Sunday, August 13, 2006

All the king's horses and all the king's men...

It's prediction time again! Today I'm forcasting that sometime in the next few decades, Canada's unwieldy, half-hearted confederation will collapse and a handful of new countries will be built on its ruins. I'm not sure when this will happen, but I do think it's more or less unavoidable.
This isn't something that necessarily makes me happy. Canada's been good to me and I like it enough, but I still doubt that it will last much longer. So the question now has to be, how will we put this part of N. America back together again? Will it be only two countries, Quebec and the remains of Canada? I doubt it very much, but it's a possibility. I think it's much more likely that when Canada falls off the wall we'll end up with a bunch of new, much smaller independent nations.
I've been thinking about this since I read an article the other day about how many times in the past 50 years we've seen breakup of large countries into smaller ones. (eg: British Empire, Yugoslavia, Czecholovakia, USSR, Somalia unofficially, etc.) The point the writer was trying to make was that smaller countries are more economically viable (think Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Taxhavenia, etc.), and are often more democratic (assuming it's easier to have your voice heard when there are less people shouting).
I'm not sure if I agree with his premise, but if/when Canada has a great fall I'm willing to put his theories to the test. That said, how do you think Canada should be divided up?
Here's how I'd like to see it, please leave your own ideas in the comments.
1. Atlantic Canada, although preferably with a better name. We'd have to be sure that we kept Labrador out of Quebec's clutches, but Newfies are tough bastards so it shouldn't be too hard.
2. Quebec. Honestly, I'd probably still want to live in Montreal even if Quebec becomes a separate country.
3. Ontario, although I'm sure they'd still call themselves Canada and probably wouldn't even notice that anything had changed.
4. Manitoba and Saskatchewan. I'm not sure why, but I think a country made up out of these two provinces would be one of the coolest possible results. I don't know enough about Manitoban and Saskatchewanian (wow, is that even right? Christ.) culture to know if they'd be compatible or not, but I'd totally visit this country. Only in fall though.
5. Alberta. See above comments about Manisaskoba and change them to the exact opposite. This country would be full of rich, self-important conservatives. So really, no change here. Maybe they'd call themselves Ontario?
6. BC and Yukon. I'm okay with BC, despite all the hippies, and the Yukon is everybody's favourite little territory. Put them together and you'd have a place I'd be happy to visit. Don't know if I'd live there though. One's too cold and the other's too full of dread locks and granola.
7. Nunavut and the NWT. Give this country back to the Inuit and I bet they'd make it a smash hit in a decade. I have absolutely no facts to back this assertion up with, but I bet this country would have a coolness factor that would rival Mexico's. Which would be great, as we'd then have both ends of the continent cooled-up. Now if only we could rid the middle part of it's excessive blandness.
Honourable Mention: Atlantic Canada should totally get Maine. Really, what does America need with Maine? Stephen King? He's done so many drugs that he's practically an honourary Canadian already. Go look at a map and check out Maine. It just sticks up there next to southern Quebec, totally out of place. It's already leaning this way. Make the jump Maine, you know you want to.

1 comment:

lucifuge said...

i like your setup. i would love to claim quebec-- but only because they're cool-- but they've been wanting a way out for a while-- so they can go on their francaphoneown, and i can visit. i think we should actually dig ontario out and push it adrift into the sea. i like the idea of giving the north automomy. i've always felt i'd like to see the west all as one big lump, but you're right-- alberta can subsist on its own-- financially and politically-- and if the atlantic provinces can survive on their own, so can Manisaskoba, i guess. i think yukon should go with NWT and nunavut though, and let the whiny BCians be on their damned own. the yukon is too cool for them.