The Case for Laurentia

The Quebec-Ontario border along the St. Lawrence River is, in the end, artificial. It cuts Montreal off from the English-speaking part of its hinterland, which naturally extends through the St. Lawrence Plain to the Frontenac Axis, just before Kingston, and up the Ottawa River. Similarly, the border along the Ottawa splits in two a region that really developed culturally as one; the Ottawa Valley remains quite different from the rest of Ontario, and the Gatineau Region quite distinct culturally and politically from the rest of Quebec.

Perhaps one day, to resolve these anomalies, it might be worthwhile to carve out three provinces where today there are two, Quebec and Ontario. Ontario would spread from Kingston and Algonquin Park west, a province centred on the Great Lakes. The land east of Kingston and the head of the Ottawa would be joined with Montreal and that part of Quebec south and east of Trois Rivieres, including the Outouais and perhaps the Noranda- Rouyn region.

This would give Canada one province, Laurentia, in which French and English-speaking populations were almost the same; indeed, the boundaries could be set to make this so. It might well become a thoroughly bilingual province, and a bridge for national unity.

Imagine how this might change the equation for Canadian federalism. How could Quebec separate without Laurentia and leave behind so many French speakers? Conversely, how could Laurentia separate and take with it so many English speakers? It would be a forced marriage, perhaps, but it would be a marriage that much less likely to ever end in divorce.

Less importantly, it would also help with the equailty of provinces. It has always been awkward, for such matters as Senate reform, that two provinces, Ontario and Quebec, were so much bigger than the rest.

This region has always produced much of what is most interesting and most distinctive in Canadian culture—and for good reason. It is the mixing of cultures that makes for great art, and it is, historically, the mixing of the English and French-speaking cultures that has made Canada. With the artificial barriers removed, Laurentia might become that much more productive, and go much farther in developing a solid, enduring, glorious, and distinct Canadian culture.

It would help Montreal financially. Geographically, Montreal ought to be the business capital of Canada, and was until relatively recently. All transportation funnels through here. It has been in slow decline for decades because of Quebec separatism, Quebec cultural protectionism, and Quebec economic policies. Freed of this and made capital of its own, perfectly bilingual region, it should quickly rise again as Canada's great metropolis, the preferred site for any Canadian head office.

Laurentia, as I call it, would, not least, be to the advantage of French-speaking Canadians. They would have a proper choice: those who believe in cultural isolation and fear for the decline of their traditions, can remain in Quebec. Those who believe the future is brightest with bilingualism and an openness to other cultures can choose Laurentia. If the economy or politics of either spot becomes unpalatable, the average Francophone would now have the option of the other, without having to surrender his French culture.

My Canada already includes Laurentia, and I imagine this is true of many Canadians. I grew up there. Because of this, I often feel I have no province now. Irish Eastern Ontario is a very different place frome that Ontario centred on Toronto; and West Island, Anglophone Montreal is a very different culture from that commenly meant when one says "Quebecois."

It's time we were maitres chez nous, n'est pas?