History
The first premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Joey Smallwood, coined the term "Atlantic Canada" when Newfoundland and Labrador joined the Canadian Confederation (the Commonwealth of Canada) in 1949. He believed that it would have been presumptuous for Newfoundland and Labrador to assume that it could include itself within the existing term "Maritime Provinces", used to describe the cultural similarities shared by New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia. The three Maritime provinces joined Confederation during the 19th century: New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were founding members of the Canadian Confederation in 1867, and Prince Edward Island joined in 1873.
Smallwood and others have excluded Quebec from Atlantic Canada because of Quebec's dramatically different culture. This is despite the fact that Quebec has physical Atlantic coasts on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Ungava Bay, and the Hudson Strait.
Read more about this topic: Atlantic Canada
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“To summarize the contentions of this paper then. Firstly, the phrase ‘the meaning of a word’ is a spurious phrase. Secondly and consequently, a re-examination is needed of phrases like the two which I discuss, ‘being a part of the meaning of’ and ‘having the same meaning.’ On these matters, dogmatists require prodding: although history indeed suggests that it may sometimes be better to let sleeping dogmatists lie.”
—J.L. (John Langshaw)
“We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)