No Major Cities: Why So Few Canadians Live In On The East Coast 

Hi Geoff, Born and raised halogonian here, who studied both history and politics and gave guided historical tours of the city. I'm sorry but I have to point out several major errors and omissions in your video concerning why the east coast is so sparsely populated. If you would like to discuss any of them further, please don't hesitate to reach out. 1. Quebec city is not the oldest city in Canada: port Royal was the first major french settlement founded Nova Scotia close to those amazing tides you spoke of in 1605. St John's was founded in 1497 by the English. Nova Scotia itself was actually first settled as a LONE Scottish colony In 1621. 2. Halifax was the most important port for the British on mainland North America: Halifax was it for the British. Nova Scotia actually had the first representative democracy in North America. Halifax was home to one of four principal ports for the British navy in the Atlantic. (The others being Gibraltar, Portsmouth, and Bermuda). It was home to the courts, the political center, the economic center, and financial center. 3 out of five of the major Canadian banks were based boat of Halifax. So what happened to Halifax? So many things. 3. You forgot about the Halifax explosion: the most devastating explosion in the history of mankind, and the largest non-nuclear explosion ever. It leveled the city during world war I by a freak accident. Unfortunately, at this point in Canada's history, the military importance of Halifax was far greater than anything else and that became the focal point of recovery, especially with the dawn of the great Depression and world war II. 4. You forgot about the national policy: during the infant stages of Canada's development as a nation, the very serious question of where to invest you economically came into question. Here. You are very correct to identify why St. Lawrence River Montreal, Quebec, Toronto, Ottawa are so important. Canada chose to invest in this area and actively repressed and extracted everything they could out of the Atlanta provinces to establish that industrial center. It's consequences of this policy were severe, and led to all the major banks leaving Halifax, (Although the bank of Nova Scotia still holds that name in Toronto) and government sanctioned suppression of unions to ensure cheap coal and timber would flood into proper Canada. This is why all Atlantic provinces have been in a recession since the early 1900s. There are actual videos of the RCMP beating up strikers in cape Breton on their way home from church. 5. Canada is huge and has been organized and developed opposite to and in a symbiotic economic relationship with the United States: The coast of America are densely populated populated with almost no one in between. For the longest time, that was the same case in Canada until the national policy and the absolute explosion of immigration and development in British Columbia. Because of this relationship with US. However, again, our development was focused in the middle of the country, with each coast being far more sparsely populated. So as you can see, you hit on a few of the important geographic conditions that led to how Canada was populated, but you presented some clearly wrong facts and very important omissions that give critical context.

Something that is completely missing here is the availability of suitable agricultural land. Although some regions of Atlantic Canada have good soil/land to grow food (e.g., PEI, Annapolis Valley Region in NS), most of the region has shallow soils and is incredibly rocky. It's the same reason most people in New England live in Massachusetts and not northern New Hampshire and Maine. Compare that with the rich agricultural land in Southwestern Ontario and along the St. Lawrence River around Montreal. Southwestern Ontario even grows tobacco. The big economic driver in Atlantic Canada was cod fishing, which never drove enough industry as most of the processing was done in Massachusetts. Mining, coal extraction and forestry were other notable industries, but again never generated enough population growth or industry to foster large cities. For this reason, Atlantic Canada has always been relatively poor and sparsely populated.

You left out my favourite fact! Nova Scotia is the only place outside of the UK to have a Gaelic dialect, and bilingual road signs in Gaelic and English. There's a lot more Scottish and Irish influence here, which you can really hear if you talk to people from Newfoundland or Cape Breton. The accent and some phrasing is not quite the same as the rest of Canada.

I live in the Annapolis Valley here in Nova Scotia. This province is growing. Due to extremely high Housing prices in other more densely populated provinces. I moved from the states to Ontario and then moved out here. Nova Scotia has some of the prettiest scenery I have ever witnessed. If you ever have a chance to visit do so. From wine lovers to cider fans you will find some of the very best locally grown and produced right here.

Montreal and Quebec City might seem far inland from a modern point of view, but at the time they were founded they would have been ocean front property for the purposes of transportation. Montreals position was dictated by geography: its as far up a river that gave easy access to the center of the continent. (A characteristic that it shares with New Orleans) Quebec City is where the river narrows enough for a single fortress to cover its entire width

Nova Scotians voted massively against joining confederation with Canada because as the richest of the 4 colonies, it was afraid that Upper Canada would want to impose tariff barriers against the US, killing business with Nova Scotia’s biggest trading partner. That’s exactly what happened. This version of “history” completely misses the true story.

super technical and specific addition - The Appalachian mountains extend into Newfoundland as part of the Long Range Mountains on the province's west coast. Beautiful mountains and fjords there, and the UNESCO world heritage site of Gros Morne and the Tablelands.

The western portion of the land at 3:27 shouldn't be red as a part of the agreement in the Treaty of Paris was that thanks to a secret deal between Louis XV and his cousin Charles III of Spain the year before, France would give Louisiana (or the land west of the Mississippi River) to Spain. Spain then administered the territory from Havana, and while they tried their best to make the territory Spanish by sending Canarians there (and Louisiana today still has people descended from said Canarians called Isleños), their effort was usually fruitless as the majority preferred French. To gain land in Tuscany, Louisiana was returned to France in 1800, and of course would be purchased by the US in 1803. Shame the Acadians weren't mentioned as they're just as important to the history of the Maritimes. The Acadians are an ethnic group descended from the French who settled in the New France colony of Acadia (now Atlantic Canada) during the 17th and 18th centuries. During the French and Indian War, British officers suspected that Acadians were aligned with France after finding some Acadians fighting, even though the majority were neutral. Despite this, the British worked together with New England militia to carry out the Great Expulsion which forcefully deported 11,500 of them, and one-third of them dying from disease or drowning. Many of them ended up getting recruited by the Spanish in Louisiana, thus developing the Cajun culture.

Halifax was an also important pre-jet era port. Most ocean liners had their headquarters in Halifax like Titanic’s White Star line.

You should do a video on why the Canadian Prairie is so much more Urban than the American Prairie. Just looking at Calgary and Edmonton it's weird that no city in Montana even comes close to their size.

Several years ago I went on a tour of Nova Scotia, PEI and New Brunswick. Every moment was wonderful. It had so many beautiful spots and the people were very courteous and welcoming. And the lobster and salmon dinners!

Great video Geoff! I really enjoy your channel. Two things; FYI during WW2 Halifax became Canada's main east coast port; mainly because of the U-Boats having a field day in the Gulf of St. Lawrence due to our sonar having a problem with the mixing of fresh and sea water. So we just shipped everything to Halifax by rail and the U-Boats had no targets. Second thing. Before 1959 (long before your time, but not mine) the St Lawrence was NOT navigable west of Montreal because of rapids. It was only when the St. Lawence Seaway project that opened in 1959, that opened the St. Lawrence up to the great lakes. I may be wrong, but I believe Toronto ships much more stuff every year than Montreal now. I was just back to Montreal last summer, and it seemed like the port was a shadow of what I remember it being when I was a kid. Also, when i was a kid growing up, Montreal was Canada's largest city. Now it's Toronto. Reason? When the Quebec legislature passed Bill 101 making French the working and only official language of Quebec, large companies that had been headquartered in Montreal simply relocated to Toronto, taking their workers with them.

As a Canadian living in Vancouver, I say Labrador is sparsely populated due to it's harsh climate and remoteness. There's only one road going in and out. In fact, it's so far away from my home, I'll probably never visit there in my lifetime.

Halifax: exists

This was a GREAT video. Loved learning all about how it happened. Thank You for a wonderful presentation.

They may not be as populated as Ontario, Quebec, or BC, but Atlantic Canada is still proud of their culture, and it shows on their provincial flags! On the New Brunswick flag, the big lymphad evokes NB's historical shipbuilding industry and the ships utilized by numerous Loyalists to land in the province after they fled the US after the American Revolution. On the Newfoundland and Labrador flag, the flag design is that of etchings on Beothuk and Innu decorative pendants worn hung from a cord around the neck. Blue for water, white for snow, red for effort, gold for their confidence. Nova Scotia's flag represents their Scottish heritage, with the royal arms of Scotland in the middle and an inverted version of the Saint Andrew's Cross. And finally, PEI's flag has a large oak tree with three saplings. One for England, and the three represent the island's counties. Taken altogether, the trees tie in with the province's motto of Parva sub ingenti ("the small under the protection of the great". The three oak saplings are interpreted as the descendants of the British oak tree and are guarded by the British lion. Also, Atlantic Canada is home to the oldest city in Canada as Sir Humphrey Gilbert founded St. John's in Newfoundland in August 1583! The town of Harbour Grace also in Newfoundland was founded even earlier in 1517 by the French. And something else to note is that Newfoundland didn't join Canada until 1949

To be fair the population isn’t far off from Northern New England (Maine-New Hampshire-Vermont) Being a bit more rugged and forested it makes sense why the population would be lower

My dad, his friend, and I wanted to go to Labrador for vacations a few weeks before the wildfires in Quebec. Unfortunately, we weren't able to go there because we didn't have enough time. That might be a good thing, because we passed through Northern Quebec and Abitibi during our trip, the two regions where there are a lot of wildfires. I still dream of visiting Labrador one day.

Great Video Geoff. I happen to live in Newfoundland and there's 1 piece of information you forgot to mention, Newfoundland has not connection to either Labrador or Nova Scotia either by land or by bridge unlike PEI and the other Atlantic Provinces.

Thanks- I’ll listen again. It was most informative!

Great video. I'm American, but I've visited all ten provinces at least twice each and the Yukon once. Still hoping to make it to the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. I absolutely love Canada and have driven all the way from Victoria to St. John's (except for the stretch from Sault Ste. Marie to Windsor). While driving up the north shore of the St. Lawrence in Québec, I took the train from Sept-Iles up to Schefferville, passing through Labrador. Of all the places I've visited in Canada, I'd say the island of Newfoundland is the one I enjoyed the most. I really appreciate the sense of remoteness I felt there.

Excellent video. I'm from the Boston area in New England and I did my undergraduate studies in Montreal. I visited Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and remote parts of Quebec. In some ways, I felt more at home in Halifax than in the U.S outside of New England and the Hudson Valley. Atlantic Canada (including Labrador and Newfoundland and the Maritime Provinces of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick) is an amazingly beautiful region with warm and welcoming people.

I’ve lived in New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia. It’s beautiful land, scenery, with the ocean lending a moderating effect to our climate, not too hot or cold. There are areas of each province which get a lot of snow in winter, so lots of skiing and snowmobiling. Our cities are not overly large; you can find your way around, and everywhere there is a friendly feeling. The entire 4 Atlantic provinces are paradise in the summer. There is something to do everyday for tourists, from golfing to a strong music scene, but the best part of summer is just relaxing and enjoying the view.

During WW2 Halifax was an enormous port. Halifax was a major hub for everything needed and used for the war including the production of ocean vessels. Never underestimate Halifax's role as a major city or port.

As a Maritimer living in Calgary I was a little dismayed over how quickly the history was glossed over with no mention of the Acadians, the expulsion of the Acadians, Halifax( The Warden of the North) and the sailing companies that shaped the business character of the region.

Although the St. Lawrence Seaway helped shift growth inland to Montreal/Toronto, the principle reason Canadian east coast cities never grew large is POLITICAL. After Confederation in 1867, Ontario/Quebec forced policies to encourage trade between Canada while severely restricting trade with the US The Maritimes economies were deeply tied to trade with New England, and predictably, were economically devastated. 150+ years later, the Maritimes still haven't recovered from these policies.

Nova Scotia is my favorite place i have ever visited. Because it is so rural and natural makes it so much better. Halifax is a really cool small city and i enjoyed staying there, but the most enjoyable part of my trip thrre was driving west out to Yarmouth and staying at an old farm house, and exploring the area, all the lighthouses, etc. It was most amazing to me how it was essentially a completely different climate out in the west coast of Nova Scotia than in Halifax. It was very mild and cool and foggy, in July when it was hot and humid in Halifax. We drove back around the bay of Fundy en route back to the airport and visited several more lighthouses as well as an interesting little zoo. Most beautiful scenery i've ever seen in person, and the people there were very friendly and welcoming.

Très bien expliqué, merci! Very well explained, thanks!

It's a very small point, but when showing the arrow for the Norse visits to Newfoundland, I'd have pointed it more expressly to the northern tip of Newfoundland's northern peninsula. This is where the one archaeologically confirmed Norse site, L'Anse aux Meadows, is located. All in all though, a great video. Thanks!

Thank you, Geoff! My family settled along both sides of the St. Lawrence. But that ability to withstand the cold did not trickle down to me!

Thanks for highlighting our region with a great concise history and overview. One correction: Newfoundland is pronounced exactly like the word "understand". Just remember to "understand Newfoundland"

Fascinating information! Thank you for sharing.

You said Canada was all French until the 1763 Treaty of Paris, ending the Seven Years War, and that Great Britain then took over control. However, Hudson's Bay, and much of the area you're specifically mentioning here, namely Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, were ceded to Great Britain 50 years before that in the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 at the end of the War of Spanish Succession.

Great video. Unless I missed it, there was a big omission! Newfoundland only became part of Canada in 1949. That being the case there wasn’t a ton of incentive for Ottawa to develop it…

Canada's east coast is mostly sub arctic maritime (With the exception of Nova Scotia Which has a Temperate Climate), while the USA is temperate north of the Carolinas and subtropical from the Carolinas to Florida. Heavy snow for months on end and the risk of year round frost makes it difficult to settle there. Canada's Interior cities dip further south and have a warmer temperate climate with a dedicated sunny, hot, and frost free season. The southernmost point in Canada has a climate similar to Chicago.

Hey there, just a little correction for your video, the first permanent EUROPEAN settlement in canada wasnt Quebec, in 1604 the french started the Acadian colonie with the building of Port Royal. An area in nova scotia that is still lived in to this day. Also there where First nations that lived in permanent or seasonal settlements for 1000s of years before europeans arrived. That means there where permanent settlements before europeans arrived. Source: Im a history major and learned all of this in my history class called Canada from the beginning up to 1850.

During Covid, tons of people moved to the East Coast. We now have too few doctors, insane rents and housing prices. People came to the Island as it’s a tourist destination and picturesque and quiet and we were considered safe during COVID.

I knew there was a geographic reason but couldn't explain it. Thanks for the informative video.

great job explaining ,thanks

Thanks for the explanations.. and for sharing. 🎱

Fantastic video as always, thanks once again!

The east coast of Russia is at the same latitude as the Maritime provinces and virtually no one lives there except in Vladivostok because of the winters. Even the Vikings couldn't survive in Newfoundland. I agree, the Saint Lawrence river allows people to live in the Maritime provinces.

Really interesting. Thank you!

Amazing informative video, new Canadian subscriber right here!

Eastern Canada in general has a very dismal climate because of the Icelandic Low and Labrador Current which act as an opposite Gulf Stream. This immense climate system keeps Europe warm but Eastern Canada cold. Montreal (at 45.5°N) gets colder winters than Moscow (at 55.8°N) and is a colder overall city than Stockholm (at 59.3°N). Then much further northeast and you have Baie-Comeau (at 49.2°N) which shares the same climate as Hammerfest (at 70.7°N), and Chibougamau (at 49.9°N) which shares the same climate as Murmansk (at 69.0°N).

"John Cabot" was actually Italian - his real name was Giovanni Caboto.

I live in New Brunswick, close to Saint John, it’s beautiful here. Enjoyed the video, just wanted to mention that saint Johns population goes down to around 80-90 thousand in the winter time, and it used to be the capital until they changed it to Fredricton figuring it would be more protectable being further inland.

Awesome video. Thank you.

Geoff, I appreciate the effort you put into these videos. Great job. The background music was appropriate in a way I can't really define, but it felt right.

Thanks. Wish some of your videos were available when I was a kid near Toronto in the 50’s & 60’s. My wife and I summer in Newfoundland now. It’s a short drive from Ontario. Over the decades we have driven to the west coast and finally got around to drive from coast to coast to coast in the summers of 2017 & 2018, to dip our toes in the Atlantic and Pacific and swim in the Arctic. It is a BIG country.

Excellent video. Thank you. Just subscribed.

Very interesting 😊thank you

While it was "technically" possible to go from the St. Lawrence to the Great Lakes, it wasn't possible for shipping until the St. Lawrence Seaway - a system of locks an man-made canals making large shipping possible - opened in the 19th and then further in the 20th centuries. There were a lot of rapids, shallow rivers, islands and other impediments between Montreal and Lake Ontario. You couldn't just bring ships in from the start, unfortunately.

It's also possible that the economic center of eastern Canada exists around the Toronto-Montreal axis is because of that area's greater proximity to the American economic centers of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, etc.

I lived on pei my whole life. I don't see it mentioned a lot. So thank you for bringing us and all the rest of the maratimes to the spotlight :). We all have lots to offer and have very friendly people within each province. Usually you feel pretty forgotten when your such a tiny place compared to the rest of the country. But pei is my home I love it. Plus it's definitely the most dense. You can't get lost on pei, just walk a kilometer any direction and you'll find a road haha.

Geoff you have a lot to learn

Interesting video! I’d love to add that, while Atlantic Canada is sparsely populated, it has areas that are well worth visiting. St. John’s is one of the most charming cities I’ve been to.

Enjoyed the video. Feel like Annapolis royal (formally port-royal) nova Scotia deserves a mention as the first permanent European settlement in 1605.

Watching with interest from central Florida

My mom was born in Newfoundland and got adopted to NYC where we still live today. This video was interesting thank you for sharing.

Canada’s oldest city is actually St . John’s NL! Established 1497

Halifax would have been around as big as Boston, if not for the whole city getting wiped off the map in a joint effort between the British & French in 1917

Thanks!

Very informative❤

Thanks for covering this. It’s probably the same reason 75-80% of the Canadian population lives in southern Ontario & Quebec.

Toronto and montreal flourished at the expensive of other canadian locations due to, as you said access to the sea via the st. Lawerence but MOST.Y because of proximity to usa markets via rail starting in the 19th century...

Love this

Hi from Prince Edward Island. Thanks for the lesson!

Thank you for your hard work on these great videos. ❤

Another thing is the population distribution as 30% of Atlantic Canada live in Halifax and 45% live in ns and Halifax is still the 4 biggest port in Canada and has 33,000,000 metric tons

Well done, Sir.

You could have mentioned the St-Lawrence seaway. Around Montreal, they had to create the Lachine Canal for boats to be able to continue pass Montreal. When they did this, the bulk of transportation shifted from Halifax and the Maritimes to Montreal and Toronto.

Huh. I live in London, Ontario and thought Halifax was a bigger city than London. I guess with a recent influx of Toronto Real Estate Prices Refugees, London's population increased. We're about the same size now. I still think Halifax should have an NHL franchise. Love to see that.

My 9th great grandfather was Michel Heche Gallant. He was born abt. 1662 in Nova Scotia area to a French father and his mother was Mk'mac.

Thank you for the video. My family and myself are planning a trip to Canada next year, from our home in Scotland. This video was helpful. We have yet to decide, east or west coast.

Annapolis Royal and Port Royal were settlements in the Annapolis Valley in 1604 and 1605. They were accessed from the Bay of Fundy.

There was the Halifax Explosion which some argue set caused so much damage to the city that it moved growth elsewhere and ruined it's chances of ever becoming a major city.

The East Coast and NS in particular had a large manufacturing base (similar to New England) before Canada was formed as a country, and a lot of large companies (including 2 of Canada's largest banks) were HQ'd there; during Canada's early history Halifax and Saint John were 2 of its largest cities. For political reasons plus the logistics of westward expansion, a very large proportion of these industries relocated to Toronto around the turn of the 20th century - imagine what Boston/New England might be like if nearly all of its "Old Money" and major companies had relocated to Chicago back in the jazz/prohibition era. Maine's borders being what they are mean that Canada's railroads and highways need to go around it, which adds significant travel time/inconvenience when going from Halifax to Montreal (for example); and after long-distance airliners became mainstream in the mid-to-late 20th century, and YYZ (Toronto) entrenched itself as Canada's hub airport, it became inconvenient to travel to the East Coast from across the Atlantic, since nearly all destinations required a transfer at YYZ - which is 2.5 hours in the wrong direction (this phenomenon is even worse for Newfoundland). The Western provinces don't experience this as much with transpacific travel, since YVR (Vancouver) is still the major Pacific gateway airport. YHZ (Halifax) has regained some transatlantic routes in recent decades although it is still a minor gateway compared to YVR or YYZ.

My wife and I went to Maritime Canada in 2004, from Maine, through New Brunswick, PEI, and Nova Scotia, and back to Maine. We took the Centennial Bridge from NB to PEI, and the ferry from PEI to Nova Scotia, which was very scenic. In 2008 we went up from NY state to Quebec, first to Quebec City, and Montreal for the 400th anniversary of Samuel de Champlain's exploration in 1608. I had been to Quebec City also in 1980 and 1983. My wife and I went to Toronto in 2001, by the Maple Leaf train from NY state. I also drove to Vancouver for Expo 86 in 1986, accross Canada from New York State, and Montreal in 1967 for Expo 67 back then.😊

Beautiful!

As a Canadian originally from Newfoundland but now living in Nova Scotia, I appreciate your efforts on this video about this region and thank you for not butchering it, as many do.

Canada has only 1/10 of the population of the US. So a 500,000 population city in Canada (like Halifax-Dartmouth) could be considered proportionally the equivalent of a 5 million person city in the US (like Boston) Also at 7:59 the graphic appears to show water-based shipments from Ottawa. The Ottawa River is not navigable for freight as there's many rapids along the way.

Rad content 🤙

You may be overlooking the St. Lawrence river and lock system which gives Montreal access to the Atlantic.

An additional factor was significant migration out of the Canadian Maritimes to coastal New England due to much better job opportunities. Before Confederation Montreal was only about 50% bigger than Halifax due to the coastal city's trade as part of the British Empire. But after Confederation many left the Maritimes for New England. By 1890, Boston had more English speaking Canadian immigrants than any other U.S. city, Cambridge, MA across the river had more Canadian-born immigrants at the time than New York City. By 1920, more Massachusetts residents had been born in Canada than any other state or country besides Mass itself, as was also the case in New Hampshire and Maine. If Nova Scotia had been part of the US, Boston and Portland, ME could have ended up smaller and Halifax bigger.

Great video, and vey informative. This was the one Canada explainer video I've been waiting for JJ McCullough to produce.

Good analysis as basics. A lot of major historical reasons missed like the expulsion of that Acadians, and American Independence and our strong historical ties to New England moved a lot of people around. You nailed the jist of it, I think. For a 10 minute video, I think this is about right.

Very interesting

The real reason is that the agriculture sucks out east.

This is the reason why people talk about the "Laurentian elites" in Canada instead of the "coastal elites", because there just are no major population centres on the east coast. Which is a shame because it's probably the most beautiful and rich in history part of the country.

It's winter weather over yonder, people flee when they reach age of majority. NS gets hit pretty hard due to proximity of wind patterns off the Atlantic

The thing that killed Maratime Port such as Halifax & Saint John was the start of year round ice breaking on the Saint Lawrence River, it's much more efficient to move cargo by ship so the further inland you can bring it the better. Halifax is seeing a resurgence in shipping nowadays as many container ships have gotten too large to make their way up the River above Quebec City due to height restrictions with bridges and draft restrictions. Saint John still sees a fair amount of traffic as it is home to the largest oil refinery in Canada, so there is a fair amount of export traffic.

I think the reason there isn't a large city on Canada's east coast is bc it was settled when the US was still controled by the British. So, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were no different from Maine. Boston is the large city of the region, what changed was the creation of a border due to the war of independence. Canada did develop significantly later than the US, so I think it makes sense that the Midwest became it's main population center.

They evicted my ancestors in the great expulsion and still haven't found a new tenant 300 years later.

Because its cold! Living in Midcoast Maine, I know downeast Maine gets some pretty gnarly cold weather and have longer winters and shorter summers.

Missed one key point. In the map the area was coloured as New France it was actually a separate independent French Colony with it’s own Governor and was more about farming than building a colony. Therefore Quebec City and Montreal we’re already developed, and Boston Existed by then.

This video is wildly inaccurate. The ports of Halifax and Saint John were nearly as productive as Ontario and highly industrialized in the 19th century, mainly because the St. Lawrence was iced in for many months of the year. A common complaint of the period was that Ontario's most accessible market was New York and it cost them a fortune to reach it over land, whereas the eastern colonies sold across the Atlantic for a fraction of the cost. However, Atlantic Canada shouldered the majority of the dominion's debt (as is often the case) because the east financed the western colonization. Quebec had its own dynamics. Atlantic Canada signed into Confederation based on two promises: 1)The Dominion would buy our debt and 2) Through the disproportionate anglophone majority in the Senate, our interests would be balanced against our primary trade competitor: Quebec. For this, we gave up our open trade policies for the tariffs that would make Ontario competitive in the New England markets. The second promise was then broken by Wilfrid Laurier's Liberals who built a coalition of Quebecois and Ontarians. This undermined the purpose of the Senate as a governing body, imposed national taxes which extracted further wealth from the untaxed east, and made a national project of opening the St. Lawrence seaway which undermined our economic role in the Dominion. The situation described in this video is a result of these policies, not the root cause.

In 1980 at the age of 9 I got to spend the summer in Halifax...essentially all of June and July. I have many fond memories of that summer; visiting Peggy's Cove, taking a ride on a real schooner ship, riding the VIA from one end of the province to the other (I told my friends that I took a train to Australia because one of the stops was a town called Sydney...lol), walking across the street from the apartment building we lived in to the local 'common' to play or watch the softball and cricket games/matches...and many more. Would like to go back one day...

It's very cold along the Atlantic coast of Quebec in the winter and especially in Labrador. That could also be a factor in why no major cities developed there.

Love this! But the first from Champlain was in Port Royal Nova Scotia 🎉.