Mark Steyn wrote an article and had this tidbit:

CW at that time said the 18th century belonged to the Americans but the 19th would belong to the Canucks and they would basically dominate North America.

Still waiting.

I still think we should make Alberta an offer it can't refuse.

What have the froggies to offer other than some great bits by Triumph the Insult Comic Dog?

They are leeches everywhere they were/are.

Could Canada become this hemisphere's Yugoslavia?

Jeez. I remember articles in Life magazine in the early 1960's showing police officers trying to defuse a separatist bomb in a mailbox in Quebec. The sequence showed before, and after the thing exploded, leaving the officers with fingers blown off and multiple wounds.

Forty years later, and the idiots in Quebec are so irrational about their defiance they're letting ARAB terrorists make Montreal a playground, just so the Francophiles can thumb their noses at Ottowa's immigration rules.

I wonder how the Montreal press has been reporting the riots in France.

The QB is more about posturing these days, than separatism.

I believe most French-Canadians understand that independance would turn them into third-world country in a heartbeat.

Just as Democrats wail about heartless corporate conservatives, and the Republicans view with alarm liberal anti-militarism, the QB uses separation as a convenient stick to beat on the central government.

Stephen Green wrote: "there would be little problem for the outlying Maritimes to keep their capital at Ottawa."

You mean like the problems outlying Alaska and Hawaii have with their capital in Washington?

Agree. One Canada. Otherwise it would become balkanized into a dozen squabbling little states. The same would have happened in the US if we had a Jimmy Carter instead of an Abe Lincoln back then.

I still think we should make Alberta an offer it can't refuse.

How about a swap. California for Alberta? Throw in Saskatchewan, and the Canadians can have their pick of Massachusetts, New York, or Vermont.

Opinions from a Montrealer:

Despite the noise, separation is slowly going down as an option as the '60s radicals drop dead. The younger people (16-20) tend to favor independance, until they get out of school, start paying taxes, and realise what a PITA it would be. Even the new Parti Quebecois leader, Andre Boisclair, is not using it as a central theme.

Our main problem right now is that we have two societies living side by side. One (East) is big on socialism and cronism. The other (West) is conservative (small "c") and would prefer less government intervention, mostly because said goverment is generally controlled by Easterners, for the latter's benefit. Until we can get everyone to agree on at least some kind of compromise, we'll have frictions.

My personal hope is that at some point we'll go back to a true Confederation, with each province making its own rules and the central government taking care of foreign policy only. I really don't see why technocrats in Ottawa should have any say on how schools are run in small villages in BC or Quebec. Don't get me started on the idiocy of sending money to the feds, then having them mail us a check back.

Alas, from the four national parties, three (LP, BQ, NDP) are strong centralists, and even the PC would just maintain the status quo. I really don't know how we can get a small-government-minded government -- too many people profit outright from the huge structures we have right now.

I wonder how the Montreal press has been reporting the riots in France.

Actually, the French riots made the front page of the Journal de Montreal and La Presse for several days. They even used the "M" word a couple of time, though the root cause was always identified as poverty and French racism.

Much speculation during the Reed Lake years centered on what would actually happen if Canada would split apart. Likely scenarios would see the western provinces allay more closely with the US (primarily for economic reasons), and ad hoc alliances formed with the remainders.

The US wouldn't be interested in the other provinces, primarily because of their debt obligations and lack of local industries. But since I'm a damn Yankee, I could of course be way off here.

The western provinces and the Yukon should come on over making Alaska contiguous to the rest of the U.S.

I've seen projections from the last time Canade nearly fractured;

a. British Columbia and possibly Alberta and the Yukon in the West, and the Martimes in the East petition for statehood or federation. Their shares of the Canadian military absorbed into the US military and as state Guards units.

b. Quebec goes it's own way from English-Canada, but maintains close commercial-ties with the Northeastern States. Their-share of the Canadian military pulls out of NATO, but maintains the alliance with the US and guarentees the St. Lawrence Sea-way and River.

c. Rump-Canada soldiers-on with Ontario, the grain-provinces of Sasketwan and Manitoba and the Artic territories, with increasing commercial barriers against the US...including the US-owned auto factories in Ontario. Rump-Canada's remaining navy is down-graded to a Coast Guard-scaled force in the Artic and Great Lakes, with token support for NATO naval oceanic ops. Their Army/Air Force concentrates on disaster relief amd peacekeeping ops.

Sounds like win/win.

In other words, pretty much what they've got now without admitting it.

As a western Canadian I don't understand why anyone thinks that we would want to join the U.S., if we where to separate from Canada. Alberta is a debt free province why would we shackle ourselves to a floundering debt ridden country that is fracturing at the seems? There is very little in the way of advantages if we joined the U.S we would in fact be facing the same types of problems that we have now only in a less important role than we have now.