Scottish Canadians anxiously awaiting Scotland's independence vote

Barring some new outrage in the Middle East or renewed fighting in Ukraine, the eyes of much of the world will be on Scotland on Thursday, as its citizens vote on whether to break away from the United Kingdom.

Almost everyone who’s eligible to vote, including newly-enfranchised 16-year-olds, has registered to cast a ballot on a simple question: “Should Scotland be an independent country?”

Those watching around the world include millions of expatriates and others who trace their roots to Scotland, descendants of people who did much of the heavy lifting to build the British Empire. Around five million Canadians are thought to have a connection to Scotland — almost as many as live in the country itself.

So what do they think of this historic vote, especially now that polls suggest the Yes side (which favours splitting) has a chance of winning?

“There’s a lot of discussion these days about the issue as the vote comes closer,” Leith Davis, director of Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Scottish Studies, told Yahoo Canada News.

“Suddenly it’s galvanized attention and people can really anticipate either side being successful with the vote. I think it’s making the conversations even more earnest.”

The debate among Scottish Canadians has ramped up in the last couple of weeks as the campaign goes down to the wire with no clear leader.

“I know there are families that are deeply split and either side can’t see the other’s perspective,” said Davis, who gave a talk Monday evening on the issue and held a mock vote. “I haven’t heard of people being disinherited yet or violence taking place.”

A lot of Canadians cling to ties to the “old country,” either because of family connections or simple nostalgia, and few cling more tightly than the Scots. That’s become easier than it has been in the past, thanks to social media and Skype.

“There’s a lot more connection now than there used to be in the old days when people emigrated and sent letters back every so often,” Davis said. “I think people are feeling very involved. It seems to me the debates here are really following closely what is being said in Scotland.”

[ Related: Now I get it: Scottish independence vote ]

That pretty much describes Don MacLachlan, a retired Vancouver newspaper executive who has lived in Canada since he was a child. But his parents ensured his spiritual ties to Scotland remained strong.

“You grew up in a Scottish household, where stories of the highland MacLachlans were told and retold, honoured and respected,” said MacLachlan, who would love to return to live in Scotland, where friends say he seems to walk taller. “Certainly I do feel some kind of connection with Scotland, particularly the highlands.”

Perhaps it’s that connection to the highlands – home to the last holdouts to the 1707 Act of Union that may be dissolved Thursday – that leans him towards the Yes camp.

“Like many Canadians, this is a matter of heartstrings and emotion,” MacLachlan said.

But he also believes Scotland has been “economically screwed” by Britain, which he said now is scaremongering about the potential economic damage of a Yes vote.

“I still manage to get offended at the British government’s attempts to interfere with the independence vote,” he said.

Contrast that with Martin Cowgill, a Scottish-born executive with Yahoo Canada who has only lived in Canada for three years.

He’d vote No if could, but he can’t. The ballot is limited to residents living in Scotland, except for government employees or military members on foreign postings. Cowgill and other expats – including those living elsewhere in the UK – are angry at being excluded from what he called “the most important decision in Scottish history for at least over 300 years.

“We’re completely removed from the process and there is a sense of frustration and upset at that.”

Cowgill, who worked in London and the U.S. before coming to Canada, thinks an independent Scotland would be great in principle. But proponents haven’t explained the practicalities of how the country would evolve in the decades ahead, he said.

“Unfortunately, and I know it might sound cynical, but I think too many people have seen Braveheart too many times,” he said. “They like the notion of having an independent Scotland but they don’t really understand the consequences attached to becoming a separate nation.”

[ Related: Quebec sovereigntists look to Scotland for independence hope ]

Canadians will find the dichotomy familiar, having gone on the same emotional roller-coaster ride in two referendums on Quebec sovereignty, fraught with the same mix of romance and reality, grievance and reconciliation.

The difference, said Davis, is that unlike Quebec, Scotland was an independent country before becoming part of Great Britain in 1707.

“That sense of independence gets re-animated so people have very much to draw on this idea of independent Scotland, a nation that existed in the times of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce,” she said.

Jo Ann Tuskin, secretary of the Clans And Scottish Societies Of Canada, returned from a trip to Scotland in July and said she’s not emotionally invested in the outcome of the vote but would prefer to see Scots stay in the union.

“It would be a shame that it happened,” she said from suburban Toronto, but if they opt to leave she’d opt for harsh terms.

“Having been through a divorce, you sort of go ‘if you want out, bye, but you can’t take anything with you. There’s a prenup,’“ she said.

But her Scottish-born friend Christine Woodock favours independence.

“Personally I would like to see the Yes campaign win,” Woodcock, director of Genealogy Tours of Scotland, said via email. “I think Scotland will do well on it’s own, just as Canada, Australia and New Zealand have.

“I come from a very large family — still resident in Scotland. Some are excited as I am about the possibility of change. Others are terrified of what a Yes vote might bring … It hasn’t split the family but there are clearly two very different camps.”

However the vote turns out, Woodcock said, people need to recognize its historic nature.

“Regardless of what side you stand on, take a moment and recognize the importance of being a witness to history in the making,” she said.