Breaking up Canada...

Austin Bay has written an amusing piece on the potential for Canada to turn into a failed state.

He correctly identifies the separatist threat in Quebec as the spark that could light the fire. A Quebec Nation would probably create a chain reaction of splintering in the rest of the country. There are rare examples where countries can remain united when they are separated in two by large land masses. In the case of Quebec splintering of Canada there would be no way you keep the eastern provinces on side with Ontario and Western Canada with such a geographical difference.

Newfoundland separatist sentiments I don't think have ever completely died away. They would probably be the first one to secede after Quebec. Alberta would almost certainly come next. The rest of the provinces may struggle to survive as the last remnants of the Dominion, but I would think it would be just a matter of time before they would be swallowed up by the US.

He also brings up DeGaule's famous line "Vive Le Quebec Libre!" that created many separatists in Quebec. I've always had a big problem with the Gaullist Party in France. Not necessarily because of it's policies, but because I believe it has always had a secret strategy of trying to break up Canada. It still sees the world in terms of former now lost French colonies.

And the Gaullists want them back.

It wouldn't honestly surprise me if Jaques Chirac stepped out of an airplane tomorrow in Quebec and started talking about AdScam. "Rejoin Mother France!"

I have cousins in France that love the guy - I don't trust him or his Gaullist Party one bit.

Tip o' the hat to Curmudgeons.

Addendum:
AITGWN has some scary conclusions on this matter. I can't argue with his Engineering logic. The system seems sometimes too unstable. It was precisely that line of thinking that Preston Manning and the old Reform Party strategy was originally based on. They decided to label themselves as the Party of English Canada. That way when the country eventually broke up, the Liberals would no longer have a reason for being and the subsequent Anti-French sentiment would catapult them into office. The current Conservative leader Stephen Harper is said to have left the party because of his disagreement over this strategy. My hope is that Stephen Harper can find a way to avoid such a catastrophe.