thumb|300px|right|The three Maritime provinces.

Maritime Union () is a proposed political union of the three Maritime provinces of Canada – New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island – to form a single new province.

The idea has been proposed at various times throughout Canadian history, most recently in November 2012 by Stephen Greene, John D. Wallace and Mike Duffy, three Conservative Senators from the region. in 2001 an American author similarly stated that as the Maritime provinces require substantial transfer payments from Ottawa they would not be a viable independent country. He speculated they might combine, with or without Newfoundland, to make themselves more attractive for admission into the United States as a single state.

Regional cooperation

Support for a union of the three provinces has historically ebbed and flowed, in conjunction with various socio-economic and political events throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. In the immediate years following Confederation, the anti-Confederate movement in the region advocated Maritime Union and separation from the new federation, fearing that the wealth of the provinces would be sapped to support development and growth of central and western Canada.

The concept gained credibility in the 1960s at a time when Maritime governments, in partnership with the federal government, were progressively tackling economic underperformance with various regional development programs. The growth of civil service and social program expenditures in the three provinces, coupled with out-migration and declining national political clout, led the provincial governments to examine ways to pool resources and better lobby for the region in Ottawa.

While an actual union was debated in all three provinces, the discussion evolved largely around regional cooperation. Several meetings between all members of the legislative assemblies and the cabinets of the three provinces were conducted during the 1960s, with the result being several important regional cooperation agreements in the areas of health care, post-secondary and secondary education, and in regional intergovernmental coordination, particularly when dealing with Ottawa.

Several institutions were formed by the early 1970s to facilitate intra-regional cooperation, including the Council of Maritime Premiers, and various organisations such as the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission and the Land Registry Information Service. During this time, the secondary school curriculum in each province was standardised and provincial funding to post-secondary education was coordinated to eliminate duplication, particularly among professional programs (e.g., education, law, engineering, medicine, pharmacology, dentistry, social work, criminology, veterinary medicine).

Equally important to the establishment of these formal organisations was the coordination by the mid-1970s among provincial governments for legislation to harmonise policies and programs, as well as to arrive at common positions on federal-provincial negotiations. The CAP has led all three provincial governments to extend cooperation in the adoption of common consumption taxes, insurance legislation harmonisation, the Atlantic Lottery Corporation, venture capital funding, a harness racing commission, and the coordination of provincial government procurements, among other items.

Acadia and "New Acadia"

There are several convergent—unique, historically related, and ultimately intertwined—movements for a limited form of sovereignty and independence, stemming from the New Brunswick region of Canada but ultimately encompassing the whole of the Atlantic provinces and even the northeastern corner of the United States.

"Acadians" traditionally refers to a community mainly in New Brunswick that is linguistically French, but is a distinct culture from Quebec. There have been proposals for Acadia to separate from New Brunswick and become a separate province. This was promoted by the Parti Acadien and is similarly represented by the historic "Republic of Madawaska". There is limited support for this idea, and drawing the borders of a separate Acadian province would be difficult, as Acadians are dispersed throughout the province as well as in smaller numbers in Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Quebec's Magdalen Islands, and the U.S. state of Maine.

To help solve this dilemma, in 2007, Second Vermont Republic essayist Thomas H. Naylor proposed a "New Acadia" which would encompass "Vermont... Maine, New Hampshire, and the four Atlantic provinces of Canada"

The Atlantica Party was created in 2006 to fulfill a similar purpose of uniting Atlantic Canadians under a common banner and government. However, the party failed to gain any ground or make any significant impact on the political scene in Atlantic Canada.

A trade zone uniting the region along these lines has also been formally proposed by the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies and the Atlantic Growth Network (organisations based in Halifax, Nova Scotia) with the support of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, a government agency. Together, they hosted regular regional conferences promoting the Atlantica trade zone, beginning in 2002 through the last major conference, June 11-June 16, 2007, in Halifax.

However, the proposal was also criticised by political activists, most notably Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians, as little more than a regional prototype for a future North American Union.

Gauging support

Within the Maritimes, support for the concept of a formal political union of the three provinces has historically been extremely difficult to quantify by pollsters and politicians. Many Maritimers express support for reducing government expenditures through greater regional cooperation, as in such existing cases as the Maritime Film Classification Board and the Atlantic Lottery Corporation. However, when it comes to actually consolidating the bureaucracies of the three provinces (or four if one counts Newfoundland and Labrador in a larger Atlantic Union), the support dwindles as residents of individual provinces do not wish to see the public sector benefit one particular province over the other.

There is allegedly some support in urban regions as these regions would stand to gain both politically and economically, however mistrust of a formal political union runs deep in Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton, and many parts of New Brunswick and rural Nova Scotia.

Prince Edward Islanders do not wish to give up the freedom of having jurisdictional sovereignty and provincial powers in local control.

Many Cape Bretoners harbour exceptionally deep-seated resentment toward mainland Nova Scotia which has benefited from a relatively strong economy in the Halifax area for many years, something which Cape Bretoners and rural Nova Scotians claim has occurred at their expense. A union with PEI and NB might dilute what remaining influence Cape Breton has on provincial affairs which could have a negative impact on the island.

New Brunswickers express the same fears as Prince Edward Islanders, fearing the loss of jurisdiction, and as Cape Bretoners, fearing the dilution of influence over provincial affairs. Of particular concern is the possible linguistic and cultural dilution that the Acadian community of New Brunswick would face – comprising over 30 percent of the New Brunswick population, cultural protections guaranteed to Acadians in officially bilingual New Brunswick could be compromised. Although both Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia have Acadian communities as well, both are much smaller and less proportionally significant.

Additionally, many rural mainland Nova Scotians distrust the growing economic domination of Halifax and wish to maintain their remaining influence in provincial affairs.

Opinion polls

In May 1970, a Gallup poll among all Canadians asked if the Maritimes should become one province. The results were: 43.8% of respondents agreed, 37.9% disagreed, 18.1% were undecided and 0.3% had a qualified response.

Issues

A Maritime Union (or an Atlantic Union) would face significant political challenges in gaining broad acceptance across the region, particularly where the existing provinces trace their history since European settlement for several centuries. Entire regional identities, cultures, and economies have developed around the separate French and later British colonies, which constitute the Maritime provinces (or the Atlantic provinces, if Newfoundland and Labrador were to be included).

The history of these political jurisdictions cannot be discounted lightly as Nova Scotia's legislature is the oldest seat of responsible government in the Commonwealth of Nations and Prince Edward Island has the second oldest legislative seat in Canada (Province House) and was the site of the Charlottetown Conference. New Brunswick's legislature is the only officially bilingual assembly of the Maritimes.

According to environmental historian Mark McLaughlin, the idea of a Maritime Union as suggested by Conservative political leaders is a neoliberal project with intent to facilitate natural resource extraction and deregulation.

Several issues which would dominate any discussion of a theoretical Maritime Union include:

  • Capital city: Charlottetown, Fredericton and Halifax all have existing legislature buildings, political traditions and histories for their respective provinces, while the largest cities in the Maritimes are Halifax, Saint John and Moncton. Moncton, Sackville, and Amherst have been suggested as capitals due to their central locations. This issue would be most contentious, although the possibility of a rotating capital has been suggested, whereby the legislative buildings in each city could be used on a tri-annual basis. Inter-provincial rivalry would likely prove to be extremely contentious in any decision.
  • Provincial name: Was identified as a topic of division in the 1970 Maritime Union Study, but Acadia is a commonly discussed potential name
  • Official language: The Acadian and Brayon linguistic communities in New Brunswick, and less-so in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, would demand official bilingualism which is currently in effect in New Brunswick. The Maliseet and Mi'kmaq Nations would also likely contest any linguistic debate. And, the Gaels might seek support for their language, as well as Deaf Maritimers who speak either ASL, LSQ, or/and Maritime Sign Language.
  • Federal representation: Each of the three Maritime provinces has been guaranteed a minimum number of seats in the House of Commons of Canada and the Senate since it joined the Canadian Confederation (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in 1867, Prince Edward Island in 1873), even though their relatively small populations (most notably Prince Edward Island's) have never strictly warranted them. It has been suggested that the existing representation guarantees might not be passed on to a united Maritimes. Additionally, a Maritime Union would presumably be represented at the nation's First Ministers' meetings of the Prime Minister and provincial Premiers by only one voice instead of three or four.

References

Further reading

  • Council of Atlantic Premiers (CAP)