Why Canada and the US should be a union of smaller nations., page 1

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Topic started on 30-4-2009 @ 11:15 PM by grandnic

Let me begin this post by a small review of some indepence movement in Canada and the US. It is by no means complete as I'm sure i've much to learn about some.

In Quebec, there has been a separatist movement for a long time. In 1837, a major revolt against the British who were controling Canada at the time and who tried to assimilate the french-catholic population.(La revolte des patriotes as it is being called in Quebec) was crushed by the british army.

In october 1970 the Canadian government ordered the War measure act after a series of bombings by a Marxist revolutionary group inspired by those in Cuba and Europe. The then premier Trudeau ordered the army in Quebec and arrested 500 persons without bail or charges. The October crisis is a dark page in Canadian history.

The modern history of the Quebec independence movement began in 1967 with the creation of the MSA (now the PQ) by Rene Levesque, IMO the greatest politician of Quebec. The PQ won in 1976 and made a referendum in 1980. The NO side won by a good majority but the movement was growing.The movement growed and in 1995 the referendum was lost by a very thin margin. The results have been highly contested and it lead to the sponsonship scandal. The canadian governement broke it's own laws a number of times to assure their victory.

Statistics compiled by Citizenship and Immigration Canada show that some 43,855 new Quebecers obtained their Canadian citizenship in the year of 1995. About one quarter of immigrants (11,429) were granted their citizenship during the month of October. In that month, it was the first time that Quebec residents received more citizenship certificates than Ontario residents, which has not occurred again since. The data also shows an increase in certificate attributions by 87% between 1993 and 1995. The year of 1996 saw a drop of 39%.[44]

(...)

In 1998, PQ activists from the Montreal region brought a list of 100,000 names before the DGEQ. According to them, the 100,000 voters were registered on the electoral list for the 1995 referendum but were not registered with the Régie de l'Assurance-Maladie du Québec (RAMQ), the Quebec public health insurer. After exhaustive verifications, the DGEQ found that 56,000 out of the 100,000 did not have the right to vote and should be removed from the list in the future.

If those information are put into the results, the Yes side won and Quebec should now be independent.The movement has lost a bit since then. IMO it needs a strong charismatic leader like Levesque was.

The province of Alberta also has a fledging separatist movmement. The Separation Party of Alberta. They have presented only one canditate in 2008. They don't have much of a support right now but, since this province is very rich, IMO this is going to help.

en.wikipedia.org...

The Newfies (Newfoundlanders ... no offense, I love Newfoundland, St-John's main street is a place I had so much fun, they know how to party) are the newest member of Canada and the referendum that made it official has been contested.There is a small independance movement and it may become stronger ? Newfoundland has a very interesting history, especialy the role they played in WWII. For those interested.

In the US, I know that Texas has had ideas of independence since they where conquered. Less known is the one from Vermont.

Second Vermont Republic (SVR) is a secessionist group within the U.S. state of Vermont which seeks to return to the formerly independent status of the Vermont Republic (1777–91).

from: Wiki

www.vermontrepublic.org...

There are probably many others that I don't know of.

My opinion on this.

Big countries, from coast to coast are too vast, there's too many different interest and values. They are bound to separate into smaller states in the long run.

In the US, I believe people from the north east are different from those of the south west. In Canada it is even worse because in Quebec our language and mentality is very different from those of Ontario or Alberta. The results of some polls often show a wide margin between Quebec and the rest of Canada.

I've been thinking for a long time that North America should be something similar to the European Union. I can think right now of a dozen combination of states and provinces that are alike in their economies and political values. Why not make all of those Nations independent to make their own political decisions while keeping a central power and economic cooperation.

Am I the only one thinking that could help on a number of issues ?

reply posted on 30-4-2009 @ 11:37 PM by justsomeboreddude

I would love to see all the liberal states break off and form their own nation. It would be so much fun to watch them go broke because of all the regulation and handouts they would give. They would have a pristine environment and they wouldnt be allowed to do anything. They would be so happy. The best part is that after they enacted gun control and they all gave up their guns we could raid their country whenever we wanted. Then they would come over and tell us we were bad and we should stop being so mean.

There isnt much they could do about it because they wouldnt have a military or anything like that because you know how evil it is to defend your country.

[edit on 30-4-2009 by justsomeboreddude]

reply posted on 30-4-2009 @ 11:59 PM by grandnic

reply to post by justsomeboreddude

That's why everything is great in the world. Guns, military and disregard for the environnement. By separating into smaller nations we can open a whole new fronts in warfare ... what a great point you have dude.

Can we grow up as a society ?

[edit on 1-5-2009 by grandnic]

reply posted on 1-5-2009 @ 12:03 AM by justsomeboreddude

reply to post by grandnic

Actually it is totally grown up to realize that the world is not a nice place sometimes and you have to defend yourself, and sometimes you have to choose prosperity vs environment and keep changing the balance, and realizing money is not unlimited and some people are going to have it better than others, and we dont need Uncle Sam to show us how to live our lives, because we are fine without any interference. I know its a run on senetence

reply posted on 10-5-2009 @ 06:48 PM by Liberal1984

There is nothing wrong with devolution PROVIDING you have a common
1. Defence policy: look at Russia, they are weak compared with Soviet times, yet the economy of the former Soviet Union states is stronger (everywhere). So if only Russia had switched to capitalism and democracy, but kept a common defence policy; then they would indeed have won the cold war by becoming the world’s strongest super power(lucky then, the U.S “advisors” arrived in Moscow on time during the post Soviet chaos).
2. Free Movement of People, Trade, and shared business legislation: A key reason why there was a sever recession after the Soviet collapse was the (suddenly assertive) national borders that severed entire railways, roads, and industrial-business centres. Conflicting bureaucracy did not help. As for the free movement of people; passports are a pain the backside, and it’s they that enable wars by dividing people not just with barriers, but into nationals.
3. (As a rule) A common currency: The reason why the Euro was a good idea is because it enabled more trade by removing currency exchange fairs, and the risks associated by those companies who needed to hold many currencies with volatile values. However the Euro was not a good idea for every nation because of the need for different interest rates (which suit industrial and consumer economies differently).
The fact countries like Britain, Poland stay out of the Euro, and that Germany has suffered under it proves that some countries could do with more than one currency e.g. the historically industrial North of England, verses the Consumer based economy of South England (not that this will happen any time soon due to political fears over greater Scottish independence!!).

However devolution is good for all other political interests e.g. prisoner sentencing, social welfare spending, gay rights, ect.
This is because it tends to reduce the maximum numerical size of a disaffected minority within a democracy; especially given a democracy’s political orientations are often linked to geographical locations (as in fact is often the case in reality).
Devolution is also good in real democracies like Sweden or Norway where referendums are frequently held.

reply posted on 10-5-2009 @ 07:40 PM by dooper

Well here in the US, it's called the United STATES. Not the United State.

If anything happens here to bust up that union, I think everyone would like to get shut of Southern California and Massachusetts.

A couple others are not exactly desirable, and maybe the rest of the states could agree to sell Massachusetts back to England, and Southern California back to Mexico.

Jesting aside, I see our largest defining differences being those who are from the larger cities, regardless of States, being sharply divided from more rural areas.

Unfortunately, the few concentrations that reside in the larger cities within a state will often determine the fate of the entire state.

reply posted on 4-6-2009 @ 07:44 AM by StateofTheUnion

im wondering what does state of the union mean exactly, is it like a prolific barrage of organized crime actions and they meat on the commonwealth to discuss the union and all organizations working there of would be fundamentally restricting access control and transmission to liberties that a true union would have access too

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