Canada's Alberta Separatism

The Canadian province of Alberta will possibly hold a referendum on separation from Canada. The main issues are that it is rich in resources and more conservative than the rest of Canada. Being landlocked is a disadvantage for a country and an independent Alberta would be landlocked.

The roots of this separatism are explained in the compound posting "America And The Modern World Explained By Way Of Paris", December 2015. America is divided between the "conservative heartland" and the "liberal coasts". We saw in that posting how the "conservative heartland" corresponds to the land acquisition from France, known as the Louisiana Purchase.

But the Louisiana Purchase continued northward into Canada, into what is now Alberta. This explains the conservativism that is at the root of Alberta Separatism. 

THE PLANETS AND CANADIAN CITIES 

Am I the only person to think that it is the psychology of the planets that determined the locations of major Canadian cities? There were settlements across Canada but only a relative few grew into major cities, and those cities match the relative positions of the planets.

Halifax is Mercury. Quebec City is Venus. Montreal is Earth. Ottawa is Mars. Toronto is Jupiter. Winnipeg is Saturn. Calgary and Edmonton are the sibling planets of Uranus and Neptune. Vancouver is Pluto.

This is too much to be a coincidence. I have thought this for years. The logo of Winnipeg, the Saturn City, even has what looks like Saturn with it's rings. Image from the Wikipedia article "Winnipeg".

Toronto grew into the largest city, because it is in the Jupiter position. But it didn't grow into the largest city until the Space Age, when humans began sending out spacecraft and people became more aware of space. Before that it was Montreal, representing Earth, that was the largest city. 

CANADA'S AVRO ARROW 

I wonder if Canadians might be thinking of reactivating the Avro Arrow program.

In the 1950s a Canadian company called AVRO planned what would likely be the most advanced supersonic fighter jet in the world. The plane was called the Arrow, and development began at a factory near Toronto. It was a massive project that employed many thousands of people.

Canada didn't have the facilities necessary for all the required testing of the prototype aircraft, so much of the testing was done in the U.S. The Americans who witnessed the testing of the Arrow were certainly impressed with it.

The next thing that happened was the launch of Sputnik. This was the first satellite to orbit the earth, and much of America was alarmed that their opponent in the Cold War might be pulling ahead in the arms race, and what would become the space race.

What happened next was a shock that neither Toronto, or the rest of Canada, has completely gotten over.

On February 20, 1959, remembered as "Black Friday" in Toronto, new Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker abruptly and unexpectedly ordered the cancellation of the Arrow project. Everything to do with the project, the plans and tooling and several prototype planes, were ordered to be destroyed.

Not only had it employed so many people in Toronto, the plane had become a point of national pride. There are persistent rumours that plans, scale models, or maybe at least one of the prototypes of the Arrow, were smuggled to safety. It has become a Canadian legend, particularly in Toronto.

In August 2018 came the news that a test model of the plane had been recovered from the bottom of Lake Ontario.

With this project being so important to Canadians, just why was it cancelled? Certainly it was an expensive project but the plane would also serve to highlight Canada's capabilities to the world.

Part of the rationale for the cancellation might be that the Arrow was a fighter jet, designed to shoot down incoming planes as opposed to missiles, and missiles were to become more predominant in the future. But the project was cancelled in 1959. America, at the time, had Nike bases around the country, also designed to shoot down planes rather than missiles, and these would remain operational for many years after the Arrow project was so abruptly cancelled.

What I find so interesting is that considering that the cancellation announcement came after the U.S. and Canada had a chance to consider, and discuss, their response to the launch of Sputnik, the key personnel of the AVRO Arrow project were hired almost immediately by what would become the U.S. Space Program.

Many of the important positions in Apollo, as well as other programs that came before and after, were Canadians. The prominent role of Canadians in the U.S. Space Program can be seen in how, upon the mishap on board Apollo 13 in April 1970, it was the University of Toronto that was called to do the quick calculation of just the right pressure to separate the Lunar Module from the Command Module, but without doing any damage to the hatch which would be fatal. These were the days before pocket calculators and with no time to program a computer.

Doesn't it seem obvious that there was a secret deal between the U.S. and Canadian Governments that rather than dividing their responses to Sputnik, they would effectively work together by having Canada cancel the Arrow project so that it's top people could help with what would become the space program?

The reason that there was so much emphasis on destroying everything having to do with the Arrow project was to ensure that none of it's key personnel would be able to carry on the project themselves, and would accept the offer to work on what would become America's space program. In 1958, the year before the Arrow project was cancelled, the U.S. and Canada had jointly founded the NORAD defense system.

It is known that John Diefenbaker didn't always get along with U.S. President John F. Kennedy. But this was in 1959, before Kennedy took office.