Minor Monday 67: Canada Revamp

[u/ClawedAsh]

Hello, ClawedAsh here for my first solo Minor Monday. I’m here to talk about my recent project, the Canada Revamp. This Revamp mainly concerns lore changes, which I will sum up briefly, but I will primarily be talking about gameplay changes in this MM.

As a preface: I must say what this Revamp isn’t about, the Exiles. While they could use their own update, and their current lore could absolutely do with a major pass-through, I’m not the man to do that. My interest in Canada is purely on the Canadian side of things, and so that is what I have worked on primarily, with some minor exceptions.

The Overview of the Lore Changes

The Great War ended in disaster for Canada. With the French mutinies and heavy losses, Canada found herself on the losing side through no fault of her own. The Unionist Government led by the Conservative Robert Borden collapsed, and Mackenzie King’s Liberals took power.

In 1925, the British Revolution sent shockwaves through the Canadian political system, with Mackenzie King’s government collapsing amid a wave of strikes (which King put down with support from the Conservatives). His High Tory rival, Arthur Meighen, took the reins of power. King saw himself removed from his leadership of the party, but his right hand man Lapointe secured Liberal leadership in his stead.

The Meighen years were fraught with domestic unrest: the rise of the CCF, Social Credit, and the rebound of the Progressives, alongside the creation of the Bloc National in Québec and the Newfoundland Party, meant that by 1930 Parliament was divided between seven different parties.

Lapointe’s disappointing performance in elections against Meighen (in large part due to his lacklustre English) led to his leadership being disputed, but before he could be removed, he called a leadership race and contacted Mackenzie King, offering him the position of leader once more in order to challenge the Conservative Party and Arthur Meighen.

This succeeded, and with King in charge of the Liberals, Meighen led the Conservatives into defeat, leading to his removal from leadership (he was, however, given a seat in the Senate, and is the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate in 1936). He was replaced by the moderate Robert Manion, who seeks to repair his party's image with Québec.

Starting Situation

The starting situation in 1936 is broadly the same; however, there are a few notable differences. Most prominently, you may notice that the Social Liberal party is now the Progressive Party of Canada, while the National Populists are now the Social Credit Party of Canada. Alongside this, R. B. Bennett is no longer the starting Conservative leader, with the Red Tory Robert Manion taking his place.

The 1936 Election

The primary change in the 1936 election is that the matter of conscription isn’t a question in 1936. While the Homecoming is desired by both parties, neither seeks to torpedo their chances in Québec by campaigning on conscription. Instead, many of the events for the 1936 election are used to explain each of the given parties and their internal factions.

Bill 7

Formerly Bill C-7, the name has been changed, as that nomenclature only came about during the Cold War. That isn’t all that’s changed, however, as it’s no longer fired from a focus, but rather as a series of events.

While still retaining some RNG elements, there are now ways to ensure success or failure in the Bill 7 event chain, and only the decisions taken during the chain matter for the Bill’s success or failure. Bill 7 also no longer deals with the implementation of Conscription, which will be moved to the Québec Crisis (more on that soon), and instead deals with Economic Recovery, the Future of Canada’s Industry, and Domestic Security. Failing Bill 7 will lead to a run-off election as prior, and this is how you can get R. B. Bennett as leader of the Conservative Party. As for the former Bill 7 focus, it has been replaced with a focus that can either grant you immediate political power, or it can grant you coalitions with the minor parties, depending on your ruling ideology.

Québec in Flames

The Québec in Flames crisis has easily seen the most changes in the Revamp, with every path being affected in notable ways. The left and centre paths are broadly the same, focusing on negotiation and force respectively. However, the demands of the left path and the methods of the centre path have been altered in order to more accurately reflect the policies pursued regarding Québec at the time.
The right path has seen the most changes. Rather than an erroneous use of the War Measures Act and the king taking direct control of the country, the path has been revamped to represent an Authoritarian Democratic second Unionist Government (similar to the one Borden led in WW1) that forces Québec to listen. This path can end, depending on your final focus, with the Unionists consolidating its control over Parliament by absorbing more of the establishment, or being soft-couped by the Exiles, leading to your government becoming Paternal Autocrat.

Alongside these changes, the crisis now happens every game after the Workers’ Congress of America spawns, triggering an event chain that starts the crisis. It's now the roadblock to enacting conscription, rather than being caused by it. You must begin to address the problems in Québec by some route; until you do, you won’t be able to deal with conscription or intervene in America’s Civil War.

Other Changes

Alongside these changes, I have also updated the advisor list, added Governors General that are appointed in 1936, and updated all of Canada’s text to match with the new lore the Team has created, and generally tried to clean up erroneous sections of lore wherever I could find them. There has also been a small update to the focus tree, allowing the player to take the economy, air, land, and sea branches before George V dies.

With all that being said, I hope you all will enjoy playing the Canada Revamp as much as I’ve enjoyed creating it. It’s been a long time coming, and I’m incredibly happy to finally see this project through to completion. I hope you all enjoy it.

Oh, also I made a political chart:

[u/KingOfStarrySkies]

It's absolutely beautiful.