Proposed provinces and territories of Canada
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Proposed provinces and territories of Canada
Since Canadian Confederation in 1867, there have been several proposals for new Canadian provinces and territories. The Constitution of Canada requires an amendment for the creation of a new province[1] but the creation of a new territory requires only an act of Parliament;[2] therefore, it is easier legislatively to create a territory than a province.
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Movements within Canada
See also: Secessionist movements of Canada
Throughout the history of Canada, there have been movements seeking the creation of new economic unions, provinces and territories.
| Area | Land | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Atlantic Canada | Maritime Union | A proposed political union of the three Maritime provinces of Canada to form a single new province which would be the fifth-largest in Canada by population.[3] The Maritime Union has sometimes been expanded to a proposed Atlantic Union which would also include the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.[3] |
| Acadia | This was promoted by the Parti Acadien and is similarly represented by the unrecognized state "Republic of Madawaska".[4] The Parti Acadien supported the creation of a separate province, in tandem with most (but not all) Acadian Society of New Brunswick members.[4] The party went into the 1978 election with a platform of independence.[5] However, Richard Hatfield and the governing Progressive Conservatives also promoted a platform that promised to increase the role of the Acadian people and culture within the province.[4] | |
| Cape Breton Island | An island that had been a separate colony, but was incorporated into Nova Scotia.[6] Provincehood had been advocated by the Cape Breton Labour Party.[7] | |
| Labrador | The mainland portion of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Labrador Party has campaigned on the platform of a separate province.[8] | |
| Nunatsiavut | An area in northern Labrador, it is inhabited mainly by Inuit, many of whom wish to leave Newfoundland and Labrador and form a territory similar to Nunavut.[9] It has recently[when?] been granted certain self-government powers, while remaining within the province.[9] Similar Inuit and First Nation territories, such as Nunavik, are seeking the same status as Nunatsiavut.[10] | |
| Quebec | Province of Montreal | A proposal to separate the city of Montreal, its metropolitan region or its English and non-Francophone regions into a separate province from Quebec, becoming the 11th province of Canada. There have been several proposals of this nature from mid-20th century onwards.[11] Around the time of the 1995 Quebec referendum on sovereignty, a self-named 'partition' movement flourished, advocating the separation of certain areas of Quebec, particularly the English-speaking areas such as Montreal's West Island, in the event of Quebec separation, with such areas remaining part of Canada.[12] This movement is no longer active.[12] |
| Kanienkehaka | During the runup to the 1995 Quebec referendum, Mohawk leaders asserted a sovereign right to secede from Quebec if Quebec were to secede from Canada.[13] In the CBC Television documentary Breaking Point, the Quebec Premier at the time, Jacques Parizeau, said that had the referendum succeeded, he would have allowed the Mohawk communities to secede from Quebec, on the grounds that they had never given up their sovereign rights.[14] | |
| Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean | André Harvey, the former federal MP for Chicoutimi—Le-Fjord, was attributed with the idea of creating a new province encompassing the highly separatist area of Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean in Quebec, on the premise that it has a culture distinct from the rest of Quebec and already has its own flag.[15] | |
| Ontario | National Capital Region | At various times, provincial, territorial or special federal status has been proposed for the metropolitan area consisting of Ottawa, Ontario and Gatineau, Quebec, so that the national capital region would be a district like the Australian Capital Territory or Washington, D.C.[16] |
| Northern Ontario | The Northern Ontario Heritage Party advocated the creation of a separate province by dividing from Southern Ontario in the 1970s, although the party did not attract widespread electoral support.[17] A newer group, the Northern Ontario Secession Movement, began a similar campaign in 2006, but did attract the same degree of attention.[18] On a more modest scale, Sudbury's Northern Life community newspaper has also published a number of editorials in recent years[when?] calling on the province to create a new level of supraregional government that would give the Northern Ontario region significantly more autonomy over its own affairs within the province.[19] The Northern Ontario Heritage Party was reregistered in 2010,[20] although in its current incarnation it advocates increased regional autonomy and has stopped short of calling for a new province. | |
| Northwestern Ontario | In 2006, some residents of Northwestern Ontario proposed that the region secede from Ontario to join Manitoba, due to the perception that the government of Ontario does not pay sufficient attention to the region's issues. One paper in Canadian Public Policy suggested the region merge with Manitoba to form a new province called "Mantario."[21] | |
| Province of Toronto | The largest city in Canada. Some have argued that the rest of Ontario benefits from Toronto more than the reverse.[22] Some activists have lobbied for a separate Province of Toronto; former Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman, while in office, floated the idea because of what he perceived as the province's excessive draining of tax resources from Toronto without providing sufficient support for public services within the city.[22] | |
| Western Canada | Province of Buffalo | Buffalo was a proposal for the creation of a new Canadian province in the early 1900s.[23] It would have been composed of the southern halves and main cities (Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, and Regina) of the present day provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in which the capital would have been located in Regina, while the northern halves would remain in the North-West Territories. Its main proponent was Sir Frederick Haultain, then-Premier of the North-West Territories, who said in 1904 that "One big province would be able to do things no other province could." However the proposal was not popular, especially with a majority of Calgarians and Edmontonians, who each had their own ambitions to be a capital city (Edmonton eventually becoming the capital of Alberta). Then-Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier divided the region vertically into the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.[24] |
| Northern Canada | Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut | Each of the three Canadian territories is/has been home to movements lobbying for territorial political status to be upgraded to full provincehood.[25] |
Movements outside of Canada
Current British overseas territories
Britain has transferred some of its overseas territories to Commonwealth countries in the past. Two current British territories have expressed interest in joining Canada:
| Polity | Description |
|---|---|
| Turks and Caicos Islands | A British overseas territory in the Caribbean. There is some support for it to join Canada, and in 2004 Nova Scotia voted to invite Turks and Caicos to join that province, in the event of the islands becoming Canadian. However, the islands' small economy and Canada's involvement in Haiti has made this controversial. On 2 March 2009, the Ottawa Citizen ran an article on its website reporting the interest of the Canadian government to open a deep-water port in the Caribbean that would "opened up a new market for Canadian goods".[26] The article proposed that "the port, unaffordable for Caribbean countries [would] boost the standard of living and bolstered hemispheric security... as a Canadian military operations base for countries wanting help to patrol their waters and to interdict the Caribbean's robust trade in smuggled arms, drugs and people".[26] In the 1990s support for integration into Canada as an "11th province" was at 90%.[27] Peter Goldring, a Conservative MP from Edmonton, has championed the cause of integrating the Turks and Caicos Islands as a Canadian territory for security benefits and to increase Canada's influence in Central and Southern America in regards to anti-terrorism and trade. |
| Bermuda | In 1949 Henry Vassey, then Chairman of the Bermuda Trade Development Board, urged the House of Assembly of Bermuda to pursue a political union with Canada. Four Methodist church congregations in Bermuda are part of the United Church of Canada, forming Bermuda Presbytery of the United Church's Maritime Conference headquartered in Sackville, New Brunswick.[28] |
Former British overseas territories
See also: Canada–Caribbean relations
Former British territories that have expressed interest in joining Canada:
| Polity | Description |
|---|---|
| Barbados | In 1884, the Barbados Agricultural Society sent a letter to Sir Francis Hincks requesting his private and public views on whether the Dominion of Canada would favourably entertain having the then colony of Barbados admitted as a member of the Canadian Confederation. Asked of Canada were the terms of the Canadian side to initiate discussions, and whether or not the island of Barbados could depend on the full influence of Canada in getting the change agreed to by Britain. Then in 1952 the Barbados Advocate newspaper polled several prominent Bajan politicians, lawyers, businessmen, the Speaker of the Barbados House of Assembly and later as first President of the Senate, Sir Theodore Branker, Q.C. and found them to be in favour of immediate federation of Barbados along with the rest of the British Caribbean with complete Dominion Status within five years from the date of inauguration of the West Indies Federation with Canada.[28] In 2008, the former President of the Barbados International Business Association (BIBA) reflected on the close historical relations between both nations and questioned whether a political union was possible within the next 100 years.[29] |
| Jamaica | In the late 19th century, there was some discussion of some form of political union between Canada and Jamaica.[30] |
| The West Indies Federation | In a 1952 letter by T.G. Major, a Canadian Trade Commissioner in Trinidad and Tobago, it was stated to the Under Secretary of State for External Affairs that the respective leaders of the British Caribbean could not reach a clear consensus for the exact style of a federal union with Canada. During a parliamentary conference held in Ottawa, it was also noted though that the colony of British Honduras (present day Belize) showed the most interest in a union with Canada exceeding that of the other British Caribbean colonies.[28] |
United States
Canada and the United States share the longest non-militarized border between two countries. There is a long history of secessionist movements and disputes about the border's demarcation.[31]
| Land | Description |
|---|---|
| Alaska | Some Canadians and Alaskans have discussed the possibility of the state of Alaska seceding from the United States and joining Canada.[citation needed] |
| Vermont | Some supporters of the Vermont independence movement propose that Vermont join Canada as a province.[32][33] |
| Maine | Some propose that Maine secede from the U.S. and join Canada as a province,[34][35] though this movement is much smaller than the "Vermont annexation movement". |
| Alaska boundary dispute | The Alaska boundary dispute, simmering since the Alaska purchase of 1867, became critical when gold was discovered in the Yukon during the late 1890s.[36] Canada argued its historic boundary with Russian America included the Lynn Canal and the port of Skagway, both occupied by the U.S.,[36] while the U.S. claimed the Atlin District and the lower Stikine and even Whitehorse. The dispute went to arbitration in 1903, with the British delegate siding with the Americans.[37] |
| All or part of the United States | In the 1979 Canadian federal election, the Rhinoceros Party of Canada, a satirical federal political party, included annexation of the United States as part of its platform.[38] It was proposed that the United States become the third territory of Canada. As well, following the 2004 U.S. presidential election, some American voters distributed the Jesusland map, which proposed that the 19 American "blue states" secede from the United States and become Canadian provinces. In both cases, however, Canadian annexation of all or part of the United States was a purely satirical idea rather than a serious proposal.[39] |
| Northwest Angle and Elm Point, Minnesota | Due to laws restricting fishing rights in Lake of the Woods, some residents of this part of Minnesota — which is accessible via road to the rest of the United States only by way of Manitoba — suggested leaving the United States and joining Canada in 1997. The following year, Representative Collin Peterson proposed a constitutional amendment that would allow the residents of the Northwest Angle, which is part of his district, to vote on seceding from the United States and joining Canada, angering the leaders of Red Lake Indian Reservation, which holds most of the Northwest Angle's land.[40][41] Whether this change would also include Elm Point, a small cape to the south of the angle but also cut off from the United States, is not determined. |
European territories
| Country | Land | Description |
|---|---|---|
| France | St. Pierre and Miquelon | A small French dependency just off the Burin Peninsula of Newfoundland and Labrador. At various times, residents and politicians in Saint Pierre and Miquelon have proposed that the islands pursue secession from France to become part of Canada (either as part of Quebec or as its own territory), so that the islands — whose economy is highly dependent on the Atlantic fishery — could participate in Canada's much larger maritime fishing zone rather than France's limited "keyhole" zone.[42] |
| Denmark | Hans Island | Hans Island is a small, uninhabited barren knoll. Located off the northwest coast of Greenland, in the centre of the Kennedy Channel of Nares Strait—the strait that separates Ellesmere Island in Canada from northern Greenland and connects Baffin Bay with the Lincoln Sea.[43] The island has been in dispute between Canada and Denmark since the 1980s.[43] Canada claims that the island is situated to the north of the border and thus Canadian territory, despite the Permanent Court of International Justice ruling in 1933 that declared the legal status of Greenland in favour of Denmark. In 2007, updates of satellite photos led Canada to recognize the international border as crossing through the middle of Hans Island, not to the north of the island as previously claimed.[44] |
| Norway | Sverdrup Islands | Otto Sverdrup a Norwegian explorer claimed the Sverdrup Islands for Norway in 1898, but the Norwegian government showed no interest in pursuing the claim until 1928.[45] On 11 November 1930 (Remembrance Day) after formal Canadian intervention, Norway recognized Canada's sovereignty over the islands.[46] |
See also
- 51st state
- Alberta separatism
- Former colonies and territories in Canada
- Proposals for new Australian states
- Quebec sovereignty movement
- Territorial claims in the Arctic
- Territorial evolution of Canada
- Western alienation
References
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