Canada's October Crisis..
- Thread starter WeirdoYYY
- Start date
If the POD is that they were e.g. 10x as numerous, then you'd still not get civil war. In fact, if they were any sort of REAL threat then the imposition of Martial Law might actually be recognized as necessary.
How much bigger? Even if they were a thousand times bigger than OTL, there still wouldn't be a civil war. Instead of an IRA wanna be group, they become Canada's version of the IRA. Still no civil war.
Ka-what
.The FLQ was a tiny band of people, besides...
THE QUEBEC GOVERNMENT ASKED FOR THE TROOPS TO BE MOVED IN. If the Provincial government was responsible for the Canadian troops, do you think they'd want independence.
Wide spread popular support came after the dissolution of the FLQ. Most Quebecois saw the FLQ, and by consequence, seperation as violent and dangerous. Once the FLQ were gone, the main stream seperatists didn't have the bad name of the FLQ hanging around their heads.
Ironically, the death of the FLQ lead to the rise of modern Quebec seperatism.
As the others Canadians on this thread have said, even if you made the FLQ a THOUSAND times bigger, there still woudn't be a civil war, but perhaps a small insurection.
Dreams of America annexing Quebec is pure pipe dream.
Ka-what
Dreams of America annexing Quebec is pure pipe dream.
A pipe dream with some powerful weed
Why is this always the case? Quebec throws a temper tantrum, and the USA comes in to spank it. Canada stands by and says "Rather!" End of story.
I would love to see a story about these things written by someone who knows the politics, the people, the region enough to make it believeable.
And, yes, Quebec happens to be in my own back yard--mostly the back corner where I grow tomatoes.
A pipe dream with some powerful weed
Why is this always the case? Quebec throws a temper tantrum, and the USA comes in to spank it. Canada stands by and says "Rather!" End of story.
I would love to see a story about these things written by someone who knows the politics, the people, the region enough to make it believeable.
I probably won't get to it until late March, but it's coming.
pacifichistorian
Banned
Here's a thought for you: suppose a PM is a bit savvier & decides not to try & destroy FLQ, but actually (covertly) encourage it? He butterflies away separatistes....
...Wait, what? How does encouraging the radicals do anything other than make his government look thoroughly incompetent?
(Also the FLQ were nutty Marxists.)
Uh, no. Trudeau was already gaining a reputation for being known for style more than substance. If he was encouraging the FLQ and that ever came out, his political career would be over in seconds. He lost his majority in the 1972 elections, and if that came out I really doubt Tommy Douglas is gonna save him, and Robert Stanfield will crucify him.
pacifichistorian
Banned
It's precisely because they were nutty. Nobody really took them seriously (honestly, blowing up mailboxes?) until PET tried to smash them. OK, I admit, if (when...?) it came out it'd ruin him. Just a suggestion.
MacCaulay
Banned
There was a book I read awhile ago, one of those books like Larry Bond used to write in the 90s that passed from good Military Fiction to good Alternate History that was written in the mid 1960s about that.
Uh...(searching Amazon)...Killing Ground: The Canadian Civil War. Who it's by depends on what day you're searching for. The guy wrote under a pseudonym and to this day I don't know which one was real.
The book is really odd. The combat scenes were realistic, the units were real, everything. It was just the fact that the FLQ was popping up all over southern Quebec like a level from Hogan's Alley.
It was like the guy wrote a really good book about the troubles and then changed all the names. Though all the stuff about the Canadians pulling the nuclear weapons and F-101 Voodoos out was good stuff.
But I've got to agree with everybody else. It wouldn't have happened.
The only way it could have gotten worse was if the Provincial government was made of people who were a little less resolute in standing by the Federal Government, I guess.
Uh...(searching Amazon)...Killing Ground: The Canadian Civil War. Who it's by depends on what day you're searching for. The guy wrote under a pseudonym and to this day I don't know which one was real.
The book is really odd. The combat scenes were realistic, the units were real, everything. It was just the fact that the FLQ was popping up all over southern Quebec like a level from Hogan's Alley.
It was like the guy wrote a really good book about the troubles and then changed all the names. Though all the stuff about the Canadians pulling the nuclear weapons and F-101 Voodoos out was good stuff.
But I've got to agree with everybody else. It wouldn't have happened.
The only way it could have gotten worse was if the Provincial government was made of people who were a little less resolute in standing by the Federal Government, I guess.
How about some "Good Old Boys" from Western Canada, who disgusted by imposed French, loss of the Canadian Red Ensign, Unification of RCN,Cdn.Army and RCAF and alienation of West in general, begin fighting an "IRA style" campaign for Western Canadian Independence?
MacCaulay
Banned
When I was stationed out in Winnipeg, which is about as "Good Ole' Boy" Western Canada as you can get, there wasn't any sort of that craziness around.
And having met some former Airborne Regiment guys, I can safely say that all the crazies seem to end up in the Army.
That's the great thing about Quebecois politics: it's probably always going to stay more or less peaceful because all of the people who want to secede violently are so far to the left they won't join the army.
If anything, the imposed French thing just gave some guys at coffee shops more stuff to grouse about. Good for them. They'd been grousing about the Bloc in general for years and it was time they got something new.
Winnipeg is central Canada, out here in Alberta/western BC the hatred for the east grows. My uncle and grandfather were part of the military during the unification of all three service arms; the word disgusted would be a very mild way to put how they felt about it (for info fact, one was a sergent major and the other a rear gunner in a Landcaster in reserve duty after the war, the anger was not only in one of the arms of the military). Although I can see dissent being worse for any number of reasons, it would have to be something drastic for anything close to an IRA replica popping up here.
MacCaulay
Banned
Oh, you crazy Albertans! With your out-of-business ranches and whatnot...
...but yet the Coast isn't anything like that. It must be the mountains cutting them off from reality.
I agree with you, though.
I'm going to go back to my original hypothesis that you could only have that whole situation go wrong if the Quebec provincial government thought it could actually handle it on it's own. And for that to happen, you'd have to have a COMPLETELY different set of leaders in there. And I couldn't even begin to imagine where that different set of leaders could come from.
If they would act that terribly towards the well-being of their people in '68, god knows they'd be making terrible decisions well before then and probably wouldn't get elected to a Provincial office.