So this is my hypothetical scenario for you Bay12ers. Try to give interesting cases and reasons
We're going to make a few assumptions here.
1. It's a "quiet apocalypse" where all non-regionals vanish without a trace for no explained reason. No harmful supernatural or natural consequences remain from this event. All buildings and geography remain.
2. "Home region": use your better judgement. If you live in Russia, don't just say "Russia" because it's huge. Same with Canada, Brazil, the US, any large country... keep the areas pretty small. A rule of thumb: bigger than country, smaller than country (although most European countries could probably get away with it).
3. Assume that all buildings inside your region remain intact, and so do all the books, vehicles, knowledge, etc... it's just like any other day, except today everyone else is gone.
So, here's the case for Alberta, the best province:
For:- Oil Abundance: The vast amount of petroleum products being mined and refined in-province means that the generators will keep going and our current wasteful system of energy can continue, keeping civilization pretty much where it is.
- Tons of Farmland: The place is covered with prairie and farmland. With the aforementioned gas, our farms would manage the food situation pretty effectively.
- Two Major Learning Centers and Loads More Schools: With lots of trade schools and two major universities, we'd have plenty of knowledge recorded for the future.
Against:- Right-Wing Nutters: Almost everyone favours the Conservatives. We have lots of hicks with guns, possibly ready to form rifle-toting gangs, although most people seem pretty nice.
- Two Equally Large Cities: Edmonton and Calgary are almost equal in population. When it becomes apparent that outside society has collapsed, we'll either continue to work together OR become warring city-states. Option 2, unfortunately, seems likely. It is unknown where Red Deer stands on this issue, although it would probably become a war-torn wasteland. Meanwhile, fleeing peasants would probably re-populate the especially fertile valleys of BC, forming mountain keeps when appropriate. The teachings of classical civilization will remain written down, unless military action by one city ends up destroying the libraries. However, the rusting refineries and dams will possibly remind us of higher tech-levels.
Verdict:We're lucky enough to have vast areas of farmland and mostly self-sufficient fuel and engineering, so society would probably remain fairly stable in the decade immediately after the Event. However, the sudden cutoff of international trade would probably cause panic - but the airports would allow us to colonize outlying areas easily. Unfortunately, we are totally unsustainable and if things don't change we'd end up in our own Dark Ages. If things go wrong, we have two equally matched parties at war, and a general mindset of "I don't need to help anyone" for those living in remote areas, leading to terrible things. And the climate is cold, making tech-slippage have large consequences for those without any wood-burning heating systems. However, we'd do okay in the long run, if we keep our aviation knowledge (since the largest boat in Alberta can seat almost thirty drunken frat boys at once and could only get to an ocean if we melted it down and made tractors out of it). Potash, should we ever need it, can be easily stolen from the rusting cities of Saskatchewan along with even more flat land, and in the long run we could reclaim the Great Lakes and the general cultural area of Toronto, Montreal and New York before we sail/fly over to Europe and Asia to re-found the cities.
Remember: there are no human international survivors of any kind!
