The U.K.-based Independent has served up a slick, professional rewrite of the BBC piece on my “previously unthinkable” ideas, drawing also on my column in the Globe and Mail. Gotta love it! But does anybody know how to monetize this kind of thing? Newfoundlanders, especially, will enjoy the newspaper’s situating of the city of St. John’s. For the “previously unthinkable” trigger warning, see the next post down.

Scotland could leave the UK and join Canada instead, says author . . .

‘Even as a typical Canadian province, it would have
more powers than it does now,’ says Ken McGooganics

Scotland should join Canada if it decides to leave the UK
after Brexit, an author
has suggested. 

Ken McGoogan said the idea made sense as in the modern era
technological advancements made geographical boundaries “irrelevant”. 

If Scotland was to become a province of Canada it would be the third largest and
make up 12.6 per cent of the population, compared with the eight per cent it
represents in the UK, the Canadian
author wrote in a comment piece for The Globe and Mail newspaper. 

He added that the country would have much more autonomy under the Canadian provincial
system.

“No, Scotland would not become fully independent,” he wrote.
“But even as a typical Canadian province, it would have more powers than
it does now.”

He added: “Provincial legislatures have jurisdiction over their
internal constitutions and direct taxation for provincial purposes, including
for municipalities, school boards, hospitals, property and civil rights,
administration of civil and criminal justice, and the list goes on”.

Under the terms of the Canadian Constitution, Scotland would be able
to keep its oil revenues from the
North Sea because provinces control their own natural resources, he
said. 

If they included the 4.7 million Canadians who claim Scottish descent
they could make up a “power block” of nearly 25 per cent of the country’s
population, he added. 

He also pointed out that Edinburgh is closer to St John’s, a city on an
island off Canada’s eastern coast, than it is to Athens in Greece. 

To read the rest, away you go here. . . .