COAXIAL CANADA
The great depression devastated the Canadian economy and made millions of people extremely desperate, resulting in the discontent with the government’s inability to give assistance.
Prime Minster Bennett failed to prevent the economic disaster, making it possible for an army man by the name of General Arthur Whitaker to take power via a coup in 1934.
He formed a one-party fascist regime in Canada renamed “Nationalist State of Canada” and where the House of Commons was dissolved and all other political parties were banned. The regime attempted to reform the economy by restructuring industries into state-run enterprises and with controlled syndicates which destroyed the labor unions, froze prices, and intimidated workers. At the same time, there was a strict censorship of the press and intensive propaganda of Anglo-Canadian militarism.
With the increasing strength of the new regime, Whitaker cut off all links to the British Crown, regarding the United Kingdom as a decadent and ineffective empire. Canada began seeking alliances in Europe, signing a secret deal involving trade and a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in 1938, and entering into an economic and military cooperation with the Empire of Japan. At the start of World War II in Europe in 1939, Canada severed all previous relations with Britain and adopted neutrality policies while secretly supplying the Axis with oil, wood, and minerals.
Canada officially became aligned with the Axis in 1941 with the invasion of the Soviet Union and Japanese advances in Asia.
The Canadian fascist military rapidly mobilized along the United States border, creating an immediate national security crisis that forced Washington to split its military forces between several fronts, instead of focusing entirely on the war in Europe and Asia. This, together with Japanese bases in British Colombia and Yukon, forced the US to maintain a high number of forces in the continental US, Alaska and Hawaii.
