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Joel Garreau wrote a book called "The Nine Nations of North America" which I really like and regularly refer to. That, together with Hackett Fischer's "Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America" resonate with me and help to shape my perspective on things.
It occurs to me that there is another way of slicing and dicing Canada to try and come to terms with its reality.
Conventionally we talk of provinces and territories (13 of them) or regions (usually the Atlantic, Quebec and/or Ontario or Central Canada, the Prairies and/or BC or the West, and the North). We talk of French and English and Natives and occasionally immigrants. Historically we used to talk of Catholics and Protestants although now we focus on Muslims and Jews.
I suggest that Canada can be more clearly defined if it is considered as three entities which I will intentionally not name.
Entity 1 exists in the St Lawrence Lowlands. It covers the ground from Windsor to Quebec and hugs the banks of the St Lawrence Seaway. In some places it is only as wide as the river itself. In Ontario you have left it by the time you reach Peterborough. It includes the greater Toronto and Montreal communities and encompasses some 18.4 million Canadians, or something better than half the population of Canada. Its total area is roughly 41,000 km2 and has a population density of 449 Canadians / km2.
Entity 1 is roughly the same size as, and has a similar population to, the Netherlands.
It is well served by road, commuter rail and power grids. Just like the Netherlands. It feels very much like a high tech, high speed, low drag European society. And its politics and needs reflect that.
Entity 1 has a workable European, centralized future focusing on faddish, but arguably justifiable to some, concepts like sustainability and green engineering. I say faddish because the concept of efficiency is much older than the marketing spin of the fads, but the population density of the region does justify the collective application of technologies to achieve efficiencies. Communitarianism is a viable alternative in the region.
Entity 2 is a very different place.
Entity 2 is broadly described by the triangle of Lethbridge, Edmonton and Winnipeg. It is the Prairies. Not the Prairie Provinces but just the prairies. It is encompassed by the Canadian Shield, the Rockies and the US. It is the arable part of the Prairie Provinces where settlers settled, farmers farm and ranchers ranch. It is also where Oil and Potash are mined. It is land that is flat to rolling, that ranges from semi desert to parkland and that is supplied with the Saskatchewan River system but doesn't have much in the way of lakes. 5.8 million Canadians live in Entity 2 or 17% of the population. The total land area is1,780,651 520,000 km2.
Entity 2 is43 12.5 times the size of Entity 1. The prairies are 12.5 times the size of the St Lawrence Lowlands. It is 12.5 times the size of the Netherlands. And Entity 2 has 1/3 of the population of Entity 1.
Where Entity 1 has a population density of 449 Canadians / km2, Entity 2 has a population densityof less than 1% 2.5% of that of Entity 1. It has a population density of 3 11 (three eleven only) Canadians / km2.
It is most decidedly not the Netherlands.
It is often compared to Ukraine, if only because of the large Ukrainian population there. But that still doesn't do it justice.
Where Entity 2 covers an area of1,780,651 520,000 km2 [and] Ukraine only covers an area of 603,628 km2. Or roughly 1/3 of that of Entity 2. And while Entity 2 is home to 5.8 million Canadians [while] Ukraine has a population of 45 million.
Ukraine has a population density of 76 / km2 as compared to Entity 2's density of3 11 and 3 11 only.
Entity 2 is most assuredly not "European". The solutions that work in Europe, that work in Entity 1 are not obviously transferable to Entity 2. Centralization and power grids, commuter rail and other services that rely on population density to defray the costs, that are efficient at high population densities, become inefficient at very low population densities.
Entity 1 and 2, as different as they are, account for 80% of Canada's population and20 6% of the land area. Entity 1 only accounts for 0.45% of the total land area: one half of 1 per cent - one two hundredth.
The remainder of Canadians live in the other80 94% of land claimed by Canada. This other 80 94% is Entity 3.
Within Entity 3 there is a pocket of land out on the West Coast that extends inland along the banks of the Fraser River. It is dominated by Vancouver. It is a bit larger than Luxembourg in Europe and is home to 2.5 million Canadians or another 7% of the population. It has an area of 3500 km2, or less than 10% of that of Entity 1 and the Netherlands, and only 0.04% of Canada's land claim, and a population density of 704 km2. It shares many characteristics with Entity 1, it too feels European in its sensibilities but it suffers from two major challenges.
The first challenge is that it is isolated. It is set apart. It is separated from all other Canadians by the Rockies. And it is divorced from its "European" kin in Entity 1 by the Rockies, the Canadian Shield and by Entity 2.
The second one is a related one. While it has the local population density to support European style infrastructure it struggles because it doesn't have the European, or even the Entity 1 mass, to supply the tax base to afford those services.
When we remove Vancouver and the Fraser Valley from Entity 3 and add it together with Entities 1 and 2 we still discover that we have only accounted for 20% of the land area and a bit less than 90% of the population.
Geographically Entity 3 is what defines Canada and yet it is home to only 3.5 million of Canada's 35 million people.
It covers an area of7,268,356 8,529,007 km2 of dry(ish) land and 891,163 km2 of fresh water.
The fresh water area alone is 30% larger than Ukraine. It isequivalent to one half greater than the area of Entity 2.
175 205 fiefdoms the size of Entity 1, the size of the Netherlands, could be created from the land in Entity 3.
The land is characterized by pine trees and muskeg in the south, close to Entities 1 and 2, passing through the scrub of the Taiga to the barren lands of the Tundra as you go north through the archipelago of islands in the Arctic Ocean.
This land area, this80 94% of Canada, includes the 70% of the land area that is completely devoid of roads. Transport is by water and by air and by specialty bush vehicles. There is no grid. There is no rail. If Entity 1 is European and Entity 2 is not European then Entity 3 is a foreign planet.
The realities of Entity 3 are worlds away from those of Entities 2 and 1.
The solutions that work for Entity 1, and can be stretched to work for Entity 2 (with a struggle) are just totally impractical for Entity 3.
Demographically Entity 3 is dominated by Canada's 1.4 million aboriginal citizens. This becomes more obvious the further north you go and on the coasts.
The settlers cluster close to Entities 1 and 2 and the Fraser Valley. The stretch along the shores of the Gulf of St Lawrence.
The rest of the territory is dominated by aboriginal culture. By 1.4 million people of some 600 nations in 3100 communities. In an area175 205 times the size of the Netherlands.
Where the Netherlands are home to 16,847,000 people the equivalent area of land in Canada's north would see8000 6800 people, living in 17 15 communities, each of less than 500 people, typically separated from each other by 100 km, with no connecting roads, and representing 3 or 4 different nations, often with different languages.
High speed trains are not going to be the answer. Nor are subways or light rail transit. Nor is a power grid with centralized distribution.
These are the different realities the First Ministers were confronting when sat down in Vancouver the other day to discuss climate change and carbon taxes.
While Entity 1 can usefully look to Europe and consider effectively employing European solutions those solutions do not make sense in Entity 2 and 3.
In Entity 2 rugged 4x4s and highways make more sense than High Speed Trains, subways and LRTs. Arguably there might be a case to be made for a greater reliance on off-the-grid or small scale power generation. Due to the lack of suitable rivers hydro is not an option. Windpower is a partial, if inelegant solution but it needs back up. Nuclear power may have some localized applications at points of high consumption - like Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Fort McMurray. But fossil fuels are still the best solution when it comes to transporting concentrated packages of energy to locations separated by long distances but accessible by road.
Entity 3 requires something else. If subways don't make sense pickup trucks are barely more sensible. They are locally useful within the communities but they won't get you from one community to the next. Entity 3 requires specialized transportation. It requires cheap air transport - perhaps lighter than air is an option but in the meantime cheap conventional air is a necessity. It needs boats that can take advantage of the rivers and lakes and salt water straits in the Arctic Archipelago when the seasons permit and along the east and west coasts. It requires marginal terrain vehicles instead of buses and trucks. In short: it requires the internal combustion engine powered by fossil fuels.
Stationary power is another matter. What ability there is to transport fossil fuels into Entity 3 should be focused on transportation needs. Energy for homes, for heat, for light, for manufacturing - that type of energy may be able to be provided more cheaply by "green" technologies that by fossil fuels. Just as alternative solutions might be appropriate to supply clean water and adequate sewage treatment. In that sense "green" or "sustainable" technologies may provide workable, efficient solutions.
Canada and Canadians, including the native Canadians, need a variety of solutions. Those solutions will only be found locally. Not from an office in Ottawa, Toronto or even Calgary.
It is not about saving the planet. It is not about a fervour to do "the right thing". It is about good, sensible exploitation of the multitude of solutions that are available to us.
And in the meantime we might be able to make a buck selling to folks outside of Canada that want what we have. We might be able to make our claim to the lands that we hold more secure by making our relations with the locals more attractive than the prospects offered by third parties. And in the meantime we can let the trees and the land eat up the carbon dioxide that we release when we are burning fossil fuels. In the Netherlands they have to buy carbon dioxide to pump into their green houses to grow orchids. The don't have trees to do the job "naturally".
And I haven't even mentioned Entity 4. An area equivalent in size to Entity 3 that we also claim. The salt water and high seas of our Territorial Seas and Economic Exclusion Zone. An area that is set to grow in size with our UNCLOS claim to the arctic continental shelf.
Canada's reality is not that of the Netherlands. It is not even that of the St Lawrence Lowlands.
Edit: Numbers revised after I fact checked the area of the prairies. 1.7 million km2 is the total area of the prairie provinces. 520,000 km2 is the area of actual prairies. The numbers change (and some of the hyperbole). But the conclusions remain the same. Sorry for the confusion.
It occurs to me that there is another way of slicing and dicing Canada to try and come to terms with its reality.
Conventionally we talk of provinces and territories (13 of them) or regions (usually the Atlantic, Quebec and/or Ontario or Central Canada, the Prairies and/or BC or the West, and the North). We talk of French and English and Natives and occasionally immigrants. Historically we used to talk of Catholics and Protestants although now we focus on Muslims and Jews.
I suggest that Canada can be more clearly defined if it is considered as three entities which I will intentionally not name.
Entity 1 exists in the St Lawrence Lowlands. It covers the ground from Windsor to Quebec and hugs the banks of the St Lawrence Seaway. In some places it is only as wide as the river itself. In Ontario you have left it by the time you reach Peterborough. It includes the greater Toronto and Montreal communities and encompasses some 18.4 million Canadians, or something better than half the population of Canada. Its total area is roughly 41,000 km2 and has a population density of 449 Canadians / km2.
Entity 1 is roughly the same size as, and has a similar population to, the Netherlands.
It is well served by road, commuter rail and power grids. Just like the Netherlands. It feels very much like a high tech, high speed, low drag European society. And its politics and needs reflect that.
Entity 1 has a workable European, centralized future focusing on faddish, but arguably justifiable to some, concepts like sustainability and green engineering. I say faddish because the concept of efficiency is much older than the marketing spin of the fads, but the population density of the region does justify the collective application of technologies to achieve efficiencies. Communitarianism is a viable alternative in the region.
Entity 2 is a very different place.
Entity 2 is broadly described by the triangle of Lethbridge, Edmonton and Winnipeg. It is the Prairies. Not the Prairie Provinces but just the prairies. It is encompassed by the Canadian Shield, the Rockies and the US. It is the arable part of the Prairie Provinces where settlers settled, farmers farm and ranchers ranch. It is also where Oil and Potash are mined. It is land that is flat to rolling, that ranges from semi desert to parkland and that is supplied with the Saskatchewan River system but doesn't have much in the way of lakes. 5.8 million Canadians live in Entity 2 or 17% of the population. The total land area is
Entity 2 is
Where Entity 1 has a population density of 449 Canadians / km2, Entity 2 has a population density
It is most decidedly not the Netherlands.
It is often compared to Ukraine, if only because of the large Ukrainian population there. But that still doesn't do it justice.
Where Entity 2 covers an area of
Ukraine has a population density of 76 / km2 as compared to Entity 2's density of
Entity 2 is most assuredly not "European". The solutions that work in Europe, that work in Entity 1 are not obviously transferable to Entity 2. Centralization and power grids, commuter rail and other services that rely on population density to defray the costs, that are efficient at high population densities, become inefficient at very low population densities.
Entity 1 and 2, as different as they are, account for 80% of Canada's population and
The remainder of Canadians live in the other
Within Entity 3 there is a pocket of land out on the West Coast that extends inland along the banks of the Fraser River. It is dominated by Vancouver. It is a bit larger than Luxembourg in Europe and is home to 2.5 million Canadians or another 7% of the population. It has an area of 3500 km2, or less than 10% of that of Entity 1 and the Netherlands, and only 0.04% of Canada's land claim, and a population density of 704 km2. It shares many characteristics with Entity 1, it too feels European in its sensibilities but it suffers from two major challenges.
The first challenge is that it is isolated. It is set apart. It is separated from all other Canadians by the Rockies. And it is divorced from its "European" kin in Entity 1 by the Rockies, the Canadian Shield and by Entity 2.
The second one is a related one. While it has the local population density to support European style infrastructure it struggles because it doesn't have the European, or even the Entity 1 mass, to supply the tax base to afford those services.
When we remove Vancouver and the Fraser Valley from Entity 3 and add it together with Entities 1 and 2 we still discover that we have only accounted for 20% of the land area and a bit less than 90% of the population.
Geographically Entity 3 is what defines Canada and yet it is home to only 3.5 million of Canada's 35 million people.
It covers an area of
The fresh water area alone is 30% larger than Ukraine. It is
The land is characterized by pine trees and muskeg in the south, close to Entities 1 and 2, passing through the scrub of the Taiga to the barren lands of the Tundra as you go north through the archipelago of islands in the Arctic Ocean.
This land area, this
The realities of Entity 3 are worlds away from those of Entities 2 and 1.
The solutions that work for Entity 1, and can be stretched to work for Entity 2 (with a struggle) are just totally impractical for Entity 3.
Demographically Entity 3 is dominated by Canada's 1.4 million aboriginal citizens. This becomes more obvious the further north you go and on the coasts.
The settlers cluster close to Entities 1 and 2 and the Fraser Valley. The stretch along the shores of the Gulf of St Lawrence.
The rest of the territory is dominated by aboriginal culture. By 1.4 million people of some 600 nations in 3100 communities. In an area
Where the Netherlands are home to 16,847,000 people the equivalent area of land in Canada's north would see
High speed trains are not going to be the answer. Nor are subways or light rail transit. Nor is a power grid with centralized distribution.
These are the different realities the First Ministers were confronting when sat down in Vancouver the other day to discuss climate change and carbon taxes.
While Entity 1 can usefully look to Europe and consider effectively employing European solutions those solutions do not make sense in Entity 2 and 3.
In Entity 2 rugged 4x4s and highways make more sense than High Speed Trains, subways and LRTs. Arguably there might be a case to be made for a greater reliance on off-the-grid or small scale power generation. Due to the lack of suitable rivers hydro is not an option. Windpower is a partial, if inelegant solution but it needs back up. Nuclear power may have some localized applications at points of high consumption - like Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Fort McMurray. But fossil fuels are still the best solution when it comes to transporting concentrated packages of energy to locations separated by long distances but accessible by road.
Entity 3 requires something else. If subways don't make sense pickup trucks are barely more sensible. They are locally useful within the communities but they won't get you from one community to the next. Entity 3 requires specialized transportation. It requires cheap air transport - perhaps lighter than air is an option but in the meantime cheap conventional air is a necessity. It needs boats that can take advantage of the rivers and lakes and salt water straits in the Arctic Archipelago when the seasons permit and along the east and west coasts. It requires marginal terrain vehicles instead of buses and trucks. In short: it requires the internal combustion engine powered by fossil fuels.
Stationary power is another matter. What ability there is to transport fossil fuels into Entity 3 should be focused on transportation needs. Energy for homes, for heat, for light, for manufacturing - that type of energy may be able to be provided more cheaply by "green" technologies that by fossil fuels. Just as alternative solutions might be appropriate to supply clean water and adequate sewage treatment. In that sense "green" or "sustainable" technologies may provide workable, efficient solutions.
Canada and Canadians, including the native Canadians, need a variety of solutions. Those solutions will only be found locally. Not from an office in Ottawa, Toronto or even Calgary.
It is not about saving the planet. It is not about a fervour to do "the right thing". It is about good, sensible exploitation of the multitude of solutions that are available to us.
And in the meantime we might be able to make a buck selling to folks outside of Canada that want what we have. We might be able to make our claim to the lands that we hold more secure by making our relations with the locals more attractive than the prospects offered by third parties. And in the meantime we can let the trees and the land eat up the carbon dioxide that we release when we are burning fossil fuels. In the Netherlands they have to buy carbon dioxide to pump into their green houses to grow orchids. The don't have trees to do the job "naturally".
And I haven't even mentioned Entity 4. An area equivalent in size to Entity 3 that we also claim. The salt water and high seas of our Territorial Seas and Economic Exclusion Zone. An area that is set to grow in size with our UNCLOS claim to the arctic continental shelf.
Canada's reality is not that of the Netherlands. It is not even that of the St Lawrence Lowlands.
Edit: Numbers revised after I fact checked the area of the prairies. 1.7 million km2 is the total area of the prairie provinces. 520,000 km2 is the area of actual prairies. The numbers change (and some of the hyperbole). But the conclusions remain the same. Sorry for the confusion.