Texas like situation in the Canadian West?

I was reading this wikipedia article about the "Last Best West" campaign run by the Canadian government to settle western Canada.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Best_West

I quote:

"One of the key considerations for the government in this recruitment of settlers was the fear that Americans would stream North and settle the southern parts of what would become the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. The Canadian Government was afraid that what happened to Mexico regarding Texas and the United States could happen out in the west of Canada and worked hard to bring settlement to the area under Canadian Law."

Is it actually possible or likely that this situation could happen?

Also interestingly enough "while the frost-free season is shorter in Canada, a less arid climate compensates for this and the Canadian prairies have long been more productive than those of the Dakotas and Wyoming."

So basically the article says that the land was actually of a very high quality (better then the land on the US side of the border). I would have thought that this would have made it more likely for American settlers to want to settle there and yet it didn't happen. What needs to be done to change the situation? Perhaps tacit support by the US government? I read that part of the reason for the Spanish American war was that with the end of the Wild West the US wanted a channel for expansion. Maybe it could be directed here instead.
 
I was reading this wikipedia article about the "Last Best West" campaign run by the Canadian government to settle western Canada.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Best_West

I quote:

"One of the key considerations for the government in this recruitment of settlers was the fear that Americans would stream North and settle the southern parts of what would become the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. The Canadian Government was afraid that what happened to Mexico regarding Texas and the United States could happen out in the west of Canada and worked hard to bring settlement to the area under Canadian Law."

Is it actually possible or likely that this situation could happen?

Also interestingly enough "while the frost-free season is shorter in Canada, a less arid climate compensates for this and the Canadian prairies have long been more productive than those of the Dakotas and Wyoming."

So basically the article says that the land was actually of a very high quality (better then the land on the US side of the border). I would have thought that this would have made it more likely for American settlers to want to settle there and yet it didn't happen. What needs to be done to change the situation? Perhaps tacit support by the US government? I read that part of the reason for the Spanish American war was that with the end of the Wild West the US wanted a channel for expansion. Maybe it could be directed here instead.

Alot of Americans DID settle.

The difference being that the Canadian government was white, protestant, spoke English, and was reasonably democratic (at least to American settler eyes).

The same thing happened in the war of 1812. The Americans thought that the many (recent) American immigrants in Canada would support them, but they remained at best ambivalent.

In all likelihood, I do not see this happening. As noted in the article, Canada was aware what happened to Mexico and acted to avoid it, and also, the treaty of 1818 settled the border dispute pretty definitively up to the Rockies (it established the 49th parallel as the border).
 
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Yeah a lot of Americans did settle but I wonder what percentage of the population they were? I wonder if there would be a critical mass if even more move there which would make them less likely to integrate. Perhaps not, perhaps no matter how many Americans there were they wouldn't mind becoming Canadian but perhaps the American identity was stronger then it was in 1812.
 
You might find this as useful as well.

http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.ea.032

It mentions that Canadian immigration was very liberal, with the given caveat that you where white (people of colour were not that welcome).

The immigration from other white English speaking countries was basically unrestricted. 4 out of 10 settlers came from the United Kingdom, or the United States.

They never stopped Americans from moving in. I'm not sure how you'd get more Americans moving in if they're wasn't any impediments to them doing so. So I'm not sure how you'd get that critical mass of Americans.

Instead they gave generous land grants to peoples willing to settle the land and settle it well such as Icelanders, Polish, Ukrainian, Mennonites (etc) and even gave them special exceptions in terms of residency; they didn't have to live on the land, as long they farmed it (they lived in villages instead to maintain ethnic or religious identity). The United States refused to adopt that policy (in fact, Canada basically copied the American homesteading idea and tweaked it to suit their needs).

Another point I might make is that Canada lived in constant awareness/small fear of being absorbed by America. The government (any government) is going to be hyper vigilant about American irrendentism.
 
I'd think you'd need a lot more Americans. We already had a huge amount of land to fill up right inside our own borders, especially after the Mexican War. Even after the ACW, the south had big tracts of empty land that they had never made use of (there was a 'go south' movement alongside the 'go west' movement). So.... lots more immigration?
 
1) prevent the CPR. If people have to go through the States to get there, theyll be more American than Canadiaan.

2) Sifton's push to get 'peasants in sheepskin coats' was a touch controversial, and being Ukrainian was a distinct disadvantage for a couple of generations. School systems punished kids who dared speak Ukrainian, for instance.

More reluctance to bring these 'less desireable' types, Mennonites and other pacifists, would slow the flood of nonAmericans, and would give a more American cast to the prairies.
 
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