Province of Cape Breton
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Province of Cape Breton Island is a political movement which calls for the re-establishment of the Province of Cape Breton Island to be governed separately from the Province of Nova Scotia.
There have been other movements for the re-establishment of the Province of Cape Breton Island before this one but the most recent commenced in February 2000 when a meeting in Baddeck led by Scott MacLean of Sydney was attended by about 200 Cape Bretoners seeking to form their own province or invoking some form of political change in response to an economy in crisis on the island. A subsequent meeting was held on Remembrance Day, November 11th, 2000 in Sydney with about 300 attending including local officials and politicians e.g. Gerald Sampson, Kenzie MacNeil, Fraser Morrison, & Danny Hanson. The meetings also drew the attention of Senators Bernard Boudreau and Lowell Murray who raised the matter on the floor of the Canadian Senate with no decision or action being taken.
The movement continued throughout 2000 and 2001 with Cape Breton University hosting a series of meetings. CBU's initiative set forth that one of the initial steps in the process of greater independence and self-reliance for Cape Breton Island is to look at the jurisdictional power held within CBI's Municipal Governments and find ways to augment and leverage it for economic growth. To that end the Cape Breton Island Branch of the North Atlantic Island Program [NAIP(CBI)], hosted by the Community Economic Development (CED) Institute, held meetings at Cape Breton University over the year focusing on the relationship between jurisdictional authority and self-reliant economic development. The meetings were attended by local leaders and politicians including; Wendy MacDonald, Vince MacLean, Dr. Gertrude MacIntyre, Director, CED Institute, Mayor Billy Joe MacLean, Donnie Rowe, John R MacDonald, Craig Pollett, Bill Stirling, Scott Dawe, and John Whalley. During 2001-2002 discussions and meetings on the topic of Cape Breton Island's governance continued and the Cape Breton Regional Municipality led by Mayor John Morgan commissioned Memorial University of Newfoundland to independently study the governance and economic crisis on Cape Breton Isalnd for problem identification and a possible solution set. The study by Dr. Wade Locke and Dr. Stephen Tomblin was completed October 21, 2003 http://www.cbrm.ns.ca/portal/documents/GovernanceStudyReport.pdf http://www.cbrm.ns.ca/portal/civic/council/studies_reports/PDF/GovernanceStudy_Presentation.pdf The study found that the depopulation and de-economization of Cape Breton Island would continue if the status quo was maintained. (Which continues to ring true). The study indicated that Cape Breton Island is paying the Province of Nova Scotia based on the 2002 Fiscal year and excess of $12 million annually in taxation versus the expenditures it receives in return from Nova Scotia.
In May 2005 a further study supporting governance and economic issues on Cape Breton Island was completed by Dr.Paul Hobson (Department of Economics - Acadia University), Dr. David Cameron (Department of Political Science - Dalhousie University) and Dr. Wade Locke (formerly of Memorial University), entitled "A Question of Balance - An Assessment of the State of Local Government in Nova Scotia" - Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities Report - May 24, 2005 http://www.cbrm.ns.ca/portal/civic/council/studies_reports/documents/FAIRandEQUITABLEFUNDINGPROJECTREPORT--FINAL.pdf
In response to the findings of these studies Mayor John Morgan and Cape Breton Regional Municipality (Cape Breton Island's largest municipal government)commenced discussions and negotiations with the Province of Nova Scotia which after failure by Nova Scotia to recognize CBRM's complaints resulted in the filing of a law suit by CBRM against the Province of Nova Scotia for what it claims are arbitrary and capricious fiscal improprieties - to the tune of $12 million per year.
In November of 2006 the popular support for the movement was rekindled by Mark MacNeill of Mabou who responded to Prime Minister Harper's recognition within the House of Commons of Quebec as a distinct Nation within a Nation, by advocating that Cape Breton Island is also irrefutably a distinct society and as such should be recognized as a Province within a Province with a devolutionary view to re-establishing the island as its own independent province and as the 11th Province within Canada. Although the movement is in its infancy with only about 60 members, prominent members of the community have come out in support of the movement including mayor John W. Morgan, Anna Curtis-Steele, Maury McCrillis and Brian Joseph, PhD.(Harvard).
[edit] Reasons for separation
Reasons for the establishment of Cape Breton Island as a province within Canada cited by the movement is that Cape Breton Island is an existing sovereign province within Canada that has never ceded its sovereignty.
Cape Breton Island was illegally annexed by Nova Scotia in 1820 without the consent of the Governor of the Province of Cape Breton Island nor the consent of the resident population at the time. The annexation by Nova Scotia was in response to the British Crown losing a case and its appeal in 1816-1820 to tow Cape Breton Island mine owners over the validity of taxation the British empire was demanding from the residents of Cape Breton Island. When the Crown lost the legal cases they acted 'ultra vires' and annexed Cape Breton Island to neighboring Nova Scotia comprised of British Loyalist who dutifully collected the taxes from Cape Breton island on behalf of the Crown. Cape Breton Island filed an appeal and petitioned the Crown to rescind the annexation due to the procedural improprieties that had been employed in the administrative annexation, but the Crown declined the appeal.
Ironically in 1867 Nova Scotia was Canada's first Separatist Province and petition the Crown in 1868 to have the British North America Act of 1868 repealed. Sir Joseph Howe was furious that Sir Charles Tupper then Premier of Nova Scotia had the audacity without the consent of the electorate to sign Nova Scotia into Confederation with Upper and Lower Canada. In fact, Sir Howe waged a petition with 65% of the electorate of Nova Scotia at the time as signatories requesting that the British North America Act creating Canada which Sir Charles Tupper had signed be repealed. This he presented to the Queen in London, whom promptly turned it down maintaining with irony that it was a Canadian parliamentary matter. In the next general provincial election, Sir Joseph Howe’s anti-confederationist forces won all seats but the one held by Sir Charles Tupper, and on forming the new government promptly passed legislation in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly with unanimous support that declared Nova Scotia’s refusal to recognize the Confederation of Canada. And, that 1868 Act has never been repealed and still stands on record in the Nova Scotia legislature to this day. It seems that Nova Scotians felt very strongly that they would be robbed of their taxes, resources and the ability to make important governance decisions that affected their local economy and wanted the ability to self-determine their own future as they feared Central Canadian motivations were not in the best interests of bluenosers. (Ironically, Sir Joseph Howe subsequently became a parliamentarian and a federal Cabinet Minister in the Government of Canada.)
Further grounds for the re-establishment of the Province of Cape Breton Island as an independent provincial entity within the Canadian confederate family is provided under international law via; 1. The Human Rights Charter of the United Nations, 2. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and 3. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; which affirm the fundamental importance of the right of self determination of all peoples, by virtue of which they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
As an island and a people with a distinct social, cultural and political history Cape Breton Island clearly has been deprived of the universal rights and liberties of human kind recognized in international law, has an inherent right to freely assert its sovereignty, to determine its own political status within Canada and to freely pursue its own economic, social and cultural development.
In contrast, traditionally Cape Breton Islanders have witnessed a dismissal of Cape Breton as irrelevant by the Nova Scotia provincial government in Halifax who favors the development of the Halifax Regional Municipality as a Hub centre for Nova Scotia and the Atlantic region.
