Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan

 

It’s a subject that keeps popping up, is ridiculed or brushed aside, and then springs back again. Maybe one day it will happen: Canada will extend to the Caribbean and this frigid country will include islands that are warm and soothing.



Right now both parties are coy about their possible union. But they keep trying to cuddle and embrace.



There have been at least three attempts to get the British overseas territory of the Turks and Caicos Islands, 40 Caribbean Islands located east of Cuba, to become Canada’s 11th province or at least a part of a Canadian province. All failed. The eight inhabited islands house a population of 30,000 people but they attract 200,000 tourists annually. Canadians are second on the list. Canada is the top investor in the islands and has built schools and a hospital. Canadian banks and other businesses are active there.



Premier Rufus Ewing of the Turks and Caicos Islands, visiting Canada, stated: “My government recognizes both the existing contribution Canada makes to the economic development of our country, as well as the potential for further exchanges.”



He brushed aside questions about his country joining Canada, but said: “I’m not closing the door completely.”



Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird bluntly asserted that Canada “is not in the business of annexing islands in the Caribbean.”



Yet it was a Canadian, Prime Minister Robert Borden, who suggested back in 1917 that Canada should get the islands. The British, who control the islands and were proud of their empire, refused.



In 1974 Member of Parliament Max Saltzman proposed a bill for the annexation of the islands. In the 1980s Conservative MP Dan McKenzie did the same thing. Both failed. The islands made a serious offer in the 1980s to join Canada, the Globe and Mail reported. Canada declined.



Some politicians of the islands have also opposed the suggestion saying they don’t want to exchange their British masters for Canadian ones. But leaders of the islands generally have been in favor of the closest possible relations with Canada.



Conservative Member of Parliament Peter Goldring has been pushing for the last decade for a union, saying it would promote prosperity and democracy in Turks and the Caicos while giving Canada a foothold in Latin America and Canadians a haven from winter. He said the islands are closer to Ottawa than is his riding in Edmonton in the province of Alberta.



Average Canadians would no longer need medical insurance if they visited the islands that were a part of Canada. Presumably, throngs of elderly citizens would move there permanently or to escape winter and enjoy good weather, sand and beaches for most of the year. But providing Canadian-style social services to the islanders in the Caribbean would be very costly. Hordes of poor people from Haiti, Cuba and other islands would stampede to enter the new Canada, even illegally. Perhaps other Caribbean islands would queue up to join Canada too. The islanders also have no historical or cultural ties to Canada and would find the Canadian political system baffling. But the two are attracted to each other and so the subject keeps coming up.



In 2004 the legislature of the province of Nova Scotia voted unanimously to offer to make Turks and Caicos a part of the province if the Caribbean islands decided to join Canada. The offer brought no major response from the islands or from the Canadian government.



One difficulty is that Canadian politicians are reluctant to add another province because it would complicate further the country’s constitutional system which gives broad powers to the provinces. The Yukon, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories are a part of Canada and they would like to become provinces, which would give them more powers than they currently enjoy. Canada is foot-dragging. Presumably it will have to admit them first if it plans to welcome the Turks and Caicos.



One precedent is that in 1949 the people of Newfoundland clamored to join Canada and said so in a referendum. They were welcomed and became a province.



All provinces will have to agree before Canada accepts another territory as a Canadian province. So far they have neither opposed the move nor shown enthusiasm for it. But the idea lingers on because both sides find it intriguing.



Residents of the Turks and Caicos would see their sleepy island turned into a hub of development and economic activity that would transform a poor country into a prosperous one. They’d get social and old-age security and medical services. But their serenity would be replaced by cutthroat competition and brutal stress. Their beautiful islands would become crowded as Canadians, especially the elderly, moved there permanently or for winters, sending the cost of living soaring.



Canada would find itself next door to Cuba, Haiti and Latin America. This would open doors for Canada to develop beneficial economic and other ties with South American countries. But there would be major costs for both parties and it is not clear if they would be willing to pay. It just might happen, but perhaps not anytime soon.

— Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan is a retired Canadian journalist, civil servant and refugee judge.