alt canada story

something I've not yet written causes the quebec referendum to have a narrow oui victory.

due to their incompetence before and after the vote, Chretien and Parizeau are both tossed out of office. Parizeau is replaced with Bouchard.

Chretien is initially replaced with Alan Rock, but he proves to be unable to cope, and a national unity government is formed headed by, of all people, Jean Charest. This coalition has 197 seats and includes everyone except for the 52 Bloc MPs (who refuse to attend parliament) and the 52 Reform MPs (who oppose the government's approach to the referendum result)

Eventually Charest and Bouchard work out a deal.

All provinces will gain the power to opt out of programs, choose their own senators, control over aboriginal affairs, and power over justice issues, examples of which include crime and marriage.

Quebec will be given a distinct society, more control over immigration to Quebec, a role in picking supreme court justices, and veto power on certain issues.

Preston Manning and Reform opposed it, calling it a step backwards from Charlottetown (which he also opposed)

The Federal Government decided to put the deal to a vote and a referendum was called.

Results

While the vote passed, there was stronger than expected opposition in Western Canada. Charest put extreme pressure on western premiers to accept the nationwide results, but both BC and Alberta refused to do so.

Finally, on the one year anniversary of the referendum vote, Preston Manning held a press conference saying that Canadians would need to choose whether they wanted "A Canada without Quebec, or a Canada without the West"

3 days later, a tape is released, where Mike Harris was secretly recorded expressing anger at Preston Manning and his remarks, saying "If that fucker is going to make us choose, we will choose Quebec"

Harris' comments helped to galvanize the issue, and a poll on the direct question "would you rather see a Canada without Quebec or a Canada without the West" showed that 63% of Ontarians would rather the West leave.

It would later be discovered that prior to Manning's remarks, Reform had conducted an identical poll in Ontario showing that 59% would rather Quebec leave. The entirety of the swing in opinion came from Harris supporters. Harris, after leaving office, would admit the statement was his biggest regret, saying that in context he was arguing what he felt Ontario voters would do, and that it was not his personal view.

Regardless, the damage was done, and over the next few weeks, Western Canada started to break away. BC revealed it had set up a committee in secret to examine what to do if quebec were to vote to separate, headed by bill bennett, former premier, who had set up a similar committee in 1980. They recommended the creation of a new country of Western Canada. A Referendum was held and BC voted "yes" by a margin of 2/3rds to 1/3rd.

Saskatchewan revealed it too had a secret committee for the same reason, and the committee had been in contact with Manitoba, and the two provinces were coordinating a joint approach. Both premiers agreed in principle to join BC.

Ralph Klein however was vehemently opposed, saying that the plans of the other provinces amounted to treason. His caucus, however, disagreed, and in a tumultuous meeting, turfed him and replaced him with Stockwell Day.

Day decided against holding a referendum. Both major parties in BC were heavily split by the referendum, allowing the new provincial Reform party to poll in majority territory. To avoid this, Day declared that electing a PC majority would be akin to supporting the growing consensus that Western Canada needs to be its own country. Day won a massive majority, 76 seats, compared to 6 for the Liberals.

Both Saskatchewan and Manitoba, which had held elections in mid 1995, held free votes in the legislature on the matter, with both seeing over 50 votes for an independent Western Canada in each provinces less than 60 seat legislatures.

A new round of tripartite negotiations began between Prime Minister Charest, and Premiers Bouchard and Romanow. These were successful, and in December of 1996 it was announced that in the summer of 1997, there would be two new countries created from what is currently Canada.

On June 24th, 1997, Canada would officially change its name to "Canada and Quebec" and adopt the agreement hammered out; giving provinces the additional powers outlined.

One week later, on July 1st, Western Canada would leave Canada and become its own country, taking the Territories with them.

By Christmas, all 10 provincial legislatures had agreed to this plan, as had the two territorial legislatures, the federal Senate, and Commons.