My my. Some of the most expensive real estate in the Caribbean, for free.
If it’s up for grabs, wouldn’t the big country nearby be a better choice?
After all, it ain’t CF-18s that keep the Cuban MiGs away.
Take Haiti. It gives them another French speaking province and good old Canadian bureaucracy would benefit Haitians greatly.
No Canada... you don’t need a Hawaii. Just look at ours - we’d be better off without it.
Canada can have Florida. Half of them already live there half of the year.
There were some very practical reasons that the T&C Islands weren't annexed decades ago -- these are the flip side of reasons that the Islanders want to join our Confederation.
- Canada has a "free" comprehensive health care system. The Islanders would benefit from that; but they would have to be heavily subsidized. OTOH, there are already many times more Canadians, that don't pay for their healthcare.
- Canada has a generous federal "employment insurance" program. There's a real fear of tens of thousands of Canadians spending winters in the T&C", on pogey. This issue could be solved, with some simple rule changes.
- Canada has a system of equalization payments, whereby billions are taken from "have" provinces to give to "have not" provinces. The purpose is to enable even the poorest province to offer government services equal to those offered by the richest provinces. The T&C Islands would be a huge beneficiary of these transfer payments.
BTW, despite what a lot of commentators on the NP site seem to think, it would not be necessary to make the T&C Islands a separate province. Canada already has three "Territories" covering the far north. Each has about the same population of the T&C; and about 1,000 times greater area. The T&C could be made an offshore Territory, or they could even be deemed to be a county of some existing province. The constitutional issues regarding admitting a new province are a red herring, in this case.
For some reason I can’ picture the Caicos Islands as a winter surfing destination........
Canada Ping!
Grand Turk...
Great beach, water...
Jimmy Buffets, etc
:)
Turks: You can’t be a part of Canada
Do you know bow to play hockey?
If it had a navy, Canada could support sovereignty in the Turks and Caicos. So far Canada can only exercise sovereignty over land that no one else wants.
They would have to convert from the Dollar to the Looney. Not sure GB would give the islands up.
Quick, lets sell them our hawaii before they change their minds!