Blood in the Snow?

Things are getting interesting with our neighbors to the North. The Prime Minister just lost a non-binding “no confidence” vote 153-150. While the Liberals are free to ignore this, it does weaken their position in the eyes of the public even more. Mr. Martin has to explain to the public why he is not scheduling elections when he has clearly lost the confidence of the House of Commons. The head of the Conservatives does have the option of petitioning the Governor-General to dissolve the government and appoint an acting Prime Minister, but unless he can secure a binding resolution, its unlikely the Governor-General will make that step.

For those of you who haven’t been fully following this story, the Liberals are in some hot water concerning an investigation into a kickback scheme involving federal judges. The Liberals then slapped on a publication ban to try and control the outflow of information. But, news got out through a couple of American bloggers and then quickly spread through the Canadian mainstream. Full back-story details are best read at Captain’s Quarters, which provided the original leak in the first place.

Ordinarily this wouldn’t even really ping that high except for one very prominent factor. The current government is primarily a coalition between the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois. Bloc Quebecois has gotten really pissed off by the whole issue and been talking about secession again. If Ottawa continues to bumble, Quebec could throw enough Bloc Quebecois members into the mix that they are able to put a secession initiative before the people of Quebec as they did in the 90’s. If Quebec passes the resolution, all of Canada could break apart. The fact that the West doesn’t like Ontario very much is not a well-kept secret. Spurred by Quebec’s departure, the West could pull its support as well. It’s also somewhat debatable as to how loyal the Maritimes would be to Ontario without a common border.

All of this is raw speculation based on the worst-case scenario, but it is a possibility. From this we then speculate as to whether Ontario would sit by and just take the dissolution of Canada, or if they would move to reunite the country by force.

So where would the US stand in the whole mix? Obviously chaos up North would spell trouble for us, but greed might trump that fear. Its no secret that the Republicans aren’t fond of the way Ontario runs things. Certain factions within the party would love a chance to offer protection for Western Canada with the hope of assimilating that portion into the US. Logging and oil companies would be made very happy by this move. Fueled by the possible intake of more “red state” voters, Democrats might then push to offer the same protections to the Maritimes, which are closer to New England in ideology to balance everything out. So a giant monster consumes the edges, leaving the center.

Again, this is a rather long shot in terms of possibility, but there is always a chance when there is this much tension in the system.