User blog:Marcpasquin/February's Legacy: North American Integration

I've been toying with the idea of an Integration of North America in this timeline. I saw it as a bloodless annexion of canada by the US in a manner similar to the Anschluss. Basicaly, the canadian KKK would join/form a party, get elected by itself or as the senior member of a coalition and holds a referendum on joining the US with backing at all time (though in a mainly secretive way) by the AFP.

One of the reason why I envisioned the posibility is that the KKK was active in some provinces *here* in the 20-30s and even had enough clout to take down the Liberal government in Saskatchewan. There were some reported connections with politicians so that with the exemple down south, they might have evolved into something similar to the America First Party. As to why the AFP regime might have wanted to integrate Canada, the reasons would be security (not having to defend a long border with potential troublemakers) and access to large untapped resources.

There are however a number of obstacles to having it happen in a plausible fashion. From an ethnic standpoint, at least a quarter of the population wasn't white anglo-saxon protestants and they formed large groups in some areas (and the majority in quebec) who couldn't be as easily assimilated into the state apparatus. The only way I could see them dealing with that would be to isolate the largest concentration (quebec) by splitting off the english parts (outaouais to ontario, eastern township to new brunswick) and doing to the rump part what would amount to a downgrade to non-voting status (to presidential election and the congress) as a "Freely associated territory" with some token powers thrown in to give it the illusion of home rule.

The second problem is that historicaly, the KKK didn't manage to spread much outside the western provinces. For quebec the reasons are obvious but for the maritimes and ontario, it seem to have had to do with various socio-economical as well as local political reasons which would be hard to overcome.

The last point, and a major one, would be the acceptance of ordinary canadians in regard to Integration. There was a strong sense on national pride folowing WW1 and most of english canada at the time seemed to have been pro monarchy or at the very least, not anti. Of course you wouldn't need the whole of the population to be active supporters but things would probably need to change a bit between the late 20s and late 40s to make most of them at least passive ones.

Comments and Ideas ?