The Turks and Caicos Islands are a British overseas territory in the Caribbean. There is some support for a union with Canada; however, the islands' small economy and Canada's involvement in Haiti have made this controversial. In 1917, the Prime Minister of Canada, Robert Borden first suggested that Canada annex the Turks and Caicos Islands. In 1974, Canadian New Democratic Party Member of Parliament Max Saltsman introduced a failed attempt at consolidating the islands.
The idea was brought up again in 1986 by Progressive Conservative MP Dan McKenzie, but it was rejected by his party's caucus committee on external affairs in 1987. The committee, chaired by MP David Daubney, looked at immigration, banking, health care and tourism issues in making its decision.
In 2004, Conservative MP Peter Goldring visited Turks and Caicos to explore the possibility once more. He drafted a motion asking the Canadian Government to look into the issue, but his party declined, citing immigration, tourism, and economic issues.[However, the Canadian government does not dismiss the possibility of a future union. The province of Nova Scotia voted to invite Turks and Caicos to join the province in 2004, should the islands ever become part of Canada. This would bypass the problems with admitting Turks and Caicos as a separate province.
On 2 March 2009, the Ottawa Citizen ran an article on its online site reporting the interest of the Canadian government to open a deep-water port in the Caribbean that would open up "a new market for Canadian goods ... in the Caribbean and nearby Central and South America". "Suppose the port, unaffordable for Caribbean countries, boosted their standard of living and bolstered hemispheric security. Suppose the port doubled as a Canadian military operations base for countries wanting help to patrol their waters and to interdict the Caribbean's robust trade in smuggled arms, drugs and people."
In May 2014 Premier of Turks and Caicos Rufus Ewing visited the Canadian Parliament looking to improve its relationship with Canada, and was open to a possible "marriage" in the future.
In the Turks and Caicos Islands, support for a "special relationship" with Canada was at 90% in the 1990s, while in 2003 support for the relationship stood at around 60%. Goldring, an MP from Edmonton, has championed the cause of integrating the Turks and Caicos Islands as a Canadian territory for security benefits, as well as increasing Canada's influence in Central and Southern America with regard to counterterrorism, trade and combating encroaching Chinese influence in several small Caribbean islands, such as St. Lucia.
