Challenge: make US and Canada equal

[TheSevenLeggedFallyDowner]

In most TLs (including OTL) the US is far superior to Canada economically and militarily. I have seen a few TLs where this is reversed (although they are usually ASB, or include a large chunk of the US in "Canada"). My challenge to you is, with a POD after the British North America Acts of 1867 (which created the Dominion of Canada as a partially independent nation), to make them equals. I don't care what level they are equal at. They can both be third world nations with terrible standards of living, no military and virtually no economy; or they can both be hyperpowers with futuristic modern conveniences, nuclear weapons, and overseas empires. I just want the two nations to be roughly equal by 2009.

[Iori]

Hm, well a few ideas from something I'm working on;

• Have Canada buy Alaska, or say the UK buy it and then attach it to Canada.
• Have the U.S. not do quite as well economically.
• Have Canada encourage population growth/immigration.
• Have Canada be more economically interventionist along a traditional Social Democratic mold.
• Have Canada become more internationally interventionist and subsequently build up its military.
• Have Canada become fully independent sooner.
• Make the US less willing to go to war, for instance no Spanish-American War.
• Have some of the Caribbean territories be added to Canada in the early 20th century.

[Olorin42]

Starts with no Lousiana Purchase. Britain demands it as spoils from France at Napoleon's loss in 1814. Follow that with the British winning in 1812. Britain takes the Indians as a protectorate from the Appalachains to the Louisian Territory. Canada is one Dominion. The Indian realm essentially becomes another. The 13 colonies remain independant. Maybe Ohio, eastern Tenn/Ky are part of the US. You end up with Mexico in the southwest, Canada in the North, Indians in the Midwest, and the US on the east coast. If the British "protect" the Indian areas, you'll see another war as people will migrate west and conflicts will erupt. Britain will not have much foreign involvement so they should be able to win that war in the 1830-40 area. You'd think after a couple of wars, they'll have a lot of impetus to try to further punish the US. This all strengthens Canada and if the UK continues to pen in the US, Canada could compete with the US.

[Mirza Khan]

In most TLs (including OTL) the US is far superior to Canada economically and militarily. I have seen a few TLs where this is reversed (although they are usually ASB, or include a large chunk of the US in "Canada"). My challenge to you is, with a POD after the British North America Acts of 1867 (which created the Dominion of Canada as a partially independent nation), to make them equals. I don't care what level they are equal at. They can both be third world nations with terrible standards of living, no military and virtually no economy; or they can both be hyperpowers with futuristic modern conveniences, nuclear weapons, and overseas empires. I just want the two nations to be roughly equal by 2009.

Impossible, for reasons of simple geography. Specifically, the US has much more inhabitable land than Canada, and can support a much larger population. The US will always, naturally, be (at least) several times larger than Canada, and there's really no way to change that without changing the Earth's climate geologic history.

[Ridwan Asher]

Originally Posted by Tolkienguy

Impossible, for reasons of simple geography. Specifically, the US has much more inhabitable land than Canada, and can support a much larger population. The US will always, naturally, be (at least) several times larger than Canada, and there's really no way to change that without changing the Earth's climate geologic history.

Well... Canada could have had... you know.... expanded in the expenses of US. There were times when this was possible indeed. Have 1812 War went even better for the Brits (and thus also the Canadians) and Canada could have expanded to swallow all of the Great Lakes. Possibly even more.

Olorin42's way seems quite possible as well.

[carlton_bach]

I'm not sure geography allows it, but I tried in my Bentham setting. Note I didn't take it further than 1958, but I don't see the fundamentals changing between then and 2009.

http://www.alternatehistory.com/disc...ght=benthamite

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Originally Posted by Olorin42

Starts with no Lousiana Purchase. Britain demands it as spoils from France at Napoleon's loss in 1814. Follow that with the British winning in 1812. Britain takes the Indians as a protectorate from the Appalachains to the Louisian Territory. Canada is one Dominion. The Indian realm essentially becomes another. The 13 colonies remain independant. Maybe Ohio, eastern Tenn/Ky are part of the US. You end up with Mexico in the southwest, Canada in the North, Indians in the Midwest, and the US on the east coast. If the British "protect" the Indian areas, you'll see another war as people will migrate west and conflicts will erupt. Britain will not have much foreign involvement so they should be able to win that war in the 1830-40 area. You'd think after a couple of wars, they'll have a lot of impetus to try to further punish the US. This all strengthens Canada and if the UK continues to pen in the US, Canada could compete with the US.

Originally Posted by Ridwan Asher

Well... Canada could have had... you know.... expanded in the expenses of US. There were times when this was possible indeed. Have 1812 War went even better for the Brits (and thus also the Canadians) and Canada could have expanded to swallow all of the Great Lakes. Possibly even more.

Olorin42's way seems quite possible as well.

My challenge to you is, with a POD after the British North America Acts of 1867

In other words, there is probably no way to actually meet the challenge. There is no question that a pre-1812 PoD can make a huge difference, the problem is after that. The ?OP? was specifically after 1867, which not only after 1812, but the US Civil War. So I think the challenge is pretty much impossible.

After 1812, the only way to get Canada even remotely equal to the US is to take the US down a few pegs, e.g. South separates, Texas, California and Oregon never become part of the Union. Even so, it would be tough, really tough.

Originally Posted by Tolkienguy

Impossible, for reasons of simple geography. Specifically, the US has much more inhabitable land than Canada, and can support a much larger population. The US will always, naturally, be (at least) several times larger than Canada, and there's really no way to change that without changing the Earth's climate geologic history.

Correct. More specifically, look at a population map of Canada. Some incredible percentage of the population lives within 100 miles of the US border, because that's the only farmable land.


For a plausible scenario with a rather earlier PoD, see my sig, or search for (YACW) (yet another Canada wank, but not spelled out that way).