What if Canada (throughout the 19th and 20th century) became a superpower?

Canada has always been to the US what Scotland has been to England. The latter has nearly all the valuable land and economic potential, the former has a fraction of the population and most of its land is useless. Canada's geography makes transportation difficult on every level - all of Canada's major cities are separated by hundred of miles of mountains, lakes, and forests. Even if Canada had pieces of American territory, it would still not have access to ALL of it, which is what makes the US so powerful (total control of the Mississippi watershed and the Intracoastal Waterway, etc.)
 
The challenge: making Canada bigger while still keeping it recognizably as Canada.

Maximum 1812 gains without making Canada so large as to be swamped with Americans of iffy loyalty.
-46th parallel from the Mississippi to the continental divide
-Wisconsin
-Michigan + Toledo
-A strip in upstate New York along the St Lawrence
-Maine north and east of the Penobscot River

Canada has a good western port here (Duluth) that provides earlier access to the Canadian west as well as more territory out west for agriculture.

Get the Canadians Alaska, Hawaii, and the British Caribbean on top of this and I think Canada looks pretty formidable.
 

Lusitania

Donor
The challenge: making Canada bigger while still keeping it recognizably as Canada.

Maximum 1812 gains without making Canada so large as to be swamped with Americans of iffy loyalty.
-46th parallel from the Mississippi to the continental divide
-Wisconsin
-Michigan + Toledo
-A strip in upstate New York along the St Lawrence
-Maine north and east of the Penobscot River

Canada has a good western port here (Duluth) that provides earlier access to the Canadian west as well as more territory out west for agriculture.

Get the Canadians Alaska, Hawaii, and the British Caribbean on top of this and I think Canada looks pretty formidable.
The capture of American territory in war of 1812 is near impossible. The war was started by American war hawks who were upset at British naval actions and British support to natives in Midwest. The British wanted peace and resumption of trade ASAP and all action against the Americans was meant to pressure them to peace. There was no chance the British would jeopardize trade with US for a bit more land. No the only way to gain territory in North America is for that land never to of been part of US.

That is why the 1784 Ohio Valley proposal works. As for west with Ohio part of Canada then the border can be to the south
 

Sam Biswas

Banned
British loyalist and new commers.
You wouldn't just called these loyalist "British." Sure many of them were pledged loyalty to the British crown, but they were not British. They were no different from any American colonists around that time. More accurately, they were called as the American Loyalist.

After the "first" Civil War, because many American Loyalists were fleeing up north in what is now Canada, the dialect and culture between Canadians and Americans are so similar that even they have a hard time to tell by themselves. Only thing we're different that Canada has French-speakibg Quebec and America has the American South.
 
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The capture of American territory in war of 1812 is near impossible. The war was started by American war hawks who were upset at British naval actions and British support to natives in Midwest. The British wanted peace and resumption of trade ASAP and all action against the Americans was meant to pressure them to peace. There was no chance the British would jeopardize trade with US for a bit more land. No the only way to gain territory in North America is for that land never to of been part of US.

That is why the 1784 Ohio Valley proposal works. As for west with Ohio part of Canada then the border can be to the south

I can understand the midwest argument, but a 46th parallel border from the Mississippi to the continental divide doesn't seem that improbable to me. The western boundary wasn't set until the war.

Retaining the New Ireland colony (Maine past the Penobscot River) isn't that crazy either I think.

With that territory, the Canadians could have an extra ten million people at least plus they could double the population of the OTL prairies and British Columbia because of earlier connection to the west. Combine that with increased immigration and a Canadian Caribbean and we've got ~64 million Canadians. Throw Alaska on top of that too perhaps?


In the late 20th/early 21st century you'd have the Alberta Tar Sands, Bakken formation, Alaska, and Trinidad-Tobago oil in one country. That's pretty significant.
 

Lusitania

Donor
I can understand the midwest argument, but a 46th parallel border from the Mississippi to the continental divide doesn't seem that improbable to me. The western boundary wasn't set until the war.

Retaining the New Ireland colony (Maine past the Penobscot River) isn't that crazy either I think.

With that territory, the Canadians could have an extra ten million people at least plus they could double the population of the OTL prairies and British Columbia because of earlier connection to the west. Combine that with increased immigration and a Canadian Caribbean and we've got ~64 million Canadians. Throw Alaska on top of that too perhaps?


In the late 20th/early 21st century you'd have the Alberta Tar Sands, Bakken formation, Alaska, and Trinidad-Tobago oil in one country. That's pretty significant.

Ok if you read my previous posts I had stated Canada gets the Ohio Valley in 1784. It then can demand northern half of French Louisiana. Taking Minnesota, dakotas and Montana plus use Columbia river as border with US along Pacific.

As for carribeAn there are several scenarios in which they could become part of Canada both during 19th and 20th century.

As for Alaska we would have a hard time getting after the Crimea war for the Russians did not want to make the British Empire stronger. So the only event I see Canada getting it would be as part of Crimea war spoils. I could see Canada getting the sandwich islands (Hawai). Britain could of established protective over the islands in the 19th century. During WW1 the Canadians could take over from the British and after WW2 become Canadian province.
 
I think the best-case scenario with no major divergence before 1812 was done as a TL by @Dathi THorfinnsson entitled "Canada-wank". The end result (a Canada including Michigan, Illinois, parts of Ohio and Indiana, all of the Louisiana Territory, Texas, most of the OTL Western US, etc.) is pretty much a superpower.
 
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