Канаданың теңіз жағалау провинцияларының бірігу ұсынысы

Proposed political union of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island
maritime industry labour unions

Maritime Union is a proposed political union of the three Maritime provinces of Canada – New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island – to form a single new province. The idea has been proposed at various times throughout Canadian history. Most recently, it was reintroduced in November 2012 by Stephen Greene, John D. Wallace and Mike Duffy, three Conservative Senators from the region. in 2001 an American author similarly stated that as the Maritime provinces require substantial transfer payments from Ottawa they would not be a viable independent country. He speculated they might combine, with or without Newfoundland, to make themselves more attractive for admission into the United States as a single state.

Support for a union of the three provinces has historically ebbed and flowed, in conjunction with various socio economic and political events throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. In the immediate years following Confederation, the anti Confederate movement in the region advocated Maritime Union and separation from the new federation, fearing that the wealth of the provinces would be sapped to support development and growth of central and western Canada. The concept gained credibility in the 1960s at a time when Maritime governments, in partnership with the federal government, were progressively tackling economic underperformance with various regional development programs. The growth of civil service and social program expenditures in the three provinces, coupled with out migration and declining national political clout, led the provincial governments to examine ways to pool resources and better lobby for the region in Ottawa. While an actual union was debated in all three provinces, the discussion evolved largely around regional cooperation. Several meetings between all members of the legislative assemblies and the cabinets of the three provinces were conducted during the 1960s, with the result being several important regional cooperation agreements in the areas of health care, post secondary and secondary education, and in regional intergovernmental coordination, particularly when dealing with Ottawa. Several institutions were formed by the early 1970s to facilitate intra regional cooperation, including the Council of Maritime Premiers, and various organisations such as the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission and the Land Registry Information Service. During this time, the secondary school curriculum in each province was standardised and provincial funding to post secondary education was coordinated to eliminate duplication, particularly among professional programs (i. e. education, law, engineering, medicine, pharmacology, dentistry, social work, criminology, veterinary medicine, etc.). Equally important to the establishment of these formal organisations was the coordination by the mid 1970s among provincial governments for legislation to harmonise policies and programs, as well as to arrive at common positions on federal provincial negotiations. By the 1980s, the Council of Maritime Premiers was renamed the Council of Atlantic Premiers with the entry of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador into the partnership. The CAP has led all four provincial governments to extend cooperation in the adoption of common consumption taxes, insurance legislation harmonisation, the Atlantic Lottery Corporation, venture capital funding, a harness racing commission, and the coordination of provincial government procurements, among other items. In addition to historical precedent, there were more pressing reasons to reorganise the colonies. The United States, embroiled in the Civil War, posed a military threat. Many prominent colonial politicians felt that the united colonies would be able to mount a more effective defence. In Britain, the Colonial Office also favoured a reorganisation of British North America. The British hoped that union would make the colonies less reliant on Britain, and therefore less costly to maintain. Gordon's own ambition may also have been a factor—he envisioned himself as the governor of the united Maritime colonies. The idea of Maritime Union—the reorganisation of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia into a single British colony—was not new. Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick had once been administered as parts of Nova Scotia, until 1769 and 1784, respectively. Several of Lieutenant Governor Gordon's predecessors, including J. H. T. Manners Sutton, had also favoured reuniting the three colonies.

There are several convergent—unique, historically related, and ultimately intertwined—movements for a limited form of sovereignty and independence, stemming from the New Brunswick region of Canada but ultimately encompassing the whole of the Atlantic provinces and even the northeastern corner of the United States. "Acadians" traditionally refers to a community mainly in New Brunswick that is linguistically French, but is a distinct culture from Quebec. There have been proposals for Acadia to separate from New Brunswick and become a separate province. This was promoted by the Parti Acadien and is similarly represented by the historic "Republic of Madawaska". There is limited support for this idea, and drawing the borders of a separate Acadian province would be difficult, as Acadians are dispersed throughout the province as well as in smaller numbers in Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Quebec's Magdalen Islands and the U. S. state of Maine. To help solve this dilemma, in 2007, Second Vermont Republic essayist Thomas H. Naylor proposed a "New Acadia" which would encompass "Vermont Maine, New Hampshire, and the four Atlantic provinces of Canada"

The Atlantica Party was created in 2006 to fulfill a similar purpose, of uniting Atlantic Canadians under a common banner and government. However, the party failed to gain any ground or make any significant impact on the political scene in Atlantic Canada. A trade zone uniting the region along these lines has also been formally proposed by the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies and the Atlantic Growth Network (organisations based in Halifax, Nova Scotia) with the support of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, a government agency. Together, they have hosted regular regional conferences promoting the Atlantica trade zone, beginning in 2002 through the last major conference, June 11 June 16, 2007, in Halifax. However, the proposal was also criticised by political activists, most notably Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians, as little more than a regional prototype for a future North American Union.

Within the Maritimes, support for the concept of a formal political union of the three provinces has historically been extremely difficult to quantify by pollsters and politicians. Many Maritimers express support for reducing government expenditures through greater regional cooperation, as in such existing cases as the Maritime Film Classification Board and the Atlantic Lottery Corporation. However, when it comes to actually consolidating the bureaucracies of the three provinces (or four if one counts Newfoundland and Labrador in a larger Atlantic Union), the support dwindles as residents of individual provinces do not wish to see the public sector benefit one particular province over the other. There is allegedly some support in urban regions as these regions would stand to gain both politically and economically, however mistrust of a formal political union runs deep in Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton, and many parts of New Brunswick and rural Nova Scotia. Prince Edward Islanders do not wish to give up the freedom of having jurisdictional sovereignty and provincial powers in local control. Many Cape Bretoners harbour exceptionally deep seated resentment toward mainland Nova Scotia which has benefited from a relatively strong economy in the Halifax area for many years, something which Cape Bretoners and rural Nova Scotians claim has occurred at their expense. A union with PEI and NB might dilute what remaining influence Cape Breton has on provincial affairs which could have a negative impact on the island. New Brunswickers express the same fears as Prince Edward Islanders, fearing the loss of jurisdiction, and as Cape Bretoners, fearing the dilution of influence over provincial affairs. Of particular concern is the possible linguistic and cultural dilution that the Acadian community of New Brunswick would face – comprising over 30 percent of the New Brunswick population, cultural protections guaranteed to Acadians in officially bilingual New Brunswick could be compromised. Although both Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia have Acadian communities as well, both are much smaller and less proportionally significant. Additionally, many rural mainland Nova Scotians distrust the growing economic domination of Halifax and wish to maintain their remaining influence in provincial affairs.

In May 1970, a Gallup poll among all Canadians asked if the Maritimes should become one province. The results were: 43.8% of respondents agreed, 37.9% disagreed, 18.1% were undecided and 0.3% had a qualified response.