not one of our more favoured institutions.....

Sometimes they have amazing service.  Sometimes they have abominable
service.  If it was consistant, it would be easier to deal with, but you
just really don't know what's going to happen... :)

One point here that people tend to not consider is whether or not the US
would WANT Canada to join up, or at least parts of it.	If it were just
the
Maritime provinces hoping to join, the US might want to give some
serious
thought... these are the most economically depressed provinces in the
country, heavily dependant economically on transfer payments from the
Federal Government to maintain their provincial budgets.  This is due to
a
wide variety of historical, social, geographic, and economic factors
over a
long period of time (not least of which has been a serious neglect in
focus
by the Ontario/Quebec focussed Federal Governments of the post-WWII
period).

Until quite recently, most Canadians have tended to be rather more
"left"
in their politics than what you commonly see in the US.  Canadian
"Conservatives" have by and large maintained a right-centrist position,
the
"Liberal" party has been left-centrist, the "National Democratic Party"
is
firmly leftist (strong Socialist origins), and that was the political
scene
here until recently.  The past decade has seen the growth of the
"Reform"
party, which is a Western-focused, right wing party in some ways quite
similar to US Republicans (though I know that the Republicans cover a
very
broad range of political opinion, just as the Democrats do).  They have
not
become a full player across Canada, and have just barely been able to
hold
onto "Official Opposition" status in the House of Commons.  The other
major
party which emerged in the 1990's as a real player is the "Bloc
Quebecois",
which is a Quebec Separatist party at the federal level, and who have no
seats outside of Quebec.  Due to the vagaries of our electoral system,
in
the last Parliament, the Liberals had a huge majority and the rightist
vote
was split between the Conservatives and Reform.  That left the Bloc
Quebecois as the party holding the second highest number of seats in the
Commons, and the Quebec separatist party became the Canadian Official
Opposition.  In the current Parliament, the Reformers squeaked by into
that
status with the addition of a couple of seats at the Liberals expense.

What does all this have to do with US accepance of Canada?  Well, to put
it
bluntly, we're more "left" than you are, and a large percentage of
Canadian
voters would be scared to death by the Republican party.  It is
perfectly
conceivable that if all the Canadian provinces became US States, the
current "Balance of Power" in both the US Senate and House of
Representatives might be tipped heavily in favour of the Democrats, and
could remain that way for decades.  I think the Republicans,
particularly
if they were in a majority position in Congress OR had the presidency,
would find it difficult to agree to accept Canadian provinces into the
US
if it would result in their wholesale usurpment from positions of power
in
the Government...

And this doesn't even *scratch* the problems of integrating the two
together in terms of complexity and costs.  Though on the surface we
appear
to be similar to the US in many ways, we are fundamentally different in
most of the important stuff.  Different legal system, different
electoral
system, different constition, different economic structure, different
social welfare systems (and I mean that in the broad sense, not the
politically loaded "Welfare" sense), and quite different cultures. 
Other
people around the world may look at Canadians and Americans and not see
much difference, but *WE* see big differences.

Canadians might be willing to join up with the US if that were the best
option in a series of bad choices (and don't take that the wrong way -
it
certainly isn't meant to be insulting, but when looking at the
disbandment
of your country it is understandable that people would not be happy
about
it...), but would almost certainly prefer to stay independant if it is
possible to do so without really big drops in the standard of living,
etc.

As far as the whole GZGverse CANON history goes, we know that Canada
joined
into the NAC as a "founding member" and several of us have debated the
nature of how the NAC might function.  Is it a confederation of states,
with more or less equal members based around the originating countries
and
states of the US which came in separately (after the civil war) or is it
a
British-run super-state, with an imposed peerage system and etc.  Most
of
us tended toward some kind of "confederation of states" model.

The various people on-list who are creating their own alternative
histories
of the GZGverse might want to consider what I've been talking about,
when
they look at this little bit of the world.  It is unlikely any time soon
that Canada would want to become part of the US, even in the face of
Quebec
separation.  Perhaps joining WITH the US in the creation of a new state
of
some kind?  Some have suggested the US and Canada breaking up into
smaller
bits, forming a new grouping of entirely new states around common
geography, for example (ie the Pacific Northwest states and Provinces
all
getting together).  

This might be fun from a story point of view, but I personally think the
Canada/UK/USA mega state (even if it isn't the NAC, per se) idea is more
likely.  People might be tempted to have Quebec jump in with the FSE or
equiv., but the Quebecois, unless their economy changes SIGNIFICANTLY in
favour of foreign trade, are completely reliant on trade with the US and
the rest of Canada as one of the prime foundations of their economy.  I
just don't buy the idea that they would separate themselves entirely
from
North America by saddling up with the Europeans, even if they might want
to.  They *aren't* Europeans, even if they do speak French, and would be
more likely to try to negotiate some kind of
independant-but-protected-and-partners-with-the-US status, because they
wouldn't have much choice otherwise...

And of course, since what people are doing is writing FICTION, as
someone
else pointed out, you can do whatever you like... :)

But that's my $0.02 point of view as someone who lives here in the
middle
of it all.

Now what might be interesting is to investigate further the internal NAC
problems that come up with integrating all these diverse peoples
(particularly when the NAC snatches Mexico and South America and
incorporates hundreds of millions of non-US hispanics).  How does that
work
in the "present" of the GZGverse?  The NAC seems to come across in the
CANON histories as a pretty homogenious bunch (at least no internal
struggle is discussed).  There has been a rash of people who have
developed
their own pocket powers as break-offs from the NAC, and that's one of
the
potential results.  But maybe the NAC isn't as vanilla as it might be
seen
to be, and maybe there is all kinds of internal troubles, that could be
exploited by them nefarious foreigners...

Anyway, it's late and I'm not going to subject the list to more rambling
:)

Adrian.