WI Newfoundland retained its independence?

In OTL many wanted a return of indepedence after the CoG expired, or its renewal. Smallwood was the force behind the Confederation option. It narrowly passed in a referendum. WI they voted against it. Would it be absorbed by Canada eventually because of economic reasons, and would Danny Williams become Premier/PM/President :D?

Possible POD: When referendum passed, King thought the margin was too narrow, and Pickersgill told him that more voted for Confederation than voted for him except in 1940 in popular vote terms. WI King refused because of the margin? And not because Pick sassed the master...
 
As if Newfoundland Had any reason for anyone to ever worry about it.
Maybe if NFl Had just tested it's Nukes yesterday. I would feel this Question had some reason to exist.
 
As if Newfoundland Had any reason for anyone to ever worry about it.
Maybe if NFl Had just tested it's Nukes yesterday. I would feel this Question had some reason to exist.

That's not very imaginative...

Leftists/environmentalists in an independent Newfoundland boot out a NATO military presence...you lose a SOSUS base, the main stopover point of (US) Army personnel transferring into Europe (my dad had to stop at Goose Green enroute to his posting with the Pershings in Germany), and a place for maritime patrols to operate from in the event of the Cold War going hot.

A possible mini-crisis if an American SSN or SSBN accidentally sinks a fishing trawler, and Newfoundland declares a ridiculously large "nuclear-free" zone in its waters.

I'm sure there are other things...
 
As if Newfoundland Had any reason for anyone to ever worry about it.
Maybe if NFl Had just tested it's Nukes yesterday. I would feel this Question had some reason to exist.
It doesn't need aa reason to be worried about, it simply needs a cause to continue existing!
 
In OTL many wanted a return of indepedence after the CoG expired, or its renewal. Smallwood was the force behind the Confederation option. It narrowly passed in a referendum. WI they voted against it. Would it be absorbed by Canada eventually because of economic reasons, and would Danny Williams become Premier/PM/President :D?

Possible POD: When referendum passed, King thought the margin was too narrow, and Pickersgill told him that more voted for Confederation than voted for him except in 1940 in popular vote terms. WI King refused because of the margin? And not because Pick sassed the master...

what the "CoG" is, I don't know, and I'm a literate Canadian (although a Westerner).

For the benefit of non-Canadians:

Newfoundland was its own Dominion, but suffered massively from the Depression and Britain took her back as a colony. After WWII, there was a referendum on what status the place should have. There were three options, of which one was union with Canada (to be honest, I forget exactly what the other two were).

Newfoundlanders did not, in general, want to be part of Canada, but their experience on their own taught them that that wasn't so hot either. Britain wanted to get rid of them, and there really weren't many terribly attractive options.

Joey Smallwood, the premier at the time, pushed very hard for union with Canada, and managed to sway vote to his side - although, as noted, not by a large margin.

All this off the top of my head, so sorry for lack of details.
 
CoG is Commission of Government, set up in 1934 to replace direct rule. It was for a fifteen-year term, which expired in 1949 and was the reason for the referendum.
 
Newfoundland was its own Dominion, but suffered massively from the Depression and Britain took her back as a colony. After WWII, there was a referendum on what status the place should have. There were three options, of which one was union with Canada (to be honest, I forget exactly what the other two were).

The other two options were independence and (if I remember correctly) to stay as a colony/dominion of Britain.

There also happened to be two votes, and on the second ballot only the independence and union with Canada opitions were present with the Britain option removed.
 
The other two options were independence and (if I remember correctly) to stay as a colony/dominion of Britain.

There also happened to be two votes, and on the second ballot only the independence and union with Canada opitions were present with the Britain option removed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newfoundland_referendums,_1948

Yes that was it. OTOH, Britain made it clear that they weren't going to keep subsidizing Nfld, in any of the cases.
 
In OTL many wanted a return of indepedence after the CoG expired, or its renewal. Smallwood was the force behind the Confederation option. It narrowly passed in a referendum. WI they voted against it. Would it be absorbed by Canada eventually because of economic reasons, and would Danny Williams become Premier/PM/President :D?

Considering that Britain would prefer Newfoundland being part of Canada in the first place (hence why they made the threat that no matter what they do after the Commission of Government expired, there would be no more direct aid from Whitehall)?

Newfoundland would be probably a bit poor for a couple of years - who knows, maybe even more so than in OTL with the suspension of direct aid. Smallwood gets a bit disgraced (but would find a way to remain in the spotlight - after all, he was the "Barrelman" on the government-owned radio station :D), but that's only a side-effect. How would ATL Newfoundland deal with the Mi'kmaq and the Innu (Montagnais/Naskapi) in Labrador? In effect, Newfoundland becomes the British version of 1950s/1960s Iceland, with its reliance on fishing - and once the fish stocks collapse, what would the Government do? Would they go into "Cod Wars" with Canada, France (merci, St.-Pierre :rolleyes:), and the US?
 

NomadicSky

Banned
Wouldn't Newfoundland be incredibly poor?

Had the British and Canadian governments allowed the vote there's actually a chance that Newfoundland would have applied for admission to the US, which would have been interesting.
 
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How about....Newfoundland has it's own UDI and becomes an outsider state like the Republic of South Africa or Rhodesia.

ASB. There's no way something like that would occur.

Wouldn't Newfoundland be incredibly poor?

Probably for the first couple of years, since it would be relying heavily on its fishing fleet. A good analogue would probably be Iceland during this time (the late 1940s until quite recently, in OTL).
 
Wouldn't Newfoundland be incredibly poor?

Had the British and Canadian governments allowed the vote there's actually a chance that Newfoundland would have applied for admission to the US, which would have been interesting.

1) they would have been really poor. They were poor enough even in Canada.

2) I could imagine an ATL where those wanting to join the States strategically organize for independence since a) joining the States wasn't on the ballot, b) joining Britain or Canada would prevent the eventual join with the States, and c) after a few years of independence, Newfoundland might be desperate to join SOMEBODY and they think they can steer the decision they way they want.
 
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