(Image: Laris Karklis/Washington Post)
The Turks and Caicos Islands consist of two clusters of small islands with a total land area of 366 square miles. They were a part of British Jamaica until 1962, when that nation gained independence. Since then, they have remained a British overseas territory.
Since 1917, land-hungry Canada has gazed covetously upon the Turks and Caicos Islands. The Washington Post explains:
"Canada really needs a Hawaii," said Conservative politician Peter Goldring in 2014. "The United States has a Hawaii. Why can’t Canada have a Hawaii?"
Will this effort succeed? Some Canadians think that the plan is too ambitious:
But talk of a Canadian Hawaii cooled after the archipelago's premier, Rufus Ewing, visited Ottawa in 2014.
"I won’t be too hasty to jump from one mother’s nest to another mother’s nest — one master to another," he told Canadian reporters at the time. "That is something that the people of the Turks and Caicos have to demonstrate to me that they want and then take it from there."
Leading Canadian officials batted down the possibility, as well.
"The premier who’s here isn’t asking to become the 11th province and we’re not in the business of annexing islands in the Caribbean to be part of Canada," said then Canadian foreign minister John Baird. "So that’s not something that we’re exploring. We’re not looking at any sort of formal association with the islands."
-via TYWKIWDBI