Unbuilt Canada

[TheMann]

Are there any unbuilt plans for for what was eventually built as Montreal's Central Station?

I couldn't find any, but considering the arrangement of the stations around it I've always wondered why nobody tried to combine it, Lucien L'Allier and Windsor stations into one cohesive unit. It would make so much sense to do it that way. Ideally you'd build the tracks from Place Viger through to the new station as well, allowing the unified terminal to serve traffic on north-south and east-west axis at the same time.

 

[TheMann]

Next question then: If we're going back in time and building Canada, what are we doing differently?

We have a vast number of possibilities for that, but I'm curious to see what people have in mind if the decisions were theirs 🙂

 

[Bureaucromancer]

I couldn't find any, but considering the arrangement of the stations around it I've always wondered why nobody tried to combine it, Lucien L'Allier and Windsor stations into one cohesive unit. It would make so much sense to do it that way. Ideally you'd build the tracks from Place Viger through to the new station as well, allowing the unified terminal to serve traffic on north-south and east-west axis at the same time.

The thing about Central is that being so closely tied to the Mount Royal Tunnel makes the fact of it's existence one of those "OTL is actually kinda weird and longshot" situations. By all rights it never should have happened. With that said, in a more European like scenario with stronger build out, yeah, I absolutely adore the concept of Windsor being replaced with a second tunnel under Central... More realistically, I'd absolutely support closing Lucien-L'Allier with the intent of re-using it's access for the Pink line built out as the western branch of REM de L'Est:

This configuration makes a new tunnel for trains headed north out of Central pretty obvious, but even treating Central as a stub terminal for EXO this makes a lot of sense to me. I'd even argue that VIAs use case for such a tunnel is decidedly marginal - it looks good on a map, but in terms of actual service a GOOD REM connection for the core with Quebec City trains treating Dorval as their primary Montreal terminal (and mostly continuing to Ottawa) is really not a bad arrangement. If another tunnel is to be built it needs to live or die on turning EXO into an RER style operation.

Next question then: If we're going back in time and building Canada, what are we doing differently?

We have a vast number of possibilities for that, but I'm curious to see what people have in mind if the decisions were theirs 🙂

• parochially Federal Avenue in Toronto is my highest priority
  • and it's obvious follow up of the hockey arena over Union's train shed
    • in my mind this also incorporates a version of New City Hall matching the aesthetic, but there's a lot of options there, and I narratively rather like the things that come of indecision with regard to a new City Hall and courthouse.
      • how does it sound if Federal goes in while a Victoria Square (as it was then known) is an established but undefined concept with the result that:
        • Old City Hall stays city hall, and eventually gains an architecturally matched tower in the courtyard
        • the square becomes the new court house
          • something is built early post-war, is generally disappointinga and is being replaced by ~2020
• nationally is saying I want to avoid privatization of the big crown corporations concrete enough? If not I'm going to go with a two part answer of building the Georgian Bay Canal and changing... something about the transcontinental build out to avoid the extreme over building and collapse on their respective sides of WWI
• REALLY big picture, I'm in support of most things that get Canada a larger population earlier, doubly so those that create an earlier focus on the west coast
  • even without getting into wholly Canada Wank territory it would be REAL nice for the border to be at the Columbia River
  • significant Indian immigration to the west coast in the 19th century really is one of those ideas that I keep coming back to
• as far as things I just 'like', whether they are really that good or not I absolutely adore the idea of Vancouver retaining it's streetcar's in a similar manner to Toronto
  • same goes for the Hamilton ICTS project
• In terms of creating a timeline that gets things right, setting aside most other factors I'll jump back to Montreal for a moment and observe that the Mount Royal tunnel in it's original form had much better bones than it tends to get crecdit for; an agressive approach to through routed electric commuter rail (approaching rapid transit service levels) on the Deux Montagnes, Montreal North, Montreal & Southern Counties and Mont-Saint-Hilaire corridors would really not be difficult or out of character for CN; if you throw out OTLs Metro, replacing it with somethign timed along the lines of (and aesthetically similar to) Toronto's subway Montreal really ends up with an extraordinariliy good system

 

[Fearless Leader]

Though this is in the post-1900 forum, I've always wondered how Canada would have turned out with an earlier Lachine canal...though I guess it's technically not "unbuilt" given that it was constructed eventually...

Say the British decide not to divide Canada into Upper and Lower Canada and instead give the English Canadian population what they really wanted: a separate legal system and canals along the St. Lawrence. These canals, particularly the ones further south in *Ontario become focal points for the War of 1812, but given how incompetent the American army was for most of the war, I'd wager the end result of the war is the same. What really changes is the nature of Canada itself as more colonists flood in earlier, since superior infrastructure makes "Upper Canada" far more economically viable. The entire unified colony is likely run the way that Lower Canada was run in OTL, and if it gets the same vague constitution that Lower Canada got, that likely means that some Women and Indigenous people get the right to vote earlier. The big difference being that in TTL, the French will see Women, Indigenous, and Immigrants as allies against the English and not allies with the English and thus not only keep but expand these electoral loopholes. The entire colony is bilingual from the start, and the seigneurial system becomes the target of reformers far earlier than OTL which leads to increased agricultural productivity.

The success of Canada's St. Lawrence canals prompt earlier canal construction elsewhere. Instead of the Rideau Canal, more canals are constructed across the Niagara peninsula, from *Port Hope* to Lake Huron via Rice Lake, and around Sault Ste. Marie. As a result the major cities in "Ontario" take shape around these canals rather than places like "York."

On a somewhat unrelated note... I wonder what might have happened had James Douglas tried to monopolize British control over the Fraser River route from the coast to the goldfields of BC instead of the Harrison Lake Route, or if he'd simply avoided the entire issue altogether. Geographically, the route through Lake Harrison makes a lot more sense terrain wise, seen today in the numerous proposals to provide an alternate route to Whistler by expanding the FSR there into a proper highway. Had that route continued to be the preferred route for prospectors, as it was before Douglas it likely would have also become the route for the CPR. Though there are certainly some tricky sections, there were also tricky sections along the canyon route. This likely leads to cities like Port Douglas (expected to be a major city when constructed, now a ghost town) Lillooet, Harrison Hot Springs, and others becoming much bigger than OTL.

 

[Kevin C. Smith]

• nationally is saying I want to avoid privatization of the big crown corporations concrete enough? If not I'm going to go with a two part answer of building the Georgian Bay Canal and changing... something about the transcontinental build out to avoid the extreme over building and collapse on their respective sides of WWI

From what little I recall of CNoR/GT/GTP history, was there any way to reorganize the companies through regular (though obviously very large) bankruptcy proceedings? Iirc, the CNoR was pretty much all bonded with provincial guarantees, while the GTP was guaranteed by the GT. Perhaps some form of swapping (non voting) preference shares for debt? Though, I don't know where the GT would find new investors so it would have to be the Ottawa government to become the primary holder of those new shares. Would the provincial/dominion governments be satisfied with, say, 5% preferred stock over 3%-4% bonds? After all the machinations of the CP's funding/financing, it would seem (to someone well removed from the time & place) that it might be possible to avoid the large project of starting a nationalized railway system in the midst of WWI. Or is public money going to inevitably mean public control?

How much would the GT have been helped if the NTR was just written off and added to the ICR as the limit of a state owned system? For some reason, I seem to think that the lease was about equal to the GTP debt?

 

[Bureaucromancer]

Conventional bankruptcy runs headlong into just how long it took for CNR to break even. Especially on the GTP side of things there’s really not a whole lot of prospect for making it work.

My understanding is CPR was pretty enthusiastic about acquiring CanNor whole cloth, but the political take was essentially a warning that would get them nationalized.

As much as I love the big crown corps, I do wonder if the best path might be to kill GTP and the National Transcon early, and really emphasize playing CPR and CanNor off each other.

In my concepts for a wank I tend to aim for an independent but CPR aligned CanNor and CNR both happening (I picture them getting access to southern BC by closely tying to PGE and likely building a bridge to the Island eventually), but that really needs more population to have any hope, and leaves CNR incredibly weak in the west.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

Next question then: If we're going back in time and building Canada, what are we doing differently?

Move the border south of the Great Lakes?

 

[Hayatgheibi]

Next question then: If we're going back in time and building Canada, what are we doing differently?

We have a vast number of possibilities for that, but I'm curious to see what people have in mind if the decisions were theirs 🙂

Derailing the thread a bit but as a historic preservation buff, I would like to see the centers of Toronto and Vancouver preserved rather than Manhattanized. Something like Quebec City

 

[TheMann]

Derailing the thread a bit but as a historic preservation buff, I would like to see the centers of Toronto and Vancouver preserved rather than Manhattanized. Something like Quebec City

Considering Toronto and Vancouver's cores mostly date from the 20th Century, I'm not sure that would make a lot of sense, particularly since Toronto's retail center was moving north after the war (Eaton's had planned out its giant store at Yonge and College thinking it would be College/Carlton that became the East-West corridor there, but ultimately it moved much more up to Bloor than College) and Yonge Street ended up as a rundown wreck until it began to be heavily revived in the late 1970s, that revival more than anything coming after the Emmanuel Jacques tragedy.

Now, what MIGHT change that is if what @Bureaucromancer mentioned above happens, namely the Federal Avenue built from the center of Union Station to Queen is built, and the road manages not to be swamped by the massive bank developments on the block to the east of it along Bay in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. I personally think that considering the date and time of the proposals that the more likely result of the Federal Avenue is that its a run-down throughfare, the plans for the grand buildings along it scrapped by World War I and the Great Depression, until after the war, when the buildings built along it are much more modern. Ideally, instead of that you build the 1930 plan and make the buildings around it (namely the Toronto Star Building and the Victory Building) survive, and force the later developments (namely the Toronto Dominion Center) build around it as Commerce Court did. The immediate post-war developments along the road are smaller ones, until Mies van der Rohe's Black Magic happens. Ideally, the Toronto Star Building survives at the southwest corner of the TD Center, and van der Rohe's plan is built around it. This, in turn, leads to the First Canadian Place being built further forward (thus allowing the 1949-completion Bank of Nova Scotia Building to survive as well) and the idea that new projects can, and should, integrate the old ones into being productive parts of the new.

 

[TheMann]

The thing about Central is that being so closely tied to the Mount Royal Tunnel makes the fact of it's existence one of those "OTL is actually kinda weird and longshot" situations. By all rights it never should have happened. With that said, in a more European like scenario with stronger build out, yeah, I absolutely adore the concept of Windsor being replaced with a second tunnel under Central...

Truthfully, I was more thinking that the Bell Centre is built above the tracks and Windsor stays in business, and as part of post-war developments that Central and Windsor are fused into one station, allowing the East-West corridor through Windsor to gain a tunnel to Place Viger, thus allowing Montreal to have a criss-cross arrangement, with trains west to Kingston and Toronto and east to Quebec City using the former CPR lines (as well as Exo's Saint-Jerome, Vandreuil-Hudson and Candiac lines) to use Windsor, while trains north to Ottawa (and those to Mirabel, which if it were me would be made into Montreal's only airport, as the land Dorval sits on could IMO be put to much better use) and south to Sherbrooke (and, ideally, to New York City) use the former Central Station and Mount Royal Tunnel. Of course, this also would likely result in an EXO line along the former CPR along the east end of Montreal Island, connecting with the existing Mascouche line at Montreal East and following the north shore of the St. Lawrence.

• parochially Federal Avenue in Toronto is my highest priority
  • and it's obvious follow up of the hockey arena over Union's train shed
    • in my mind this also incorporates a version of New City Hall matching the aesthetic, but there's a lot of options there, and I narratively rather like the things that come of indecision with regard to a new City Hall and courthouse.
      • how does it sound if Federal goes in while a Victoria Square (as it was then known) is an established but undefined concept with the result that:
        • Old City Hall stays city hall, and eventually gains an architecturally matched tower in the courtyard
        • the square becomes the new court house
          • something is built early post-war, is generally disappointinga and is being replaced by ~2020

There are a few problems here. I mentioned that the building of the grand buildings along Federal Avenue is unlikely due to wars and economic issues until after WWII, and here you'd likely just end up with the bank towers along Federal Avenue than along Bay Street. That said, if you can make it happen by 1920 and then see Toronto build a whole bunch of Art Deck buildings along Federal Avenue, I'd be all for it, and as a few that existed IOTL that would face the new avenues could be kept, I can see Federal Avenue's grander buildings being retained and merged into the later developments.

The Air Canada over the Union Station trainshed is obvious. I had the idea (in grand Toronto-Is-Awesome plan for my TLs) of having the Arena built as the high-speed train system for the Detroit-Quebec City corridor is building built, and the plan not only includes the arena but also includes turning Union Station into a double-deck station, with sizable ramps up to the second level from the east and west to allow Via Rail trains (and other regional services and any long-distance ones) to use the top deck of the station, dedicating the lower one for GO Transit, who would then build OTL's Bay and York Concourses for their use, while Via trains are accessed from a concourse above the second level, with the Air Canada above that. In addition to that, the TTC would build a dedicated streetcar terminal below the existing station, accessed by streetcar ramps off of Front, Lower Bay and the Esplanade, directly connected to the adjacent Union subway station. At the same time, my plan called for the Gardiner to be buried from Parliament to between Bathurst and Strachan. and where the OTL arena is would instead be a major bus terminal, accessed not only by ramps from Lower York and Yonge (Bay is probably too much of a ramp for this) but also from the Gardiner Expressway directly into the Terminal.

With regards to Old City Hall, the problem there is that the original one took so long to build that within a decade of its being completed it was too small, and once the city rapidly grows (and Metro Toronto becomes a thing) the space problem would be that much more acute. The courthouse is going to have an easy place to go once the Armories move to Moss Park in any case so I'm not too plussed about that, but I'd ideally like to keep the Registry Building if possible. Maybe that's what happens - Victoria Square goes at the head of Federal Avenue with Osgoode Hall to the West, the Registry Building at the top of it and City Hall to the East, but the uproar about preservation of Toronto's past leads to the Land Registry Building becoming rebuilt as part of the project, with City Hall to the east of it. Maybe the building proposed in the 1920s is built instead:

And this building is what becomes the Courthouse, with the OTL Court House site becoming another building in the 1930s as part of a proto-WPA plan for Canada, while Victoria Square becomes a much more landscaped and interesting place than the expanse of concrete of OTL.

• nationally is saying I want to avoid privatization of the big crown corporations concrete enough?

Some of them, I really wish that hadn't happened either, particularly Canadian National Railways and Petro-Canada, both of which if well managed could be a sizable source of funds for Canada that doesn't involve taxation of any sort.

• If not I'm going to go with a two part answer of building the Georgian Bay Canal and changing... something about the transcontinental build out to avoid the extreme over building and collapse on their respective sides of WWI

The thing is, I'm pretty sure the buildout was kinda inevitable unless something happens to force the CNoR and GTP to work with each other. Maybe both face financial problems way earlier and as a result they are forced together, with the CNoR handling everything west of Winnipeg and the GT handling everything east of there. At the time, the CPR was weak in Ontario and Quebec and nowhere in the Maritimes and the Grand Trunk held a virtual monopoly on freight traffic in Ontario.

• REALLY big picture, I'm in support of most things that get Canada a larger population earlier, doubly so those that create an earlier focus on the west coast
  • even without getting into wholly Canada Wank territory it would be REAL nice for the border to be at the Columbia River
  • significant Indian immigration to the west coast in the 19th century really is one of those ideas that I keep coming back to

For that to happen you pretty much need to get Canada to send a lot of people west a lot earlier, before the Americans can forge the Oregon Trail and fill up both the Williamette Valley and the shores of the Salish Sea. As for Indian immigration, I'm not sure how you'd make that one work with the racial attitudes of the time, though one thought that occured to me was for America's growth westward to be slowed down and then once the Potato famine hits Ireland like a ton of bricks Britain instead develops a system of shipping lots of Irish westwards across Canada. Maybe the War of 1812 leads to America expelling as many First Nations people as possible, and Canada takes them in in huge numbers and uses them to assist Canada's westward expansion. They start by forging Manitoba by the 1830s and then they keep on going, and once the Famine happens the British quickly send them to Canada and then get them to go further west. They reach BC by the 1850s, and when the Yakima War happens the Irish Canadians intervene to assist the local first Nations, leading to the border being defined by the Columbia River and British Columbia being everything north and west of it. The War also results in Canada's independence and the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway earlier than OTL. The tribes and Irish form an alliance with each other that forces the British (who need them to keep the Americans from occupying the coast) to treat the First Nations peoples better, first in BC and then across the entire country.

 

[Hayatgheibi]

Considering Toronto and Vancouver's cores mostly date from the 20th Century, I'm not sure that would make a lot of sense

I mean I believe buildings from the 20th century have historic value. You're right that it's harder to have people appreciate it, but it is possible, say for instance in Gastown in Vancouver.

 

[Fir Street]

I mean I believe buildings from the 20th century have historic value. You're right that it's harder to have people appreciate it, but it is possible, say for instance in Gastown in Vancouver.

Even This ?

Vancouver Special - Vancouver Heritage Foundation

www.vancouverheritagefoundation.org

 

[TheMann]

Though this is in the post-1900 forum, I've always wondered how Canada would have turned out with an earlier Lachine canal...though I guess it's technically not "unbuilt" given that it was constructed eventually...

The problem there is how do you make the Lachine Canal big enough for modern vessels when Montreal has been built all around it? I see the argument about it being able to be used for modern vessels, but it's a real problem to make that happen once the time comes owing to geography.

Say the British decide not to divide Canada into Upper and Lower Canada and instead give the English Canadian population what they really wanted: a separate legal system and canals along the St. Lawrence.

The Canals aren't the worst idea, but a separate legal system for just English residents as opposed to everyone else? I can't see that NOT turning into a complete disaster. How do you even-handedly apply the law in such a scenario when you have two legal systems that are as different from each other as English common law and French civil law are?

What really changes is the nature of Canada itself as more colonists flood in earlier, since superior infrastructure makes "Upper Canada" far more economically viable. The entire unified colony is likely run the way that Lower Canada was run in OTL, and if it gets the same vague constitution that Lower Canada got, that likely means that some Women and Indigenous people get the right to vote earlier. The big difference being that in TTL, the French will see Women, Indigenous, and Immigrants as allies against the English and not allies with the English and thus not only keep but expand these electoral loopholes. The entire colony is bilingual from the start, and the seigneurial system becomes the target of reformers far earlier than OTL which leads to increased agricultural productivity.

I see this as being possible but highly, highly unlikely. The separate legal systems will invariably mean one will be pushed by the leadership of the province to take precedence over the other, and as the province's now Anglo-dominated leadership now feels safe in tearing the remnants of the French societal and legal systems out the loopholes will go along with it. This scenario, especially when combined with the likes of the Family Compact and Chateau Clique types that dominated the politics of both colonies at the time, is much more likely to result in a forced assimilation or civil conflict (and quite possibly a repeat of what happened to the Acadians) than the unified colony being bilingual, and the seigneurial system is likely to be strengthened, not weakened. You're much more likely to get a system in Canada where you get something like a landed gentry and a House of Lords than anything else, which as you say isn't good for a productivity or societal advancement point of view.

The success of Canada's St. Lawrence canals prompt earlier canal construction elsewhere. Instead of the Rideau Canal, more canals are constructed across the Niagara peninsula, from *Port Hope* to Lake Huron via Rice Lake, and around Sault Ste. Marie. As a result the major cities in "Ontario" take shape around these canals rather than places like "York."

Three problems here.

1) The first canal you're laying out is pretty close to OTL's Trent-Severn Waterway, which in addition to being a titanic undertaking would be incredibly difficult and expensive with 19th Century technology and building methods. Doable, but the odds of it keeping its relevance beyond about 1900 is remote, as you'll need to be expanding it dramatically for ships to be able to use it. If you're looking to dramatically improve the position on Lake Huron for the British you're better off building the Canal system up the Ottawa River and then building the Georgian Bay Ship Canal referenced in this thread. That's a MUCH shorter route as far as canal length than the Trent-Severn is, as you have Lake Nipissing and the Ottawa, Mattawa and French Rivers to help with that, and that would dramatically shave the distance off of such a transit, much more so than the Trent-Severn.

2) There wouldn't be multiple canals on the Lake Erie-Lake Ontario route simply because of the Americans on the east side of the Niagara River and the huge Escarpment. To get from one to the other you gotta raise ships up 326 feet, which is a HUGE rise by 19th Century standards. It's possible obviously, but hugely costly, and particularly problematic considering that area is so close to the Americans. If Canada's really on a canal-building binge during this time and you desperately need to cut the corner here, the better option might be Kivas Tully's 1850s Canal proposal that followed the Humber and Nottawasaga rivers, though that had its own engineering problems.

3) York (later Toronto) growing into the city it is IMO is pretty much an inevitability. Toronto has an excellent natural harbor and even today has sizable port facilities, a port not really matched in that part of the Great Lakes aside from Hamilton, which is an even better port but has limitations with regards to the Escarpment. Toronto also has the benefit that it's right at a crossroads - go north to Sudbury and North Bay and the Canadian Shield, east to Kingston, Ottawa and Montreal and west to the rich farmlands of southwestern Ontario.

 

[TheMann]

I mean I believe buildings from the 20th century have historic value. You're right that it's harder to have people appreciate it, but it is possible, say for instance in Gastown in Vancouver.

That's fair and there are lots of wonderful early 20th Century buildings in Toronto and Vancouver, but enough to avoid a lot of redevelopment? I rather doubt that. God knows Toronto has lots of buildings I personally would have wanted to see saved that weren't, but not enough to try to stop progress in the area.

 

[Ming777]

Assuming a more expansive Canada, and improved focus on the West, I wonder if a bigger economy, and other factors would lead to an earlier larger Navy. Certainly the infrastructure was around or could be built. Maybe with a bigger population, industry, and earlier development of national identity, an analogue of the 1911 Naval bill or better is passed. Perhaps find a way to convince London to let Canada build Small tube boiler Queen Elizabeth-class battleships? Could be an incentive to build more and larger drydocks in the East, and develop drydocks in British Columbia (especially if it extends to the Columbia River).

Of course the next thing is making a more equitable Washington Naval Treaty, that isn't heavily slanted to the American demands.

 

[Fearless Leader]

The problem there is how do you make the Lachine Canal big enough for modern vessels when Montreal has been built all around it? I see the argument about it being able to be used for modern vessels, but it's a real problem to make that happen once the time comes owing to geography.

Do you have to? The St. Lawrence Seaway built new locks south of the city. The earlier Lachine Canal is there mainly to facilitate the connection between Montreal/Quebec and Upper Canada. I'm not saying it needs to be in use long term, but had it been built earlier and thus used longer than OTL, it certainly would have sped up the development of Ontario and the West.

The Canals aren't the worst idea, but a separate legal system for just English residents as opposed to everyone else? I can't see that NOT turning into a complete disaster. How do you even-handedly apply the law in such a scenario when you have two legal systems that are as different from each other as English common law and French civil law are?

I see this as being possible but highly, highly unlikely. The separate legal systems will invariably mean one will be pushed by the leadership of the province to take precedence over the other, and as the province's now Anglo-dominated leadership now feels safe in tearing the remnants of the French societal and legal systems out the loopholes will go along with it. This scenario, especially when combined with the likes of the Family Compact and Chateau Clique types that dominated the politics of both colonies at the time, is much more likely to result in a forced assimilation or civil conflict (and quite possibly a repeat of what happened to the Acadians) than the unified colony being bilingual, and the seigneurial system is likely to be strengthened, not weakened. You're much more likely to get a system in Canada where you get something like a landed gentry and a House of Lords than anything else, which as you say isn't good for a productivity or societal advancement point of view.

Fair point, however I must confess that this isn't directly my idea. Rather it's hinted at throughout Fernand Oullet's book Lower Canada 1791-1840. He seems to suggest that though difficult (and perhaps impossible) , such a system would have dramatically altered the foundations of Canadian society. If implemented in the 1790s, it would have predated the formation of both the Family Compact and the Chateau Clique, and created different political incentives which privileged the merchant classes. Now, late 18th - early 19th century Canadian political history is not my forte so I'd happily hear some alternate points of view.

Three problems here.

1) The first canal you're laying out is pretty close to OTL's Trent-Severn Waterway, which in addition to being a titanic undertaking would be incredibly difficult and expensive with 19th Century technology and building methods. Doable, but the odds of it keeping its relevance beyond about 1900 is remote, as you'll need to be expanding it dramatically for ships to be able to use it. If you're looking to dramatically improve the position on Lake Huron for the British you're better off building the Canal system up the Ottawa River and then building the Georgian Bay Ship Canal referenced in this thread. That's a MUCH shorter route as far as canal length than the Trent-Severn is, as you have Lake Nipissing and the Ottawa, Mattawa and French Rivers to help with that, and that would dramatically shave the distance off of such a transit, much more so than the Trent-Severn.

I should have specified that I never intended the canal to be relevant into the 1900s. Rather this Canal would serve as a far more economically viable replacement for the Rideau Canal that would open up Peterborough and the Kawarthas to more development earlier and thus shift some of the settlement of Upper Canada. Again had this canal or an earlier version of the Trent-Severn Canal been built in the 19th century, it would have had a much larger economic and political impact than when it was completed in OTL. That being said, upon further examination, the idea of having Port Hope be the terminus is a non-starter due to winds requiring barges to trans-ship their cargo to larger lake going vessels and the prospects of going over the moraine.

2) There wouldn't be multiple canals on the Lake Erie-Lake Ontario route simply because of the Americans on the east side of the Niagara River and the huge Escarpment. To get from one to the other you gotta raise ships up 326 feet, which is a HUGE rise by 19th Century standards. It's possible obviously, but hugely costly, and particularly problematic considering that area is so close to the Americans. If Canada's really on a canal-building binge during this time and you desperately need to cut the corner here, the better option might be Kivas Tully's 1850s Canal proposal that followed the Humber and Nottawasaga rivers, though that had its own engineering problems.

In complete agreement with you here. I could have worded my sentence more clearly. What I wanted to say was that earlier expertise building Canals along the St. Lawrence probably leads to an earlier canal across the Niagara which likely leads to a further shift in settlement patterns.

3) York (later Toronto) growing into the city it is IMO is pretty much an inevitability. Toronto has an excellent natural harbor and even today has sizable port facilities, a port not really matched in that part of the Great Lakes aside from Hamilton, which is an even better port but has limitations with regards to the Escarpment. Toronto also has the benefit that it's right at a crossroads - go north to Sudbury and North Bay and the Canadian Shield, east to Kingston, Ottawa and Montreal and west to the rich farmlands of southwestern Ontario.

Admittedly, I could have worded it better here as well. Toronto's advantages certainly do lend themselves to making it a large city. I guess what I was going for was the creation of a slightly less hegemonic makeup for Southern Ontario where Toronto is but one of several large cities and I thought that an earlier canal from Port Hope to Rice Lake could siphon off enough people from Toronto to make that happen. Of course upon further examination, the difficulties in going over the moraine and Port Hope's inferior harbour (less sheltered from the wind) would make it difficult for this to occur.

On a separate note, as a UBC alum, I always thought that the Point Grey Campus, though beautiful was terrible from an urban planning point of view. Though admittedly, it envisioned UBC as a kind of elite playground and thus right at home amidst the upper class neighbourhoods that were developing in the region, I always wondered what the impact would be if one of the other locations was chosen or if it had stayed in Fairview (where VGH is located currently). I'm not sure if it was ever considered, but a campus located around Burnaby's Deer Lake (which was undeveloped at the time... they built a jail nearby around the same time that the UBC campus was being built) would be very centrally located, easy to get to (proximity to Kingsway which was the main East-West thoroughfare at the time), and still quite scenic. Though I'm not sure where they'd stick SFU in TTL (maybe Surrey if they're being particularly foresighted?), having a more centrally located UBC would certainly solve a bunch of problems for the city transit wise.

Also as a former Vancouverite, I have to point out the potential commercial airship base/airfield proposed for Jericho Beach in various forms from the 1920s to the 1960s.

And while I'm at it, the revived streetcar network centered on Granville Island and going both into Downtown and down the Arbutus Corridor would have also been cool.

 

[Hayatgheibi]

A while ago someone on SkyscraperCity (I think) wrote an extensive proposal for Vancouver rail transit, much of which was based on real proposals. Does anyone have a link to that? The features I remember are SkyTrain to Guildford, light rail along 41st St and Arbutus Greenway, and turning the Lions Gate Bridge into pedestrian and light rail only.

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

Ok, suprised this hasn't come up yet: the proposed Olympic Village for Toronto's failed 2008 bid

source for both images: https://dailyhive.com/toronto/toronto-olympic-games-bid-future

I'm normally skeptical of the long term prospects of Olympic mega projects but for Toronto there are two things to consider:
a) The former harbour lands have been a collection of vacant brownfields for decades now, at this point I honestly don't care what goes in there so long as something (other than Google's panopticon) goes there.
b) It's Toronto. There's so much demand that I'm certain the buildings would be used for something.

For another recent sports venue that never was, Canadian Motor Speedway, a intermediate size oval track/multi use venue intended to bring the NASCAR Cup series north of the border.

 

[TheMann]

Do you have to? The St. Lawrence Seaway built new locks south of the city. The earlier Lachine Canal is there mainly to facilitate the connection between Montreal/Quebec and Upper Canada. I'm not saying it needs to be in use long term, but had it been built earlier and thus used longer than OTL, it certainly would have sped up the development of Ontario and the West.

Fair enough, and I agree with you that an earlier Lachine Canal may well have sped up development in Ontario, but whether that would come at Quebec's expense is another manner (and a bit of an issue if what you're trying to help the French Canadians carve out a place in British-dominated Canada).

Fair point, however I must confess that this isn't directly my idea. Rather it's hinted at throughout Fernand Oullet's book Lower Canada 1791-1840. He seems to suggest that though difficult (and perhaps impossible) , such a system would have dramatically altered the foundations of Canadian society. If implemented in the 1790s, it would have predated the formation of both the Family Compact and the Chateau Clique, and created different political incentives which privileged the merchant classes.

I can see the argument there but I have no idea how such a system doesn't result in the creation of a landed gentry, which is what the people behind the Chateau Clique and Family Compact wanted. They openly despised the idea of an open democracy (doubly so after the War of 1812, which they blamed on American 'ruffians') and such a system of a separate legal system is absolutely certain to be used as the anvil the Chateau Clique in particular would beat the French Canadians on - they openly wanted the civil law codes of the pre-British Conquest days removed, and weren't shy about saying so. They also demanded the replacing of the Catholic Church with the Anglican one (making common cause there with the likes of John Strachan in Upper Canada), which as one can imagine would go over like a lead balloon with the French Canadians. The Lower Canada Rebellion was bad enough IOTL, having distinctly separate systems in this case is almost certain to lead to one bludgeoning the other out of existence.

Better plan here (if I may suggest it): Have Dalhousie and Kempt's examples continued to be followed by their successors. They generally were even-handed leaders towards the French-Canadian communities, which Lord Aylmer most certainly wasn't and the Earl of Gosford found himself with a powder keg to deal with as a direct result. If you want to make French Canadians feel much more involved in Canada they need to feel that their interests are just as important as the English, or at least close enough to it so as it doesn't turn into open conflict. Ideally, you'd co-opt Papineau and the Lower Canada reformers into the fold by planning out responsible government (even if this is likely to piss off the Family Compact in particular, it's gotta be done at some point). The main issue here is going to be how to get the British-descended leadership of the colony to accept French Canadians as equals, and that won't happen while the Clique and Compact are still influential.

I should have specified that I never intended the canal to be relevant into the 1900s. Rather this Canal would serve as a far more economically viable replacement for the Rideau Canal that would open up Peterborough and the Kawarthas to more development earlier and thus shift some of the settlement of Upper Canada. Again had this canal or an earlier version of the Trent-Severn Canal been built in the 19th century, it would have had a much larger economic and political impact than when it was completed in OTL. That being said, upon further examination, the idea of having Port Hope be the terminus is a non-starter due to winds requiring barges to trans-ship their cargo to larger lake going vessels and the prospects of going over the moraine.

If you're building it soon enough I can see it making a lot of sense to a point, but the main issue I see with the plan here is that while the land around the lake isn't bad for agriculture, once you get past Buckhorn and Norwood that rather changes. Now, Havelock and Marmora will be viable communities for mining reasons, but I don't think this Canal is going to make much differences as far as settlement goes until such time as its completed. If you can get it done in the 1840s though you would likely result in much more development in the Kawarthas, though enough to counteract the much better farmland of southwestern Ontario I'd say is doubtful. That said, what you may be able to do using the canal is take advantage of the hydroelectric power potential of the region and have as much early industry as you can arrange set up shop in Peterborough, Lindsay, Campbellford, Lakefield, Fenelon Falls and Orillia for turning the abundant forests of the area into lumber and paper products, and then ideally into more sophisticated products beyond that.

 

[ArtosStark]

For that to happen you pretty much need to get Canada to send a lot of people west a lot earlier, before the Americans can forge the Oregon Trail and fill up both the Williamette Valley and the shores of the Salish Sea

AIUI the idea behind the beer (growing food to supply the Russian fur traders and thus cut out the American trade ships that would use the profit of selling groceries to the Russians to outbid the HBC for furs on the coast) was around from the late 1820’s. Yet when John McLoughlin (James Douglas’ superior at the company prior to the Oregon treaty) brought the idea of an Oregon beef and tallow Company to the directors in 1832 they were not receptive. It would take until 1840 before the scheme was begun and poor advertisement and unattractive offerings meant take up was very poor. AIUI when a similar idea was pursued in BC after the treaty it was a little more successful.

Had the scheme been started earlier and/or better managed, it could possibly have increased the number of settlers north of the Columbia and kept the British claim to that area strong.

even if this is likely to piss off the Family Compact in particular, it's gotta be done at some point).

I’ve wondered before if the Family Compact and Chateau Clique might have been good candidates for Canadian peers. Though their interests were more mercantile than land based, they basically filled the niche. If they and the signeurs were put together into an upper house you might, theoretically, leave them to battle it out there while beginning the process of growing a more representative lower house. They would still have a pretty strong hand for some time after but that would reduce over time as the lower house gained influence over time.