Difference between revisions of "Potato Island"

Revision as of 00:45, 23 July 2005

The Province of Potato Island is the smallest province of the Community of Sober Thought in both population and area. It was named after the shape of the island and its major crop, and remains by far the most rural but not enitrely parochial of the provinces.

Geography

Physical geography

The Province of Potato Island consists of a single eponymous island entirely surrounded by the ocean. The island, of course, is shaped roughly like a potato. Such soil as there is on this little rock outcropping was carried by ocean currents from rivers on the nearby mainland.

Economic geography

Poor soil means that the island cannot raise much hardwood, and such softwood as exists is rather slow-growing. However, its marginal soil is very productively used for agriculture by raising potatoes. Other primary industries include fishing and fowling.

There is little secondary industry on Potato Island, but much tertiary or services industry. In addition to supporting a dizzying array of governments for such a small island, Islanders welcome tourists from the mainland to see its reddish-brown beaches, wildlife and to whale watch.

Population geography

Potato Island contains just 0.4% of the population of Sober Thought. Its population is relatively stable, so its fraction of the whole shrinks with each demographic expansion.

The largest town and the provincial capital is Princetown, containing roughly ten percent of the provincial inhabitants. The rest of the island is more or less evenly settled in low density rural settings with the occasional service village.

Government

Despite its small size, Potato Island operates several levels of government. While not immediately adhering to Sober Thought, the limited obligations the federation demanded and the exclusive jurisdiction over its primary cash crop conviced Potato Island to join shortly after the Community was founded. Many of its arcane political institutions are remainders from its pre-federation history.

Federal representatives

The entirety of Potato Island serves as a single electoral district for the federal House of the Federation. Parties may each nominate two candidates, and the two who receive the most votes become MFs.

The island is represented by only one member in the federal House of the Provinces, usually by the provincial premier but sometimes by a person delegated by the former.

Provincial government

The provincial legislature is bicameral: Princetown and the three counties are represented in the Upper House by their mayor and wardens and one deputy each. The Lower House is elected in sixty single-member districts of roughly equal size, and it chooses from among its members the provincial premier.

All legislation must pass in both houses to be effective, and it exercises its join and exclusive responsibilies.

Property taxes are low because the economy relies on agricultural staples (which, by definition, have a low profit margin) and tourism (which is subject to wild fluctuations). In short, parapublic voluntary associations take on many of the burdens provincial governments shoulder elsewhere in the country.

Municipal government

Municipal politicians are elected every four years on a staggered schedule: town and village councillors in the first and fifth years, and county and township councillors in the second and sixth years.

Princetown and a couple of dozen villages are charted municipalities, with rights and obligations in the federal constitution. Princetonians elect their town mayor and six councillors at large, and then six more councillors to represent municipal wards. The villages always elect the mayor at large and one councillor per ward, usually for a total village council of six to ten members.

The remainder of the island is covered by townships organized into three counties, which exercise municipal powers but do not have the right to territorial integrity guaranteed by the federal constitution. Counties are responsible for delivering municipal services to the townships, and may delegate services to the townships. County wardens are elected at large and townships reeves double as county councillors. Township reeves are elected at large and their councillors for individual township sections (usually four).

Shared jurisdictions

Education

Potato Island is responsible for providing primary and secondary education in the province, which it does by maintaining two secondary schools (grades 10-12) in each of the three counties and Princetown. There is an intermediate school (grades 7-9) in each of the villages, as well as six in Princetown. There are about a hundred primary schools scattered throughout the province in rural and urban areas.

Options for tertiary education at the provincially operated Island College are limited to two-year programs in agriculture, tourism, general sciences and general arts. The first two are applied programs which result in a diploma, while the other two are designed to provide the first half of a university degree to be completed elsewhere.

Entry to Island College is limited to students who graduated from a Potato Island school and promise to remain on the island for four years (excluding degree completion elsewhere, if applicable). Full and partial scholarships are offered to the top ten percent of students, excluding those who choose to accept federal scholarships and travel out of province.

There are a small number of trades apprenticeships and professional courses available as well by the trade unions and professional associations.

Transportation

Potato Island has a rail-road bridge link to the mainland paid for by the federal government, while it is responsible for maintaining a network of rural roads.

Rail service connects most of the villages with each other and Princetown, although mainly for agricultural transporation rather than public transit.

Princetown has a medium-sized airport and minor seaport, with occasional air and sea service to several mainland cities.

Defence

The token contribution to the Community Defence Forces is commanded by a lieutenant colonel. Small groups of infanteers, engineers, medical staff, communicators and other soldiers train parttime and are used as provincial auxillaries. In the entire history of Sober Thought, the CDF has never requested a unit from Potato Island and given its size, it is unlikely to do so.

Residents of the province are more likely to join the regular soldiers in the CDF because of limited job prospects, however they are scattered throughout the armed forces and not concentrated in any particular area.

Exclusive jurisdictions

Police and civil law

The Potato Island Guards serve as the provincial police. While armed, they rely even more than their counterparts across the country on mediation and proactive intervention to keep the peace in a largely rural and neighbourly setting.

Civil law too tends towards informality, with only four civil courts (one each in Princetown and the three counties) with full-time judges. Most villages and some townships maintain part-time justices of the peace with only basic legal training to adjudicate small civil matters, mainly revolving around farming.

Health

Potato Island cannot afford to support an expensive health ministry, but fortunately its hardworking people are mostly manual labourers so they suffer far fewer sedentary diseases than their mainland counterparts. Farming accidents, though, are the major source of trauma or emergency cases.

Princetown Hospital is the only full-service health care facility on the island. Out-patient medical clincs are established in a few of the other villages, while an agricultural benevolent association operates a network of inexpensive public health intiatives for its members.

Natural resources

Besides farming and fishing, there are few natural resources to regulate. Most of these are handled by self-governing associations for farming and fisheries, and the industries operate largely on the basis of small-holder cooperatives.