As many people on this site, I've always got a few ideas for TLs or scenarios bouncing around.
Canadian history is by no means by only interest, but it may be my area of greatest expertise. I also find the development of modern day Quebecois politics from some old British guarantees to be fascinating, especially in light of our modern multiculturalism policy.
Several of my TLs and scenarios are "what ifs" about different groups settling in OTL Canada, receiving guarantees from the government, and surviving (generally less successfully than the Canadiens) to the modern day.
So now I've hit upon the idea of a grander TL which might, although it makes it extremely implausible, also make it more interesting for readers.
So the base premise here is a Canada which has MORE than the current ten provinces.
The more, the better.
The more provinces that have a distinct ethnic minority associated with them as well, the better!
IOTL the Spanish briefly had an outpost on Vancouver Island. In an ATL of mine, this becomes the "Northernmost California mission" and becomes the home of a Spanish empire Loyalist colony until it is sold to Britain sometime after the USA takes Mexico, around the time of an alt-Crimean conflict.
I have also been researching about the possibility of a continued Gaelic presence in North America, centered on Cape Breton remaining a separate colony from Nova Scotia after 1820.
To help keep the area Gaelic, I was toying with the idea of Selkirk focusing his efforts on the Maritimes, rather than the Red River Colony.
IOTL Quebec and Ontario started much smaller and were expanded considerably as the nation grew into the former Ruperts Land; I could see the original areas of Quebec and Ontario split into as many as 7 or 8 provinces (including a national capital region).
One of these new provinces would be OTL Southwestern Ontario, which could be the focus of early Black Loyalist settlement (the idea being to use a group which would definitely not want to join the Americans to settle the least defended border areas at the time).
Without Selkirk's settlers, at the time of joining Canada, Manitoba (which was originally also smaller than today) would be more French and Metis - so the possible seed of a Metis colony/province.
There were many different ways to divide the Prairie provinces, but perhaps splitting off the Northern areas to create a First Nations province or territory (so that there are provinces/territories for each of three identified aboriginal groups: Inuit in Nunavut, First Nations in an expanded NWT; Metis in a smaller Manitoba?). Joining the 4 European language groups (Spanish on VI; French in Quebec; Gaelic on the East Coast and English generally) and Southwest Ontario which is the focus of, and has most progressive laws regarding, African-Canadian settlement.
As a bonus, there should of course be more lenient laws for people of Asian descent to settle at least on the BC mainland; and less anti-Semitism means that an appropriate number of Jewish settlers arrive with the Eastern Europeans to the prairies in the 1896-1913 waves of immigration.
This could lead to a mass influx of refugees during the 1930s and 1940s, potentially creating a Yiddish province on the prairies in say, Central Saskatchewan.
Any interest in this? Any other groups who could be included? I know having all these provinces in the same country is basically ASB, but I tried to have at least some plausible explanations of how these provinces could develop historically. (And then of course I jammed them all into the same TL).
Which groups could have established and sustained ethnic settlements in Canada? Which areas of the country could be their own provinces?
Canadian history is by no means by only interest, but it may be my area of greatest expertise. I also find the development of modern day Quebecois politics from some old British guarantees to be fascinating, especially in light of our modern multiculturalism policy.
Several of my TLs and scenarios are "what ifs" about different groups settling in OTL Canada, receiving guarantees from the government, and surviving (generally less successfully than the Canadiens) to the modern day.
So now I've hit upon the idea of a grander TL which might, although it makes it extremely implausible, also make it more interesting for readers.
So the base premise here is a Canada which has MORE than the current ten provinces.
The more, the better.
The more provinces that have a distinct ethnic minority associated with them as well, the better!
IOTL the Spanish briefly had an outpost on Vancouver Island. In an ATL of mine, this becomes the "Northernmost California mission" and becomes the home of a Spanish empire Loyalist colony until it is sold to Britain sometime after the USA takes Mexico, around the time of an alt-Crimean conflict.
I have also been researching about the possibility of a continued Gaelic presence in North America, centered on Cape Breton remaining a separate colony from Nova Scotia after 1820.
To help keep the area Gaelic, I was toying with the idea of Selkirk focusing his efforts on the Maritimes, rather than the Red River Colony.
IOTL Quebec and Ontario started much smaller and were expanded considerably as the nation grew into the former Ruperts Land; I could see the original areas of Quebec and Ontario split into as many as 7 or 8 provinces (including a national capital region).
One of these new provinces would be OTL Southwestern Ontario, which could be the focus of early Black Loyalist settlement (the idea being to use a group which would definitely not want to join the Americans to settle the least defended border areas at the time).
Without Selkirk's settlers, at the time of joining Canada, Manitoba (which was originally also smaller than today) would be more French and Metis - so the possible seed of a Metis colony/province.
There were many different ways to divide the Prairie provinces, but perhaps splitting off the Northern areas to create a First Nations province or territory (so that there are provinces/territories for each of three identified aboriginal groups: Inuit in Nunavut, First Nations in an expanded NWT; Metis in a smaller Manitoba?). Joining the 4 European language groups (Spanish on VI; French in Quebec; Gaelic on the East Coast and English generally) and Southwest Ontario which is the focus of, and has most progressive laws regarding, African-Canadian settlement.
As a bonus, there should of course be more lenient laws for people of Asian descent to settle at least on the BC mainland; and less anti-Semitism means that an appropriate number of Jewish settlers arrive with the Eastern Europeans to the prairies in the 1896-1913 waves of immigration.
This could lead to a mass influx of refugees during the 1930s and 1940s, potentially creating a Yiddish province on the prairies in say, Central Saskatchewan.
Any interest in this? Any other groups who could be included? I know having all these provinces in the same country is basically ASB, but I tried to have at least some plausible explanations of how these provinces could develop historically. (And then of course I jammed them all into the same TL).
Which groups could have established and sustained ethnic settlements in Canada? Which areas of the country could be their own provinces?
