If Canada Had Never Been Invaded

 Some time ago this speculative question appeared on Quora:

"How would the United States be different if Canada was never invaded?"

I gave this as my speculative history answer and welcome other speculative analyses in comments :

"What is now Canada was invaded three times:

1. "When under French control, by Britain with full support of the American colonies. This was a successful invasion that resulted in British North America, eventually Canada. If this invasion had never happened, the American colonies would likely have remained sufficiently wary of the French presence that the American Revolution would not have happened and the United States would not have come into existence, remaining British colonies until eventually evolving into into independent nation(s) with full membership in the British Commonwealth of Nations. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 would have remained in effect and the American colonies would not have expanded across the Appalachians.
2. "During the American Revolution, by American forces that were completely repelled in successful defence of British North America. If this invasion had never happened, American revolutionary forces might not have suffered some depletion, General Benedict Arnold likely would not have changed sides, and the American Revolution just might have taken less time.
3. "With the War of 1812, by American forces under the official American federal government policy to annex British North America, a dismal defeat for the United States as the invaders were successfully driven out. If this invasion had never happened, it would be because the Monroe Doctrine did not exist, The United States was not as expansionist as it actually was, the War of 1812 did not happen, and there would have been no Treaty of Ghent (betraying British Ally, Tecumseh) to give Americans excuse to cross the Appalachians. The United States would likely have remained confined east of the Appalachian Mountains as Britain enforced the Royal Proclamation of 1763 to support Tecumseh in creating a viable First Nations confederacy south of the Great Lakes as a British protectorate and eventual independent majority First Nations nation state with full membership in the British Commonwealth of Nations. The United States would likely not have been in a position to purchase the Louisiana Territory from France, resulting in an eventual French influenced but largely First Nations nation state west of the Mississippi River. Spanish/Mexican control of what is now southwestern United States would have persisted and Mexico would now be a geographically larger country. The eventual British exploration and colonization of the Pacific Northwest would have kept a larger portion of that region under British control, extending between what would have been Spanish/Mexican California and Russian Alaska. The United States would not have been in a position to purchase Alaska from Russia but Britain/Canada might eventually have done so. Hawaii would never have become American, remaining a British Protectorate kingdom until eventual recovery to full independence as its own kingdom within the British Commonwealth of Nations."

Petition Re NAFTA and ISDS

I have prepared a petition in response to the opportunity to seek removal of ISDS from NAFTA given by the intention of the new President of the United States to open NAFTA for renegotiation.  The text of the petition follows.  Unlike the actual petition which cannot contain hyperlinks, this copy contains links to various related articles about ISDS.  The petition itself is on Change.org; do not attempt to sign it here.

Petition Re NAFTA and ISDS

To:  Prime Minister, The Right Honourable Justin P. J. Trudeau,

Minister of International Trade, the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne,

The Parliament of Canada, and

the rest of the Government of Canada

Whereas The new President of the United States of America has stated his intention to open the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for complete renegotiation; and

Whereas Negotiations for NAFTA and for other so-called free trade agreements have been and continue to be conducted in secret by government trade negotiators with the exception that representatives of international corporations with interest in the effects of international trade are permitted access to these negotiators and to contribute to treaty development while:

• wholly domestic Canadian businesses with an interest in how international trade may affect their own local business operations,
• organizations concerned about environmental issues and how international trade may impact the Canadian and worldwide environment,
• labour organizations with concerns about how international trade may affect working Canadians,
• Canadian agricultural organizations with concerns about Canadians’ capacity to feed ourselves while also trading internationally,
• organizations attentive to health and safety issues and concerned with the effect of international trade on those issues, and
• others with interest in the effect of international trade on Canadian society

          are all prohibited the same access to Canada’s government trade negotiators; and

Whereas NAFTA contains provision for Investor/State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) through the International Centre for Settlement of Investor Disputes (ICSID); and

Whereas ISDS permits international corporations to sue Canada by tribunal outside of any national judiciary to overturn new law enacted out of our sovereign right to govern ourselves; and

Whereas ISDS suits get decided in secret trials without recourse to appeal, utter anathema to a free and democratic society, never open and public; and

Whereas The evil of ISDS lies in its capacity to defeat the sovereign right of nations, Canada included, to govern themselves by granting international corporations with investments in Canadian business the right to sue Canadian federal, provincial, and local governments in these SECRET TRIALS outside of the Canadian judicial system if new environmental, labour, health and safety, business practice, etc. law impinges on their investment; and

Whereas These secret ISDS trials exist in one direction only – international corporations may sue nations, Canada included, but nations may not sue international corporations – ISDS raises international corporations from their proper status as subjects of nations and welcome guests within Canada to superiors of nations; and

Whereas Decisions by ISDS tribunals are based solely on the impact new Canadian law may have upon a complainant corporation’s investment, with all other factors (environmental, labour, health and safety, business practice regulation, etc.) government must consider when drafting law, regarded as irrelevant to each case; and

Whereas Decisions by ISDS tribunals are based upon neither existing statutes of any kind nor active precedents, implying that Canadian governments cannot know, when preparing new law, if our actions may be subject to attack under ISDS and, thus, may feel need to clear any new law with international corporate boards of directors if Canada wishes to preclude attack by ISDS suits; and

Whereas The above four conditions transform international corporations from subjects of nations or welcome guests within Canada to, in effect, non-territorial kingdoms and reinforces the current dangerous trend corrupting Capitalism toward Capital Feudalism by which:

• Capital replaces land as the feu;
• International banking replaces the Church as the external power;
• Non-territorial international corporations replace kingdoms as the fundamental holders of the feu;
• Corporate CEOs replace kings as the authorities by which the feu gets distributed and to whom loyal attachment must return;
• Major corporate internal divisions and subsidiaries replace baronies, earldoms, dukedoms, counties, etc. as subordinate holders of the feu;
• Corporate vice presidents, very senior managers, and subsidiary CEOs replace the various Lords of the Realm;
• Corporate managers and highly skilled technical professionals replace knights;
• Contractors replace the freeman peasantry; and
• Ordinary common working people are reduced to the new serfs;

All while the role of sovereign nations and democratic decision making diminishes into insignificance, reducing Canada and participating nations to resource and labour colonies of international corporations; and

Whereas As a consequence of our participation in NAFTA, Canada is already the developed nation most frequently attacked with ISDS suits, with one immediately a recent case in point, an ISDS judgment against the province of Ontario; and

Whereas NAFTA is widely considered to be a template and precedent for many other so-called free trade agreements in which Canada currently participates or are under negotiation with Canada’s participation;

Therefore We the undersigned Canadians, prepared, “O Canada, We stand on guard for thee,” do petition you to:

Require that The sovereignty-deleting Investor/State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) through the International Centre for Settlement of Investor Disputes (ICSID) provision be wholly removed from a renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA);

Require that In place of ISDS, a renegotiated NAFTA provide that Canadian operations of international corporations which find themselves at issue with our governments at any level should bring the matter to an open and public Canadian court within the Canadian judicial system for decision under Canadian law in the same way as wholly domestic Canadian corporations and Canadian citizens must do;

Require that Alternatively, in place of ISDS, a renegotiated NAFTA provide that, if an issue exceeds the competence of Canadian courts, an international corporation should openly and publicly request its home nation government (by home nation, we do not mean that nation within which an international corporation is chartered or locates its corporate head office; we mean that nation in which the plurality of the corporation's equity capital ownership resides) to pursue the matter in an open and public international court on a sovereign nation versus sovereign nation basis that clearly holds international corporations as subjects of sovereign nations and not as equals with, nor as masters of, sovereign nations;

Require that In line with this government’s commitment to be fully open to Canadians, the renegotiation occur openly for public scrutiny; and

Require that Representatives of:

• wholly domestic Canadian businesses with an interest in how international trade may affect their own local business operations,
• organizations concerned about environmental issues and how international trade may impact the Canadian and worldwide environment,
• labour organizations with concerns about how international trade may affect working Canadians,
• Canadian agricultural organizations with concerns about Canadians’ capacity to feed ourselves while also trading internationally,
• organizations attentive to health and safety issues and concerned with the effect of international trade on those issues, and
• others with interest in the effect of international trade on Canadian society

have the same access and opportunity to contribute to a renegotiated NAFTA as do representatives of international corporations.

Therefore also We Canadians who love our sovereign, “True north, strong and free,” do petition you to:

Commit to Seek to remove ISDS from all other so-called free trade agreements to which Canada is party, as those agreements come up for renewal,

Refuse to Sign or ratify so-called free trade agreements currently under negotiation as long as they contain ISDS,

Refuse to Participate in any new so-called free trade negotiations if parties to those negotiations intend to include ISDS.

Thank you for your attention.

Today in Ottawa

What a mess we have in Ottawa with both sides of the House of Commons behaving unconscionably.  The Grits and the NDP are welcome to attempt a coalition but to accept and allow themselves to depend upon the support of the Bloc Quebecois, whose sole reason for existence remains to break our country apart, stands as pernicious opportunism.  This dangerously unstable coalition deserves electoral punishment come an election.  The Tory government's decision to prorogue the House in order to avoid a vote of confidence sets an equally dangerous precedent, an abuse of Parliament that must not go unpunished for our parliamentary system to persist.  I feel at a loss!

Brief Reflections On the Recent Canadian Election

I am satisfied with the result of the federal election last Tuesday.  Why should I find such a lack-luster result satisfying?  We have a minority parliament, anathema to many politicians as dysfunctional and obstructive to government agendas.  In reality a minority parliament necessarily shifts the onus of governmental authority to the one place it rightly belongs in a parliamentary democracy, away from the cabinet and right back into parliament.  I grew into political awareness with the Diefenbaker/Pearson minorities and remember the hard fought battles on the floor of the House of Commons.  In spite of acrimonious, even bitter, debate, parliamentary compromises and accommodations produced legislation that both defines us as distinctly Canadian and reflects Canada back on us as we are pleased to perceive ourselves with far more accuracy than any majority government's legislation afterwards has produced.  Recent decades of mostly majority governments have seen gradual but steady devolution of power out of parliament through the cabinet and into the Prime Minister's Office.  This serves as a steady evolution towards episodic dictatorship which a series of minority parliaments can correct.  At the heart of parliamentary democracy lies the concept of responsibility: the government is responsible to parliament and parliament, in turn, is responsible to the electorate.  Yet too often lately we have seen majority governments use their members to represent their intent to the people, reversing the proper representation flow.  Surely, a second minority government will have to listen more closely to parliament and work more effectively with the opposition to produce legislative results more truly of parliament's will than just of the cabinet's intent. The current election result can only serve to strengthen parliament as our authority over the cabinet and the PMO.

Senate Response

To follow up on my last post, politicians do respond to direct communication. Fourteen MPs (or their offices) acknowledged my thoughts, including my own MP. Two Senators and one Provincial Premier also responded. My MP considers the concept of the House of Our Identities novel and interesting but expressed concern that it might formalize our differences rather than resolve them. I felt pleased to get the feedback.

A friend of mine communicated directly with me, sharing his thoughts along the same lines but with a three chambered parliament.

On Reform of the Senate of Canada

The new Government of Canada has expressed a desire to reform the Senate of Canada. In support of this effort, I have shared the following thoughts with my Member of Parliament, the Government, and Parliament as a whole:

As a constant, but minor, theme in Canadian politics, the question of Senate reform remains an unresolved irritant. As an irritant, it can either distract from or aggravate other issues with more pressing need for resolution. Public discussion focuses mainly on the question of why to reform the Canadian Senate and I will not delve into that question now except to acknowledge that the former Reform and Alliance parties both recognized the issue as important. In the past, further discussion sought to identify some principles around which a reformed Senate would function. These include the frequently cited "triple E Senate," and some effort to replace Senate appointment with election from provincial jurisdiction. I am not aware of any suggestion of how a reformed Senate may actually look and function. As a very ordinary Canadian, I would like to offer a suggestion for total reformation of the Senate.
The strength of a bicameral legislature lies in the capacity of one legislative chamber to serve as a check on the other and preserve balance in parliamentary deliberation. To achieve such ability to provide "sober second thought," the constitution must define each chamber very differently one from the other, the basis for membership in one chamber starkly different form the basis for membership in the other. Thus, Canada has an elected House of Commons and an appointed Senate. In the United States, the House of Representatives, made up of localized representatives within the various states, and the Senate, made up of state specific representatives, are, in practical terms, almost indistinguishable one from the other in behaviour and function. I think Canadians accept need to move from undemocratic appointment of Senators but hesitate to duplicate the House of Commons.

By looking at the House of Commons and issues of representation that recur with each election, I can see an alternative organizational structure for a replacement to the present Senate. Historically, the House of Commons is the chamber of the common people in contrast to the British House of Lords, the chamber of the (largely) hereditary landed aristocracy. Having no hereditary landed aristocracy, Canada opted for the current Senate, effectively a chamber of distinguished people, distinction defined neither constitutionally nor by any objective means but at appointment with a suggestion of representation by province. Therein lies its inability to serve Canada effectively. The House of Commons acts, in reality, more as the chamber of our common interest. Members get elected to represent roughly equal segments of Canada's whole population, distributed among highly localized segments of Canadian geography. Each Member of Parliament sits as a Canadian and as a Canadian only, the choice of Canadians within the geographical constituency that member represents.

From time-to-time, concerns circulate that Parliament is not sufficiently representative. There are too few women, as women, in Parliament (despite the fact that the total count of men, as men, in Parliament is zero); there are too few First Nations people, as First Nations people, in Parliament (despite the fact that the total count of non-First Nations people, as non-First Nations people, in Parliament is zero); there are too few disabled people, as disabled people, in Parliament (despite the fact that the total count of fully able people, as fully able people, in Parliament is zero); there are too few people, as members of many and various subsets of Canadians, in Parliament (despite the fact that the total count of people of any other subset of Canadians, as members of such a subset of Canadians, is always zero). Such representation concerns often accompany a suggestion of either quotas on representation in the House of Commons or that selected Commons seats be reserved for representatives of identifiable sub groups of Canadians. Clearly, such special designations would severely distort the House of Commons as a chamber of our common interest.

In contrast, these suggestions may have merit when we consider reforming the Senate. One of Canada's great strengths lies with the diversity of our people. We are all Canadian, yet each of us also shares in various other identities. Perhaps the Senate should become the House of Our Identities. each member elected to represent the interests of the other identities Canadians hold. The House of Commons would remain largely indistinguishable from our current House of Commons, the source of the government responsible to the legislature and the senior of the two chambers, elected from geographical constituencies by openly scheduled general vote for terms of no more than four years. It could still question its own confidence in the government and precipitate an unscheduled election (nothing is more vital for truly responsible democracy than the power to question confidence in the government!). The House of Our Identities, able to review legislation initiated in the House of Commons and initiate its own legislation, not government legislation, is a novel concept, in response to our diversity. It also could question its confidence in the House of Commons and, potentially, precipitate an election for that otherwise senior chamber. In contrast members of the House of Our Identities would sit for rotating, fixed, and limited, terms.

I suggest we identify the five most significant distinct elements of identity to which Canadians hold. These may be by gender, age group, mode of making a living, ethnic derivation, level of education, religious affiliation, generation count since immigration to Canada, ability/disability, mother tongue, province of residence, et-cetera through the entire selection of identities by which all of us live. Every twenty-five years a commission, very like the Forum on Electoral Reform used recently in British Columbia, would examine Canadian society and identify the five areas of identity Canadians currently regard as most significant. The House of Our Identities would be divided into five caucuses with equal numbers of members, one for each of the accepted significant identities. Each Identity Caucus would include members elected to contingents defined by the identities that make up that caucus with the number of members of each contingent dependent on the numbers of Canadians who self-identify with that specific identity. Self-identification at voter registration would be vital to avoid having contingents hijacked by external identity related organizations. For instance, if ethnic derivation were considered a significant identity, the Ethnic Derivation Caucus of the House of Our Identities could consist of elected members making up contingents such as Canadians of French Canadian Origin (i. e. of ancestry dating back to French colonial times in contrast to Canadians of more recent French migration origin whose view of their identity may differ substantially with those of French Canadian Origin), Canadians of British Origin (or, perhaps, subdivided among English, Welsh, Scots, and Irish), Native Canadians, Canadians of Han Chinese Origin, Canadians of African-American origin, et-cetera through the entire diversity of ethnic origins within our current population, including Canadians who prefer to self-identify as of Mixed Ethnicity and a general contingent for Canadians who do not want recognition by any ethnic identity other than simply as Canadian. In the case of age grouping being considered a significant identity, contingents of children, elected by children, and of adolescents, elected by adolescents, could actually take seats in the House of Our Identities.

Large contingents would have to be subdivided by geographical locale while small contingents would get elected at large over the whole country. If gender were considered a significant identity, the Gender Caucus of the House of Our Identities could consist of two large contingents, the contingent of men and the contingent of women subdivided by an appropriate number of paired geographic constituencies for men and for women. If religious affiliation were a significant identity, then Zoroastrians might elect a contingent of one Member of the House of Our Identities for the whole of Canada while Catholics would elect a large contingent from many Catholic constituencies all over Canada. This identity would also have to provide a contingent for those who eschew any religious faith and a general contingent for Canadians who hold their religious beliefs as wholly private.

The actual membership structure of the House of Our Identities would be defined and reviewed every twenty-five years to keep the chamber relevant to Canadian society, with some identities dropped (identities with large general contingents would be prime candidates to get dropped) as no longer significant and others added as newly significant. Each identity caucus within the House of Our Identities would be elected for a fixed five year term, one caucus at a time in succeeding years (this would require that one fifth of the existing Senate retire in each of the first five years of the new House of Our Identities). No member of the House of Our Identities should hold a seat for more than a single term. This would give a fixed schedule election every year and a turn over of chamber membership independent of of the membership turnover in the House of Commons. The first five years after each identity review would be a transition period with each previous identity caucus giving way to its successor identity caucus at each identity caucus election.

The system may be more complex than our present Senate, but it would give real voice for us to express both our common interests as Canadians through the House of Commons and our special interests as Canadians of diverse additional identities through the House of Our Identities. This suggestion offers a dynamic and very real function to a replacement for the current Senate without diminishing the House of Commons.