Local Politics in the 4T

[David Horn]

(08-01-2018, 11:36 AM)tg63 Wrote:

(07-31-2018, 01:26 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-31-2018, 10:39 AM)Marypoza Wrote: Wrt Montreal, Quebec has been threatening to secede forever but hasn't yet. Some years ago l read an article about how some of the western provinces were looking into joining the United States (gawd only knows why, we're as f*ed up as ever) TX & CA talk about seceding but nothing over comes of it. I think the closest any political entity ever came to seceding (recently) is when Scotland had that secession vote a few years back & the majority of the Scots got cold feet. I'm thinking things have to get really bad b4 ppl actually secede & form their own nation state

WRT Toronto leaving Ontario, they would still be part of Canada and, presumably, another province.  Assuming the entire metro area joins the city proper, a new province of ~6 Million people with a land are of 5,905.71 km^2 (2,280.21 mi^2), is not unreasonable at all.  Prince Edward Island has a smaller total land area of 5,660 km^2 (2,190 mi^2), a population of ~150,000, and has been a province since 1873.

Several US states have tried to break apart to achieve greater political clout, but none have done so to date.  West Virginia severed itself from Virginia during the ACW, but that is a special case if there ever was one.

exactly, this would create a new province. 

I'm actually kind of surprised that no US city - NYC being the obvious one, but there could be cases made for others - has tried to leave its home state.

This has come up from time to time, but it's not as easy to accomplish in the US as it obviously is in Canada.  For starters, the state government has a virtual veto if it choses to use it.  If that hurdle is crossed, then there has to be a referendum to see if the idea is OK within the state and city.  Next, it's on to the Federal government, which has to pass a law authorizing the admission of a new state.  This took decades in the cases of Alaska and Hawaii.

No state has tried to accomplish this since Hawaii, and the politics of the new state may make the case impossible regardless.