> > I'll start by saying that Sam probably got the idea that Canadian provinces are too big by looking at a map...
>
> While I realize that the Canadian provinces are geographically large yet have smaller populations than the average U.S. state, geography does matter. Put a million people in one city, and they're far more likely to unite on views than if you spread them out over a thousand square miles. Local culture changes, sometimes accents and dialects change, and the particular social and political issues that crop up locally and affect people's political awareness are different. Not always, and I actually don't know a lot about western Canada, but it does seem that everything I hear about Quebec seems to indicate that their government is not particularly close to the will of the people.
>
> Excellent post, by the way.

Thank you! Nobody responded for the last couple of days, so I was wondering if anyone had even bothered to read it. I feel better now!

With respect to spreading people out --

Alberta's population (based on the website http://www.babelfish.com/travel.ab.ca/About_AB/AB_QS_No_Table.html which I just looked up about five minutes ago) is around 2.6 million people. However, of these 2.6 million people, about half (1.37 million people) live in just two cities, Edmonton and Calgary. An additional two hundred thousand live in just four more cities, Red Deer, Saint Albert, Lethbridge, and Medicine Hat. Each of these four cities is within easy driving distance of Edmonton and Calgary and indeed, many people who live in these cities work in one of these two major urban centers.

Although I don't have the statistics handy, I am pretty sure that the populations of other Canadian provinces are similarily concentrated in only a few urban areas. British Columbia, for example, is by far most heavily populated in Vancouver City, or on Vancouver Island (strangely, the city is /not/ on the island). On the Eastern side of the country, over eighty percent of Ontarians live in cities, with the preponderance of these in or about the "Greater Toronto Area" (source: http://www.gov.on.ca/MBS/english/look/pop/). In general, most Canadians live within a couple of hours of the American border (where it's warmest!); as far as I can remember, Edmonton the only major Canadian city not within three hundred kilometers of that border.

The result is that the people of each province /do/ tend to have similar concerns, and they /can/ be effectively governed by a single provincial government. Each province, for example, has a predominance of people working in a single industry: tourism for British Columbia, oil and gas or farming for Alberta, farming in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, manufacturing in Ontario, manufacturing and farming in Quebec, fishing and tourism in the maritime provinces. The governments can therefore concentrate on making sure that these relatively few industries can grow and prosper in each province. Furthermore, it's interesting that provinces tend to be more or less united in their votes for Prime Minister.

There is, of course, also a great deal of diversity, and a number of people who are greatly spread out (rural farmers in Southern Alberta, for example). However, these are not in general so numerous and so multifaceted that they cannot be effectively represented by a single provincial government. The concerns of these minorities (Alberta farmers, for example) tend to be quite similar, and these minorities are represented in Provincial legislature. The system of ridings, as I have described in my post, also exists to ensure, at least in theory, that these people have a say during both provincial and national elections.

The Quebec government may not always act in the best interests of the people of Quebec. Similarily, the Alberta government occasionally makes decisions that are unpopular with Albertans (and has done so recently). Nevertheless, I don't believe -- and I don't know of anyone who does believe -- that these bad decisions are made because the population of Alberta is too diverse to govern effectively. Rather, the decisions are represented for what they actually are -- simply, bad decisions made by the government.

There is, quite simply, a lot of /space/ in Canada. Nearly all of this space is populated, however sparsely. However, most people to collect in a relatively few urban centers. As a result, it seems to me, the size of our provinces do not make them too large or diverse to govern effectively. Thus, while are a number of things that probably could use some changing in our political system, I don't think that the size of our provinces is one of them.

-Spacebar