Last week, during our podcast, I spoke briefly about the need to have Canada broken up into smaller 鈥渂ite-sized鈥� pieces.聽
We have 10 huge, chunky provinces, with the exception of wee little PEI, in a country that is geographically larger than the United States, yet the U.S. boasts of 50 states.
While we need more provinces yet fewer Members of Parliament, we also need to start getting together a little more efficiently. So, let鈥檚 take a look at the other side of this scenario.聽
It has been pointed out on several occasions that when it comes to commercial trade, it鈥檚 much easier to do deals with China, the United States, United Kingdom or the Middle East than it is to do business with other provinces. We keep thinking the other guy might get the better of us. We have a problem dealing with big pictures at home it seems.聽
It is also during economic times like the present, I begin to think that maybe Alberta and Saskatchewan should have been amalgamated as one hugely influential province, just like the original plan was, until the bright lights in Ottawa, at the turn of the century, realized that a combination of AltaSask would wield too much influence, even without a huge population.聽
Central Canada (read Ontario and Quebec) realized that if they were going to continue to rule the new roost in the emerging nation, they were going to have to cut those prairie jerks down to size by setting up competing provinces. That way we鈥檇 be obsessed with outdoing one another, while central Canadians could carry on with the power and glory stuff. So, in 1905, AltaSask became Alberta and Saskatchewan, two similar, but competing provinces.聽
Fast forward to today.聽
B.C. is out there on the left coast, separated from the rest of Canada by very little common sense and mountains.聽
But here we sit, three prairie provinces, with huge resource clout, but only when Quebec and Ontario decide to let us use it.聽
We are not masters of our fate. We are not captains of our souls. We are land-locked hostages. Heck, even when the effort is made to take advantage of our only access to open waters, via the Port of Churchill, the gods of Ottawa bring the hammer down on a consistent basis. And we must admit, Churchill is not the most efficient port anyway, so it鈥檚 easy to sabotage that action plan.聽
But if the Prairies actually got our poop together and acted as one, here we would be with about 10 million people, all kinds of agricultural products coming off our fields, a commodities exchange in Winnipeg and Calgary and a power base for oil, gas, uranium, potash, gold and cattle emanating from AltaSaskMan, along with an attitude that would inform Eastern Canada that they would now have to play some road games 鈥� visit our ball park once in awhile, or we鈥檇 pull a pout, take our bats, baseball, and canola and form our own league.聽
I know, it鈥檚 the old Western separatism threat, but with a trio of like-minded provinces melded into one, and probably with B.C. in on the action, because they鈥檇 have no choice, finding themselves suddenly isolated if they didn鈥檛 join Team AltaSaskMan, we鈥檇 add another six or seven million people along with shipping lanes and peaches to add to the commodities list.
Then, for sure, Central Canada would have to sit up and pay attention.聽
Or, oil prices could rebound and we could resume where we left off in 2014.聽
But c鈥檓on, this proposal does make ya wanna go 鈥渉mmm鈥� doesn鈥檛 it? 聽
