Best chance for a Canadian "Hawaii"?
- Thread starter Malone
- Start date
probably some of all of the British West Indies, if basically all of British America unified into one geopolitical entity around the time Canada would've become independent
There have been a number of proposals for this or that (ex-)British colony in the Caribbean to join Canada--just have one of them go through.
The place that has been talked about the most when it comes to British Caribbean colonies is the Turks and Caicos Islands. The earliest POD I can think of is
British PM David Lloyd George approving Canadian PM Robert Borden's request for the islands in 1917. Does anyone one know why he said no in OTL?
British PM David Lloyd George approving Canadian PM Robert Borden's request for the islands in 1917. Does anyone one know why he said no in OTL?
But why Canada?
If they are willing to transfer it to one of their dominions, Australia or New Zealand might be more likely.
Geographically I believe Canada is closer to Hawaii than either Australia or New Zeland.
BC would be a better bet, it already gets enough rain and is warm enough for palm trees to survive year round.
Still not sure where you are going with this? Vancouver is about the same distance from Hawaii as NZ is from Samoa.
Hawaii is quite some distance further from NZ, not to mention it shares the same hemisphere with Canada.
Between administration from Austrlasia or North America, despite being an Island in the pacific it is closer in orientation to North America.
The capital of Canada (Ottawa) is nowhere near the Pacific while the capital of NZ (Wellington) is on the ocean. From the UK perspective it would not make much sense to put islands in the middle of the Pacific under the administration of Ottawa.
Samoa is much closer to Hawaii than Canada is. You may as well have the two island groups under the same administration.
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Not sure why you must base things on where the capital is located? Canada is a physically massive country if everything were based on where Ottawa is located you can argue British Columbia has no place being in Canada due to how far it is from the capital. Canada even its far flung regions are able to operate fine despite their distance from the capital.
Vancouver is an important port and entry point to the pacific from Canada it would likely be even more so if Canada had a pacific possession/s. Hawaii depends on the majority of its food coming from the mainland US, it would be better served if that were coming from mainland Canada than either NZ or Samoa. That fact would have probably been understood by the UK as well.
Well in Samoa's case, there had long been a lobby in NZ to build a colonial empire in the South Pacific, with Samoa being a key possession. Members of such had spent a lot of effort trying to get Britain to keep interest in Samoa when the Germans/US started sniffing about. So when WW1 started/finished there were many in NZ still keen on the idea, hence W Samoa being a NZ colony till early 60s.
I'm not talking about the present day but in the era before air travel, when this arrangement would have been decided. Speaking of British Columbia, it did not join Canada until transcontinental railroads were constructed, which linked it to Ottawa.
In today's era it obviously would be different.
If this arrangement were made in the late 19th century it would have still made more sense and been more feasible to get large amounts of food shipments to Hawaii from Vancouver than from either NZ and/or Samoa, which are relatively small/isolated regions themselves especially at that point in time.
The vast majority of Hawaii's imports from the US still arrive by ship.
Remember that before the railroad, it was much easier and quicker to go from Victoria to Hong Kong via the Pacific than crossing the continent by land to Montreal. As a matter of fact, the flag of British Columbia before the 1960s was the Blue Ensign, similar to other Pacific territories such as Australia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong, rather than the Red Ensign for the rest of British North America.
As for Hawaii, if the British somehow managed to get a hold of the islands, it's a toss-up between being attached to British Columbia, Australia, New Zealand, or being administered on its own like Fiji.