1993 Canada: "One More Week"

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

(Sorry, no map. I promise one in the near future for the first election ‘after’ the ‘major event’!)

Results of the election were as follows

82 – Liberals – Frank McKenna
76 – Tories – Donald Cameron
14 – New Democrats – Alexa McDonough

A minority government was formed with NDP support.




-1997

The first year without Canada was a unique experience for all. With agreement of the US Congress and Mexico, NAFTA was extended to include all the new Canadian countries.

In West Canada, Prime Minister Preston Manning lead the government to make massive cuts to spending of all sorts, cancelling, among other things, funding for the successor to the CBC. Manning managed to even make tax cuts, despite some push back from the bureaucracy. Manning was helped in this move by a booming economy, though many economists said this was the economy “bouncing back” to the level it “should have been at” if not for the chaos of the past few years. Although revenues decreased by 2 billion, the deficit was reduced by over half, and now sat at 8 billion dollars. Manning made citizen driven referenda laws. Three referenda attempted to gain the number of signatures required, on requesting that Canada be re-formed, another requesting that West Canada adopt the US Dollar, and the final requesting that West Canada drop the Queen and elect a President in her place. By the deadline, only two of these referenda had passed the number of signatures needed, so re-forming Canada was not on the ballot. Through the early part of the fall, the campaigns on both sides fought the referenda issue. The results were as follows:

Constitutional Monarchy – 71.2%
Presidential Republic – 28.8%

US Dollar – 58.8%
Canadian Dollar – 41.2%

An agreement was then reached with the United States that would allow for the adoption of the US dollar starting on Jan 1 1998. The Bank of Canada would repurchase the physical bills outstanding.

Kim Campbell was replaced as PC Leader by Ralph Goodale, the former Liberal, who managed to win a leadership convention.



In Quebec, the economic rebound was swift. President Bouchard made some mild attempts at balancing the budget. While no real spending cuts were to be found, the tax code was simplified, with a three bracket income tax. The GST and PST were merged into one. However this came at a price, income taxes went up for all but the poorest, and sales taxes increased 0.44 points. The odd fractional increase was due to the fact that Quebec had previously charged its 8% PST on top of the 7% GST, for a total tax burden of 15.56% rather than 15.0%. The new tax rate would be 16%. Income Taxes were increased by reducing the number of brackets to three, but pushing back the limit at which new tax rates started. Only the exception was increased beyond inflation to give the poorest a tax break. Due to the booming economy, Quebec was able to cut its deficit in half, at the end of 1998 it stood at 10 billion dollars.



In Ontario, Prime Minister Mike Harris began to hack and slash into the budget. In addition, he began selling off Ontario assets (Many of which were formerly "Canadian" assets). Income taxes were cut steeply, as was social spending. With the asset sales added in, the government officially turned a surplus, however Leader of the Opposition, Shelia Copps, warned that there still remained a “hidden deficit”. The very rightward track of the Harris government began to put off some Red Tories in the PC Party. Within caucus there were grumblings of discontent, but not much came out of it.



Newfoundland saw some good news as well. After a leadership election within the Liberal Party, Brian Tobin became Prime Minister. Tobin kept the commitment of the 3-and-3 ‘senator’ deal for the appointed representatives. Tobin, however, scaled back the legislature to its original size, rather than add 7 extra seats to accommodate the former MP’s, saying they’ll have to run and win a riding just like everyone else. Economically, Newfoundland saw the biggest bounce of all. Royalties, and taxes on royalties brought in more money than was expected. Tobin also began a line-by-line review of the budget, and began to make difficult choices as to what to cut and where. Newfoundland was also able to refinance much of it’s debt, especially with the US, by offering ‘shares’ in future oil wealth. There was some opposition to this “mortgaging our future” by the Tories, but the move allowed Newfoundland to either reduce it’s debt, or, reduce the interest rate, thereby saving money. That year’s budget saw the deficit reduced by 2 billion dollars.


New Acadia, however, did not bounce back. Government stagnation and unstable fiscal policies hurt economic prospects. New Acadia took too long to merge the former Provincial tax codes with one another, much less with Federal codes. Tax time turned into chaos, with accusations that hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars was missing. When the Deficit came in at over double that year’s revenues, all the major debt rating agencies put New Acadia down to a B+ or BB rating. This was devastating to the economy, and the government promptly fell, causing elections. Those elections, however, did not solve the political instability problems.

83 – Tories – Bernard Lord
52 – Liberals – Frank McKenna
37 – New Democrats – Alexa McDonough






1998

This year would later be remembered as a crucial turn-around year for the former nations of Canada.

President Bouchard presented a tough budget to the National Assembly. While there was some resistance from his own party, it passed without major amendment. The budget brought the deficit down to 500 million dollars, but at the expense of some sharp cuts to social services and military spending. Quebec sold over half of it’s military jets and naval ships.

Ontario, meanwhile, purchased much of this hardware. Harris, yet again, cut deeply into taxes and spending, but was met with stiff resistance from government Labour unions. During the fall of that year, with ongoing Labour disputes, members of the PC Caucus organized a revolt. They demanded Harris step down or be forced out. Harris refused their demand and engineered a confidence vote by putting balanced budget legislation before the legislature. True to their threats, rebellious Red Tories in the Caucus voted against the Government and brought the government crashing down. Harris, confidant he had the support of the people, called for an election early in 1999.

West Canada managed to turn it’s first surplus in 1998. The government also passed many pieces of democratic reform legislation. Complaints from the Senators that the Senate was too small to work were met with a bill increasing the size of that body. The Senate would now have 12 members per province, and 3 from each Territory. They would be elected for 9 year terms, and be prohibited from serving more than one term in the Senate. Elections to the House of Commons would be scheduled to also take place every 3 years. A term limit of 9 years would be placed on members of the House. The constitution was re-written to recognize the position of Prime Minister, and this position would be subject to a 9 year term limit as well. The Reform Party passed it’s own term limit on its Leader of 9 years. New elections were scheduled for later in the year (1998). Preston Manning announced he would step down as Prime Minister and Reform Leader at the election, as he has been Reform Leader for 9 years.

*(The Election and Reform Leadership convention will be posted a little later. Long story short, Stockwell Day become Prime Minister, with a stronger NDP opposition)


Newfoundland saw further growth, but further cuts. Many of the budget cuts were painful for the community, but polls would show that most understood the sacrifices that needed to be made. Welfare was cut as well, and this hurt many of the most needy, but they were still able to scrape by with help from family and friends. Newfoundland was able to get it’s budget deficit down to only 2.5 billion dollars, which matched the interest on the debt. Newfoundland continued to make money from the United States, leasing out airbases and military ports to the US military in order to make some extra cash.



In New Acadia, the situation only grew more desperate. While the Tories were able to make cuts to the size of the bureaucracy and unify tax codes and departments, they were unable to make a significant impact on the budgetary problems. With revenues of 15.2 billion on a budget of 30.7 billion banks started to serve notice that they would refuse further requests for additional debt. The instability yet again caused the government to collapse. Another election was called, and the results came to a surprise to many, as citizens chose radical change to attempt to deal with the problems of the day.

90 – New Democrats – Alexa McDonough
43 – Tories – Bernard Lord
40 – Liberals – Shawn Graham

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

1999

The first major event of the year was the Ontario Election. The results were as follows:

*(The Election will be posted a little later. Long story short, Shelia Copps become Prime Minister)

Shelia Copps, the last Prime Minister of Canada, became the second Prime Minister of Ontario. Copps reversed some of the Harris tax cuts, and some of the spending cuts, but due to the booming economy, was greeted with over 10 billion dollars in surplus. Although there was pressure to re-invest the money in Ontario, Copps had other plans. Copps sat down with Prime Minister Day and President Bouchard to discuss the ongoing fiscal troubles on the east coast. Day was uncommitted, however Bouchard agreed to kick in a 1 billion dollar ‘loan’. Copps then made the controversial decision to add 9 billion dollars from Ontario to the loan. These were in effect co-loans. Ontario and Quebec would sign for the loan – and then be responsible for it – but they would then turn around a Loan with identical terms to another country.

Newfoundland received the first payment, totalling 2 billion dollars. As requested by Ontario and Quebec, in exchange for the money, Newfoundland was able to use the money to balance the remainder of it’s budget.

New Acaida, however, had great difficulty balancing its budget, even with the 8 bllion dollar ‘loan”, and only a 1 billion dollar loan at full interest rates offered by Alberta was able to help. In order to balance the budget, taxes were raised on the richest.

The move helped to build Ontario’s reputation among the eastern nations. Political strategists would conclude that the move was an attempt by Copps to “rebuild the idea of Canada” in hopes to re-unify the nation at some point.







2000

Ontario again lead the headlines. With a surplus of a whopping 20 billion, Copps was able to use this money again to aid the east. Ontario gave another loan to New Acadia of 8 billion dollars, but also was able to work out a unique deal with Newfoundland. One of the largest expenditures of Newfoundland was on the navy, so an agreement was worked out to in effect merge the two navies, Newfoundland and Ontario. This would allow Newfoundland, which had sailors to spare, and Ontario, which had ships to spare, to put their advantages to the best use. Newfoundland’s entire debt 17 billion dollar debt was also “purchased” by Ontario, being replaced with lower interest loans Due to these agreements, Newfoundland was able to turn a 50 million dollar surplus in the year on it’s own, and began to re-invest in social programs. A similar agreement could not be worked out between Ontario and New Acadia. Copps served notice to New Acadia that unless radical changes were made to the New Acadian budget, that no loan would be coming the following year. Many of New Acadia’s last-resort creditors also made similar demands. Prime Minister Alexa McDonough, however, responded that “New Acadia will not be pushed around”.

Newfoundland, with its newly balanced budget, used its surplus to purchase much naval equipment from Ontario, while the remainder was re-invested into social programs.






2001

Nearly every one of the former nations of Canada went to the polls in the spring of this year.

*(Again, these results will be posted a bit later. I’m typing all of this out in advance without a net connection, once I get one I’ll start work on the exact election results)

New Acadia suffered a major economic hit when Ontario refused to supply another loan, and the Government was forced to run a huge deficit. Facing bankruptcy, New Acadia begged its citizens for money in the form of bonds, offering huge interest rates. In order to raise cash, surtaxes were added to the income tax code, and sales taxes were increased sharply. Taxes on incomes over $1,000,000 were raised to 75%. Dozens of assets were sold, including a large portion of the military, which Newfoundland purchased. In order to save money, spending on the military, and other security services was cut deeply. This would be a mistake that would later come back to haunt New Acadians.

In early September 2001, a professor spoke on TV about the chaos theory, that a butterfly flapping its wings in one place could cause a storm in another, the professor would later be killed in Halifax during the so-called “October Hurricane”.

On the morning of September 11th 2001, citizens from across the former Canadian nations turned on their televisions to see a horrific sight. None of them were directly tied into the events of that day, none of them, of course, except for those in New Acadia…

[Hatman 🍁]

DUN DUN DUN

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

EDITED OUT

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

On hold for the time being. And no, I have not forgotten about this. I have election maps ready to go on my computer, and I just need to write the story to connect it all, which I will be doing in a bit. I have a few games on the go ATM and we are possibly heading into a federal election (I maintain a top notch Canadian Election Projection blog, http://nixtuff.blogspot.com/ ) that will consume my time.

[minionofmidas]

the remainder is true-to-life.)

Parizeau spoke English!? I find that hard to believe.

[Hash]

the remainder is true-to-life.)

Parizeau spoke English!? I find that hard to believe.

He attented the London School of Economics, so, yeah, I'd assume he does.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

This thread is alive once more.

I've moved the images involved, but I am 99% certain I've not deleted them. I'll look though my photobucket and breathe new life into this old thread.

EDIT - actually the missing images appear to be "result tables" which I'm 99% certain I have deleted. I will try to piece it together, but I may "redo" things following the referendum. Not to change history, but to get new numbers. I just plain don't remember the exact numbers I had, but, I certainly can "ballpark" it.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

West Election - 1998

Ref - 65 - Stockwell Day
NDP - 17 - Dave Barrett
PC - 9 - Ralph Goodale

Senate
first third: REF - 14 --- NDP - 1
second third: REF - 13 --- NDP - 2
last third: REF - 14 --- NDP - 1





Ontario Election - 1999

Lib - 121
PC - 72
NDP - 13


---

And a bit more clarity on Copps' giving "free" money to the Atlatnic. This is not a very popular move within Ontario or her party, but she is selling it to both as being the "Canadian" thing to do. In other words, saying without saying that this money may well bring "Canada" back.