Difference between revisions of "Braunekuste"

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The Province of Braunekuste is a charter province of the Community of Sober Thought. Although it bears a Germanic name, its population is mainly English and French speaking.

Geography

Physical geography

Although it is located on the mainland, it shares many geological features with its offshore provincial neighbours on Bristle and Potato Islands. It is surrounded on two sides by the ocean. In fact, the exposed low-grade iron ore deposits -- combined with the salt water of the sea -- combined to form the brown coast after which the province was named.

River valleys and treed plains supplement its well-worn mountains. The soil outside the valleys is conducive only to marginal farming and livestock grazing. The moderately rugged terrain dominated by many small rivers is attractive to tourists but makes highways expensive to build.

Economic geography

Water and water-related products dominated the early economy of Braunekuste. Ships were required to connect the mainland with the offshore Bristle and Potato Islands, and the hardwood timber provided the materials.

Riparian navigation provided the first transportation routes to the interior, and small boats provided the vessels for those routes. Even as fur trapping, specialty crop farming and other primary industries grew in importance, they were made feasible by the access provided by the rivers.

Pulp and paper mills, wooden building and carpentry industries were the only secondary industry that really developed in Braunekuste. Ill-advised attempts at specialty automobile manufacturing collapsed due to technical problems and the withdrawal of tariffs against higher quality and lower priced foreign automotive imports.

After a long period of absolute and relative decline in the region, the province seized upon its bilingual human capital to increase its hold on call centres and other tele-services.

Population geography

Braunekuste contains 2.9% of the population of Sober Thought. Its population is approximately one third French-speaking, concentrated in the east and north, and two thirds English-speaking.

Unlike nearly all other provinces, Braunekuste does not have a single metropolis. Instead, there are three cities each with about 0.5% of the national population: Grandville, the de jure political capital located in the English section is inland up river but is officially bilingual; Moineville, the de facto French cultural capital and officially bilingual, is inland near the border with Hochelaga; and Johnstown, the de facto English commercial capital which is unilingual.

Government

Federal representatives

Braunekusteans or Braunekustiens have seven single-member electoral districts for which they elect members to federal House of the Federation. Two additional MHFs are elected at large to represent preferences poorly reflected in the district elections. Normally, three MHFs are French and six are English, but there is no federal or provincial requirement that this be so.

The province is represented by two members in the federal House of the Provinces, usually by the provincial premier and the federal relations minister. It is customary, but not legally obligatory, for the two MHPs to be from different linguistic communities.

Provincial government

The province is officially bilingual in English and French, and each municipality may designate itself English-speaking or French-speaking. Grandville, Moineville and several border counties are officially bilingual.

Its Provincial Assembly or Assemblée provinciale divides into two linguistic sections only when matters of education, language or culture are being decided. Otherwise, the sixty deputies or deputés are seated together and vote together.

The three chartered cities or villes and twelve unchartered counties or comtés each elect four members at large to the assembly. Explicitly language-based parties are banned by the provincial constitution.

Property taxes are within national norms, and since much of the business of the province is actually conducted over the telephone, business taxes are low as well.

Municipal government

The three chartered cities each elect a mayor or maire and 12 councillors or conseilleurs for four-year terms. Each of the fifteen counties also holds a federal charter and has the same rights and obligations as an urban counterpart. They elect one county prefect and 6-18 county councillors each.

Some settlements within chartered counties are big enough to warrant town charters, but provincial political culture and county practice have precluded formal secessions. Instead, some uncontroversial municipal powers are delegated to committees of local county councillors who chose one of their members to act as sub-prefect for the unchartered settlements.

Shared jurisdictions

Education

As a cultural-linguistic matter, primary, intermediate and secondary education is administered by separate English and French sections of the education ministry. There are two or three public secondary schools in each chartered city and county, and an appropriate number of intermediate and primary schools as well.

Tertiary education is administered bilingually by a third section of the education ministry. The only government supported university and its associated professional schools is the bilingual University of Braunekuste or Université du Braunekuste. There are campuses in each of the cities with faculties as follows: Grandville, social sciences, health sciences; Moineville, humanities, law; and Johnstown, business, sciences.

There are an unknown number of religious schools operating without government approval. In addition, there are two private universities: Université catholique braunekuste (religious, in Moineville) and University of Johnstown (secular).

Transportation

Federally-funded ferry service links Braunekuste with southern Bristle Island and a federally-funded multipurpose bridge links it with Potato Island. The province also has excellent federally funded rail and road connections with mainland Hochelaga.

Each of the three chartered cities has an airport, but Grandville’s is the busiest. Johnstown is a minor seaport and naval base.

Defence

The province maintains a force of parttime citizen soldiers in the Civil Guard, commanded by a colonel. In keeping with the bilingual nature of the province, each unit officially operates in both languages and hence the infantry battalion is called Braunekuste Fusiliers, the armoured battalion the Braunekuste Husars and the logistics battalion the Braunekuste administration. There are also a battalion equivalent of minor units of medical, engineering, communications and other personnel.

Exclusive jurisdictions

Police and civil law

The Braunekuste Gendarmerie or Gendarmerie braunekustienne is the bilingual provincial police force. The Bee Gees or Jé Bés, as they are affectionately known, are rather unremarkably organized with large detachments in the cities, moderate detachments in sub-prefectures, small detachments elsewhere, and mobile detachments active patrolling the highways and railways.

Civil law presents in form like Gallic legal codes but in function more closely resembles Anglo-American codes.