Canadian Alternate Histories - Page 6

esquire · #**101** Posted **Jan 16, 2018, 5:26 PM**

^ To be fair people in other countries don't think about the weather as much because it's less of an issue. Except for those who live in places subject to somewhat isolated events like hurricanes/typhoons, the weather is not that big a deal. Contrast that with much of Canada where it ranges from unpleasant to downright dangerous to be outside for prolonged periods, for months of the year.

So by that measure, even Vancouver, which is probably no one's idea of a climactic paradise, suddenly looks good by comparison. They're basically the tallest midget, so they get the bragging rights.

someone123 · #**102** Posted **Jan 16, 2018, 5:54 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by geotag277

I think it's a combination of the relatively mild weather Vancouver is known for combined with the ingrained Canadian obsession with weather.

It's also something that affords bragging rights here in Vancouver.

People in Vancouver used to brag about the laid-back lifestyle and how people in Toronto are so stressed out in comparison. But hat has subsided now that traffic and the cost of living here have gotten so much worse.

Docere · #**103** Posted **Jan 16, 2018, 11:35 PM**

What if Toronto and Montreal had reached the 2 million-ish mark around 1930 instead of 1960? How does this impact their urban forms, development of suburbs etc.?

hipster duck · #**104** Posted **Jan 16, 2018, 11:57 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Docere

What if Toronto and Montreal had reached the 2 million-ish mark around 1930 instead of 1960? How does this impact their urban forms, development of suburbs etc.?

It would be nice to imagine Montreal or Toronto having Haussmann blocks or looking like the Lower East Side, but I don't think this scenario would have changed anything, other than that both cities' pre-war urban form, as they currently exist, would have extended further out.

Inner city land values were never really that hot of a thing before the war, and transportation links within North American cities were always sufficiently-built and funded to allow outward expansion; this prevented inner city densification in all but a handful of geographically constrained, economically vibrant cities like New York, Boston or San Francisco. Montreal's pre-war urban form, versus Toronto's, is a cultural phenomenon, not an economic one.

We are going through a density binge right now not only because downtown is a destination for business again - which it wasn't from 1950-1990 - but also because we rely on higher governments to fund and build sufficient transportation links to get people into the city, and governments (at least in Toronto and Montreal) have largely reneged on that responsibility since 1980.

I guess what would have been radically different is the transportation system in each city. Both cities would have probably had a rapid transit system by the 1930s replacing the main streetcar routes into the core.

Docere · #**105** Posted **Jan 17, 2018, 12:58 AM**

Yeah, in Toronto's case, the outer city likely would be more York/East York-like today.

Capsicum · #**106** Posted **Jan 17, 2018, 12:59 AM**

They would be far more NYC-like.

Pinion · #**107** Posted **Jan 17, 2018, 1:02 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Acajack

Canadians living on frozen tundra with a tiny population* know that most people don't care about weather because they live side by side with people from all over the world (often from tropical locales) who are perfectly happy there and who actually tell them they do not care much about weather. lol

*Canada outside of SW BC doesn't have a "tiny population" and includes several cities and provinces with more population than SW BC.

OK. Looks like feelings are getting hurt.

Canada does have a tiny population, and an extremely lax immigration policy that still struggles to keep the economy going because not many people want to move here.

Capsicum · #**108** Posted **Jan 17, 2018, 1:02 AM**

Is there a way that Montreal could have remained Canada's #1 largest city?

Or was it likely to have been surpassed by Toronto given the trends of the times?

hipster duck · #**109** Posted **Jan 17, 2018, 1:07 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pinion

OK. Looks like feelings are getting hurt.

Canada does have a tiny population, and an extremely lax immigration policy that still struggles to keep the economy going because not many people want to move here.

I don't think Acajack is the kind of guy who will feel hurt if you insult Canada.

Capsicum · #**110** Posted **Jan 17, 2018, 1:08 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pinion

OK. Looks like feelings are getting hurt.

Canada does have a tiny population, and an extremely lax immigration policy that still struggles to keep the economy going because not many people want to move here.

Lots of people do want to move to Canada.

Look at the situation with the refugees and the situation with the Safe Third Country agreement, waiting in the frigid cold to cross the border, after trekking long hours or days in the snow, thinking that when Trudeau gave the message about Canada welcoming them, they'd get a real chance.

Getting people to come to settle for settlement's sake at all would not be the problem. The question is how realistic or pragmatic it would be, and how it would be done.

Acajack · #**111** Posted **Jan 17, 2018, 1:29 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I don't think Acajack is the kind of guy who will feel hurt if you insult Canada.

Hehehehehehe

MonkeyRonin · #**112** Posted **Jan 17, 2018, 3:01 AM**

I just returned from a trip to Brazil, so of course I've been spending time reading up on Brazilian history now. One thing that really caught my attention though, was the story of João Goulart. Elected as Vice President in 1961, he succeeded into the presidential role when his predecesor resigned, and governed until he was deposed in a US-backed coup in 1964 that led to a 20-year military dictatorship.

He was a generally centre-left politician, but the Americans were nonetheless concerned with some of his relations to socialist countries & "anti-American" interests, and feared that Brazil would become "another China or Cuba", and so they had devised a few plans on how best to change the political situation in that country to their advantage.

Anyway, the first thing that jumped into my mind when reading this: he doesn't sound that different from Pierre Trudeau. Left-wing, friendly with socialist countries, nationalistic, and hostile to certain facets of US foreign policy - at the height of communist panic and US intervention in the politics of the Americas. So that had me thinking, what did the Americans think of the Trudeau government? Were they concerned about the "socialist" influence in Canada? Did they have plans to remove him or meddle in Canadian affairs?

Now, Canadian society wasn't as fractured as Brazil's at the time, and PET enjoyed a level of popularity both at home & abroad that Goulart most certainly did not - not to mention that Canada still enjoyed a certain protection from it's commonwealth allies that even the US would be wise not to challenge. So, realistically, there was less room for them to intervene in Canadian affairs than those of more politically isolated, volatile nations like Brazil - but, for the purposes of this thread, what if the US government had similarly feared the Trudeau administration of took steps to remove him from power? How might that have played out, and how would it have shaped Canadian democracy?

geotag277 · #**113** Posted **Jan 17, 2018, 3:14 AM**

Trudeau wasn't so different then other figures at the time, such as Mitterrand.

I don't believe the USA would have meddled with Canada, because Canada was wholly dependant on the USA economically (similar to Russia/Belarus today), and I have to imagine the USA already knows everything there is to know about Canadian intelligence and internal affairs.

kwoldtimer · #**114** Posted **Jan 17, 2018, 3:25 AM**

Trudeau never threatened U.S. interests - had Petro Canada been established by nationalizing U.S. oil companies, he might have been seen differently. The situation in Quebec at that time would also likely have discouraged any thought of destabilizing activities, no matter how much Trudeau may have been disliked by the powers that be.

Docere · #**115** Posted **Jan 17, 2018, 3:28 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

So that had me thinking, what did the Americans think of the Trudeau government? Were they concerned about the "socialist" influence in Canada? Did they have plans to remove him or meddle in Canadian affairs?

Nixon thought he was an "asshole" and a "pompous egghead." PET famously replied that "I've been called worse things by better people."

It would have been pretty hard for the Americans to criticize Trudeau for establishing diplomatic relations with "red" China when they did the same thing shortly afterward (Cuba is another story)

Trudeau did irk the Reagan administration with his peace initatives.

However he wasn't really alone, as Geotag points out. Mitterrand, Helmut Schmidt etc. held similar views on foreign policy.

Capsicum · #**116** Posted **Jan 17, 2018, 3:33 AM**

How about another scenario -- what if Canada was not economically dependent on the US? What alternative history could involve Canada being able to survive as much as possible without the US economy, unlike our real life situation of very high dependence?

Could there have been a situation, where despite the geographic proximity, either Canada was more self-sufficient as a large internal market (similar to the US in itself) or at some point ends up having another, non-US, country as its largest trading partner (eg. the UK, Europe, Japan, China etc.)?

mistercorporate · #**117** Posted **Jan 17, 2018, 3:33 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pinion

Canadians living on frozen tundra with a tiny population think no one cares about weather. lol

If it's cold outside you can wear appropriate clothing and feel warmer. Changing clothes doesn't help when you live in a war zone, live in a boring museum town, live in a place with insane cost of living vs income or live under an ignorant stifling government.

kwoldtimer · #**118** Posted **Jan 17, 2018, 3:45 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Capsicum

How about another scenario -- what if Canada was not economically dependent on the US? What alternative history could involve Canada being able to survive as much as possible without the US economy, unlike our real life situation of very high dependence?

Could there have been a situation, where despite the geographic proximity, either Canada was more self-sufficient as a large internal market (similar to the US in itself) or at some point ends up having another, non-US, country as its largest trading partner (eg. the UK, Europe, Japan, China etc.)?

Wasn't the UK our largest trading partner until sometime between the Wars?

Capsicum · #**119** Posted **Jan 17, 2018, 3:58 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Wasn't the UK our largest trading partner until sometime between the Wars?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ners_of_Canada

According to Wikipedia.

"Following the Civil War, the United States emerged as Canada's largest trading partner. By the time the United Kingdom joined the European Economic Community in 1973, the idea of the UK as an alternative to the USA as Canada's largest market was no longer viable."

Could we have an alternative history where the UK manages to continue to stay as largest trading partner.

Or another situation where it's the EU that's Canada's largest trading partner?

Dengler Avenue · #**120** Posted **Jan 17, 2018, 4:19 AM**

* edited *