I have just returned from a weeklong trip travelling the breadth of British Columbia, from near the Alberta border to the capital Victoria and back. We took our time and stopped at a number of friends’ along the way. It is interesting to see how the political culture changes as one heads West. The vast majority of BC (and Alberta for that matter) vote conservative, but the condensed population of the Lower Mainland are more liberal-minded, thus BC has had left-leaning governments for a number of years. Robert Kaplan himself has mentioned the Pacific Northwest’s almost “religious environmentalism,” a shared principle in most cities along the coast such as Vancouver, Seattle, Portland etc. This is overwhelmingly rejected in most other parts of western Canada where practicality trumps idealism.
But it does not bode well for the future. As the nation-state era of history fades and North America’s two massive borders become increasingly meaningless, I wonder how the layout of the New World would change. Thomas Barnett has encouraged the inclusion of new US states from Mexico. Separatism in Quebec has been kept at bay for now but if someday the separatists have their way Canada will crumble. I could envision Western Canada joining the US (there is a feeling of resentment toward Ottawa in the West, and I have read that as many as 20% of Westerners would welcome going on their own) after not so long, but the lower mainland may cause problems. With increasing decentralization of economies, possibly we will see a resurgence of the city-state? The population corridor between Vancouver and Seattle could become its own governmental body, sharing as they do in political belief. Or could there be a return to the “Oregon County”:http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=Fifty-Four+Forty+or+Fight&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1 times of British North America?
These are the things I contemplated this week as I passed through the valleys, towns and cities of my home province. But I am back now, and will be posting regularly until my next excursion.
Welcome back Sir Francis!
Thank god you’re still alive.
How about demographics? The west coast is getting more East Asian every year, what do they add to the political culture? Or are they absorbed by it?
And how about a map of where you went and some photos!
That’s right… OREGON country. Incidentally, I have a Cascadia flag sticker on its way for my triumphant return to the Pacific NW. All the better to blend in with Seattle’s patchouli-soaked denizens (at least I’m assuming they will be wherever I’m living).
Curzon, from what I remember growing up, I don’t recall many new immigrants from East Asia (many more from Mexico), but they wouldn’t really be coming to where I lived. That being said, I knew plenty of second-generation Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese and I felt like they were absorbed by the local culture. Well, it would be more accurate to say they adopted it.
About the environmentalism… The tendency of each side to flock to extremes makes the debate impossible. Well, it does in Oregon anyway. And the more you hear from each side, the more you realize each side has excellent points to make. Personally, I find the most “we must consume the resources!” conservative from the West Coast to have a much stronger knowledge of and interest in conservation than the most “save the earth!” of East Coast liberals. Okay, that might be a stretch, but everyone I grew up with had a love of place that included trees, rocks, and wildlife that I rarely encounter in the urban East. If we could all just ignore the debate between the “we must not harm a single sapling” and “we must log it all” poles, maybe we’d get somewhere.
Here are some pics for you then. These are all taken on the lawn of the “Legislative Assembly of British Columbia”:http://www.legis.gov.bc.ca in downtown Victoria, BC.
I tried to look around for “ethnic” voting trends, but this being Canada I couldn’t find anything. What do you think they would be Curzon? In the US the minorities vote more for the Repubs, no? It would be interesting to see what the trend is with the increase in Asian immigrants in the Lower Mainland.
I don’t believe separatism will kill Canada. Rather, le vrai Canada will become a smaller, (relatively) poorer French speaking nation, while the rest of Canada becomes? While the “Anglais” provinces of Canada would be welcome within the U.S., the trend among English speaking children of Empire has been to found independent, and prosperous, nations of their own. I see no reason why the Maritimes, Upper Canada, and Western Canada could not add three more flags to the U.N. After all, New Zealand, despite being quite small, is both a viable nation-state and economically self-sufficient.
Lirelou, I agree with you in that I think it would be perfectly viable for Canada to turn into 3 or 4 different countries (the West, Upper Canada, Quebec, and the Maritimes if they can get their economic act together). Yet combine this with continental security and the erosion of borders as well as a Tom Barnettian increase in the number of US states. If the US extended her hand to the West I am not so sure they would turn it down. What do you think?