The next Quebec referendum on separation, which will be held five years from now, will pass and Quebec will immediately move out of confederation. They will unilaterally declare themselves a sovereign country, stop paying taxes to the federal government, and control passage across their borders. They will immediately take posession of all federal property within their borders. They will give military personnel within Quebec the option of either joining the Quebec Army or taking an immediate discharge. And, they will either co-opt federal agencies within the new country if they provide a service that is required; or disband them if they are redundant with existing provincial agencies.
The federal government's reaction will be to deny the reality of the new politcal state and continue to spend money providing services to Quebec. They will try to convince the federal public servants within Quebec to remain loyal to the federal government and they will continue to provide seats in parliment for representatives from Quebec. Some representatives, the dedicated federalists, will continue to sit in parliment (including the Prime Minister, of course, who will no longer represent any riding within the new Canada). Most federal politicians from Quebec will be scrambling for a place in the new Quebec National Assembly.
As the reality of the new political order becomes obvious to the average person, Canadians will demand dramatic changes to the federal government.
First, they will realize that the old federal government does not represent their interests. For decades we have had Prime Ministers and the most powerful positions in cabinet (Treasury Board, Finance, Defense, etc.) filled by ministers from Quebec. More significantly, thanks to the Official Languages Act, a vastly disproportionate number of senior and managerial positions in the federal government have been reserved for Francophones. In fact, it will become obvious that far too many people in the federal government have more personal interest in the new Quebec nation than in the other parts of Canada and are not able to properly represent the interests of the rest of Canada.
Second, Canadians will realize that, with Quebec MPs out of parliment, the majority of the remaining MPs are from Ontario. The Atlantic provinces and the West will not support a government in which Ontario can dictate laws to them, even over all their votes combined.
Canadians will demand that their provincial governments design a completely new political system. There will be an emergency first ministers meeting which will resolve to write a new constitution for the rest of Canada.
As well, following the referendum, the aboriginal peoples in Quebec will immediately declare themselves and their lands as separate and distinct from the new Quebec nation. However, the aboriginal peoples are too fragmented politically to speak with one voice. Some will claim soverign status of their own, others will declare that they are still citizens of Canada. Regardless, all will claim that existing treaties with Canada remain in force, either as international agreements between the new nations, or as an historical and moral obligation of the Europeans who stole their lands. Quebec will deny their right to succede from the new nation and ask their new army to enforce Quebec's sovereignty over all the lands within the existing Quebec borders. The aboriginal peoples will ask the rest of Canada for physical protection against Quebec.
Anglophones in Western Quebec will make similar, but less serious claims.
The federal government, beset from all sides, will be reluctant to violate Quebec's borders. Furthermore, public servants will be uncertain about the loyalty of many of their senior managers and doubt the validity of any orders concerning Quebec. The federal government will look sluggish and weak. Quebec will have a free hand to dictate the terms of a new relationship with the rest of Canada for the first year.
Disliking the terms negotiated between Quebec and a federal government dominated politically by Ontario and functionally by Francophones, the West will demand that the new constitution blunt Ontario's power, else they will separate. The Atlantic provinces, now cut off geographically from the rest of Canada, lacking the economic muscle of the West, and having no political power worth mentioning, will begin negotiating with the USA for some kind of special status. However, they will not receive any kind of acceptable terms. Their only remaining choice will be to side with Ontario.
The West, facing domination by Ontario, and now having a large immigrant population who do not have an historical emotional loyalty to a united Canada, will follow Quebec's lead and separate.
During the decade after the dissolution of Canada, the West will prosper. Their vast resources will only be a stepping stone. Bad management will kill the forest and fishing industries. The emphasis of the new immigrants from Asia on education and entrepreneurship will allow the West to finally develop viable high-tech and manufacturing industries. B.C. will dominate Alberta and Saskatchewan because it will develop these new industries more quickly. There will be social unrest as the rural, long-time residents see the best jobs being taken by the better-educated and more flexible children of the immigrants.
Ontario will stagnate and shrink economically by a few percent, but their existing manufacturing will carry them through.
Quebec will enter a severe recession lasting more than a decade, their nationalism will sustain them. The new Quebec government will be the most dictatorial political system in North America, placing the needs of the government ahead of individual rights. In the short term, the occasionaly violent and always hostile confrontations with the aboriginal peoples will provide widespread support for a powerful internal police force with far-reaching capacity for repression.
Although there will be considerable discussion of the maintainence of French culture, in fact, the government will put very little money into it and it will erode under the pressure of international trade agreements signed to prop up a sagging economy. In general, citizens of Quebec will like their new government and support it, despite their deteriorating standard of living. The French language will largely disappear from Quebec over the course of a hundred years.
After a five-year period of recession and diminshed expectations, the Atlantic provinces will discover new strengths and see some real economic growth. Like the West, they will harvest their economic prosperity from the information industries, not from exploiting natural resources.
In the long run, the parts of Canada will grow closer together again with a series of agreements and treaties and may even form an international governing council with some real power. However, the different parts of Canada will never again join to become a completely unified country.
No part of Canada will ever join the United States.