List of proposed provinces and territories of Canada
[2] Because opening up the constitution to amendment could entice provinces to demand other changes too in exchange for such support, this is seen to be a politically unfeasible option.
[4] However, the idea died down after Richard Hatfield and the governing Progressive Conservatives promoted a platform that promised to increase the role of the Acadian people and culture within the province.
"[14] In 1966, a committee of mayors from the region, comprising Max Silverman of Sudbury, G. W. Maybury of Kapuskasing, Ernest Reid of Fort William, Leo Del Villano of Timmins, Merle Dickerson of North Bay, and Leo Foucault of Espanola, was formed to study the feasibility of Northern Ontario forming a new province.
[18] The Northern Ontario Heritage Party was reregistered in 2010 with a platform that did not for full separation but instead supported a number of measures to increase the region's power in the province.
One paper in Canadian Public Policy suggested the region merge with Manitoba to form a new province called "Mantario.
The proposal was rejected in 1905 by Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier, who divided the region reaching 60°N with a north–south boundary as the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
[6] In 2013, in response to the federal electoral district redistribution, two separatist groups emerged to make Vancouver Island its own country or province.
[31] In late 2004, Prime Minister Paul Martin surprised some observers by expressing his personal support for all three territories "eventually" gaining provincial status.
He cited their importance to the country as a whole and the ongoing need to assert sovereignty in the Arctic, particularly since global warming could make that region more open to exploitation and lead to more complex international waters disputes.
In 1905, Ian Malcolm suggested in the British House of Commons that the United Kingdom might benefit from transferring one or more isles of the West Indies to Canada for national defence.
[34] In 1919, Canadian Prime Minister Robert Borden and his delegation to the Paris Peace Conference discussed transferring parts of the West Indies as territories, sub-dominions, or League of Nations mandates, including the possibility of exchanging some to the United States for the Alaska Panhandle.
The idea was brought up again in 1986 by Progressive Conservative MP Dan McKenzie, but it was rejected by his party's caucus committee on external affairs in 1987.
The committee, chaired by David Daubney, looked at immigration, banking, health care, and tourism issues in making its decision.
Suppose the port doubled 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.
"[41] In May 2014, Turks and Caicos Premier Rufus Ewing visited the Canadian Parliament looking to improve its relationship with Canada, and was open to a possible "marriage" in the future.
His reasoning was that the events of the past year had proved that Canadian public opinion would not countenance the admission of a majority-black province.
[36] 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.
[53] Although no political party has floated the notion of secession, there is a long-standing history of reconnecting at least part of Minnesota with Canada through Manitoba's southeast attachment, the Northwest Angle.
Due to laws restricting fishing rights in the Lake of the Woods, some residents 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.
[55][56] 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.
[58] The idea has been periodically revived, most recently in 2020 after the community was heavily impacted by the closure of the Canada-U.S. border during the COVID-19 pandemic,[59] but has still not been actively pursued.
In the past, a few 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 a new 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.
[60] In April 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the president of St. Pierre and Miquelon's territorial council, Bernard Briand, proposed that the islands join the "Atlantic Bubble".
