Movements Within Canada
See also: Secessionist movements of CanadaThere have been movements to redistrict existing land in order to create new provinces and territories within Canada.
| Area | Land | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Atlantic Canada | Maritime Union | The Maritime Union is a proposed province consisting of the three Maritime provinces of Canada (Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick). This province would be the fifth-largest in Canada by population. The Maritime Union has also been expanded to a proposed Atlantic Union which would also include Newfoundland and Labrador. |
| Acadia | This province was promoted by the Parti Acadien and is similarly represented by the unrecognized state "Republic of Madawaska". The Parti Acadien supported the creation of a separate province, in tandem with most Acadian Society of New Brunswick members. The party went into the 1978 election with a platform of independence. However, Richard Hatfield and the governing Progressive Conservatives also promoted a platform that promised to increase the role of the Acadian people and culture within the province. | |
| Cape Breton Island | Cape Breton Island had been a separate colony, but was incorporated into Nova Scotia. Provincehood was advocated by the Cape Breton Labour Party. | |
| Labrador | Labrador is the mainland portion of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Labrador Party has campaigned on the platform of a separate province. | |
| Nunatsiavut | This is an area in northern Labrador, which is inhabited mainly by Inuit, many of whom wish to leave Newfoundland and Labrador and form a territory similar to Nunavut. It was granted certain self-government powers on 1 December 2005, while remaining within the province. Similar Inuit and First Nation territories, such as Nunavik, are seeking the same status as Nunatsiavut. | |
| Quebec | Province of Montreal | It has been proposed to separate the city of Montreal, its metropolitan region or its English and non-Francophone regions into a separate province from Quebec, becoming the 11th province of Canada. There have been several proposals of this nature from mid-20th century onwards. Around the time of the 1995 Quebec referendum on sovereignty, a self-named 'partition' movement flourished, advocating the separation of certain areas of Quebec, particularly the English-speaking areas such as Montreal's West Island, in the event of Quebec separation, with such areas remaining part of Canada. This movement is no longer active. |
| Kanienkehaka | During the runup to the 1995 Quebec referendum, Mohawk leaders asserted a sovereign right to secede from Quebec if Quebec were to secede from Canada. In the CBC Television documentary Breaking Point, the Quebec Premier at the time, Jacques Parizeau, said that had the referendum succeeded, he would have allowed the Mohawk communities to secede from Quebec, on the grounds that they had never given up their sovereign rights. | |
| Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean | André Harvey, the former federal MP for Chicoutimi—Le-Fjord, was attributed with the idea of creating a new province encompassing the highly separatist area of Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean in Quebec, on the premise that it has a culture distinct from the rest of Quebec and already has its own flag. | |
| Ontario | National Capital Region | At various times, provincial, territorial or special federal status has been proposed for the metropolitan area consisting of Ottawa, Ontario and Gatineau, Quebec, so that the national capital region would be a district like the Australian Capital Territory or Washington, D.C.. |
| Northern Ontario | The Northern Ontario Heritage Party advocated the creation of a separate province by dividing from Southern Ontario in the 1970s, although the party did not attract widespread electoral support. A newer group, the Northern Ontario Secession Movement, began a similar campaign in 2006, but did attract the same degree of attention. On a more modest scale, Sudbury's Northern Life community newspaper has also published a number of editorials in recent years calling on the province to create a new level of supraregional government that would give the Northern Ontario region significantly more autonomy over its own affairs within the province. The Northern Ontario Heritage Party was reregistered in 2010, although in its current incarnation it advocates increased regional autonomy and has stopped short of calling for a new province. | |
| Northwestern Ontario | In 2006, some residents of Northwestern Ontario proposed that the region secede from Ontario to join Manitoba, due to the perception that the government of Ontario does not pay sufficient attention to the region's issues. One paper in Canadian Public Policy suggested the region merge with Manitoba to form a new province called "Mantario." | |
| Province of Toronto | Toronto is the largest city in Canada. Some have argued that the rest of Ontario benefits from Toronto more than the reverse. Some activists have lobbied for a separate Province of Toronto. Former Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman, while in office, floated the idea because of what he perceived as the province's excessive draining of tax resources from Toronto without providing sufficient support for public services within the city. | |
| Western Canada | Province of Buffalo | Buffalo was a proposed Canadian province in the early 1900s. It would have been composed of the southern halves and main cities (Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, and Regina) of the present day provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan and the capital would have been Regina. The northern halves would remain in the North-West Territories. Its main proponent was Sir Frederick Haultain, then-Premier of the North-West Territories, who said in 1904 that "One big province would be able to do things no other province could." The proposal was not popular, especially with Calgarians and Edmontonians, who each had their own ambitions to be a capital city (Edmonton eventually became the capital of Alberta). Eventually, Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier divided the region vertically into the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. |
| Northern Canada | Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut | Each of the three Canadian territories has had movements lobbying for their territorial political status to be upgraded to full provincehood. |
Read more about this topic: Proposed Provinces And Territories Of Canada
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