Discussions

I have been thinking more and more about how our country has been offered in the past the opportunity to annex the Caribbean Islands Turks and Caicos, and as the winter steadily approaches, I have to wonder, why not Canada?  
 
Can you imagine the benefits of having our own Caribbean islands? How many Canadians would make it their permanent vacation place? Would our economy benefit tremendously from all of the tourism we would send staying within our own country, as opposed to going to other southern hot spots? Not to mention all of the investments our citizens would make to their property industry and pretty much all other industries in the islands. How cool would it be to see Canadian businesses set up shop there? Businesses like Tim Hortons, Roots, Robins Donuts, Canadian Tire and Petro Canada?  
 
A great place for a Canadian navy/army base? I think so. A starting point for Canadians taking cruise ships? Why not? A base of operations for Air Canada/WestJet in the Caribbean, what's to stop them?  
 
If it was part of the Canadian Universal Health Care System, I bet the benefits to Canada and Canadians would be overwhelming, as tons of seniors would make it their destination of choice.  
 
It has been said that support in the past from the populace of Turks and Caicos has been at over 90 percent. What's wrong with our governments that they have not been openly endorsing the idea? I mean the islands have less then 32,000 people and they share many of the same form of institutions we do as a British overseas territory.  
 
So I want to see what sort of support this idea can get from Brandonites, who wants our Member of Parliament, Larry Maguire to make this a priority and do what he can to try and work with other MP's to make this dream a reality?  
 
Let's see how many positive responses we can get to this discussion board. Even if you just want to show your support, respond with a 'I'm in favor', or a 'I'm against it'. Later I will tally up the numbers.

So is the idea that they would all become Canadian citizens, in the province of Turks & Caicos? Or is it going to be a situation like Gaum or Puerto Rico?

The plan would be that they would all become Canadian Citizens. The province of Nova Scotia voted in favor of having the island join their province if they ever became part of Canada in 2004, as a result no constitutional amendment would be required.

It has never really been "offered" to Canada, it was suggested by an MP several decades ago, and revisited recently as a topic. A transfer of a UK owned territory would be unlikely, as they probably learned from the sale and transfer of Rupert's Land that there is a significant loss of potential income.  
Still a nice dream though. I'm not sure about what the economic structure would involve, but given our current situation, I doubt it would even get to a point where a Western MP would even consider the possibility of taking the topic up the chain to Parliament.  
I wish you the best, but I very much doubt the reality of it ever happening.  
https://globalnews.ca/news/2621875/reality-check-should-canada-adopt-turks-and-caicos-as-its-11th-province/

I say no. Too many other pressing issues that should come first.

I think they should remain independent countries, however you could make far reaching free trade and visa agreements to essentially get both parties to the same place.

would you want to wreck a perfectly beautiful island by making it Canadian? Can you imagine the taxation on the people who live there and lack of services just as we face now? The prices would sky rocket for only the rich ...the average person would never be able to afford to buy or rent there any longer. Why would you want to see it filled with Canadian business's ? The ones we have here are not even up to par. I say leave it as is and not ruin a beautiful piece of paradise

The statistics tell us that Canadians buy US vacation property. In 2017 Canadians bought 17 billion dollars worth of US property - much of that being vacation homes, and that's just in one year. How many Canadians would prefer to have their second home within a Canadian island destination as opposed to a southern US hotspot?

A Canadian hotspot could help the economy by bringing in much more money in the form of investments and tax dollars which Canadians would spend on their own southern vacation destination rather then spending that money first in other countries, like Mexico, Cuba or the US.

I am in favour.

What is the carbon footprint of this run to the sun? Or does the environment not matter any more?