This is the output I would like
<select name="province"><option value="">All</option>
<option value="Prince Edward Island">Prince
Edward Island</option>
<option value="New Brunswick">New Brunswick</
provinces = ["", "Prince Edward Island", "New Brunswick", "Nova
Scotia", ...]
province_collection = provinces.collect{|province| [province,
province]}
province_options = options_for_select(province_collection)
<%= select_tag :province, province_options %>
The first three lines could/should be in the controller (in which case
province_options would need to be an instance variable
@province_options). I've broken them down just for the sake of
clarity; you could easily enough chain things together. The first
line just creates an array of strings of province names and the second
line creates a new array that will look like this [['', ''], ['PEI',
'PEI'], ...] options_for_select (third line) takes that array and
converts it into a string of option tags that is suitable for use with
your select_tag.