The Province of Buffalo was a proposal for the creation of a new Canadian province

Proposals for new Canadian provinces and territories

Since Canadian Confederation in 1867, there have been several proposals for new Canadian provinces and territories. The Constitution of Canada requires an amendment for the creation of a new province but the creation of a new territory requires only an act of Parliament; therefore, it is easier...

 in the early 1900s. Its main proponent was Sir Frederick Haultain, the premier of the North-West Territories. However Haultain's frosty relations with then-prime minister

Prime minister

A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...

 Sir Wilfrid Laurier did not help his cause, and the proposed province was divided into Alberta

Alberta

Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

 in the west, and Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....

 in the east in 1905.

History

The Province of Buffalo was one of several proposals for the area of what would become Alberta and Saskatchewan. Haultain proposed the idea in 1904, stating that "One big province would be able to do things no other province could." At the time the majority of Calgarians and Edmontonians disagreed with the proposal, since Haultain thought the capital of the new province should be Regina, but the two major western cities each had their own ambitions to be a capital city (Edmonton eventually becoming the capital of Alberta). Laurier eventually decided to carve two provinces out of that section of the North-West Territories by dividing the land up vertically. This created Alberta in the west, and Saskatchewan in the east.

Buffalo today

Some Albertans and Saskatchewanites believe one province would have been better suited to the area, curbing Albertan right-wing conservatism and giving formerly resource-poor Saskatchewan access to greater financial resources. The idea of a union is still brought up occasionally by fringe politicians in the two provinces.

In 2005 Canadian Geographic

Canadian Geographic

Canadian Geographic is the bimonthly magazine of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society . It was first published in May 1930 under the name Canadian Geographical Journal. The society's objective was to produce a popular magazine dealing primarily with Canadian geography...

magazine ran a cover story, "How the West was divided ", on Haultain's proposal.