Should BC consider a name change?
 

Seems like an interesting topic some might like to debate about if.

Is it time to change the name of Canada’s westernmost province to something other than British Columbia?

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

It is horrendously outdated and colonial. I’d be on board with something new. Getting people to accept change is difficult though.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

To what though, something stoner obviously. MunchieLand? TooChillledToLikeCare? Just THC?

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Change is always hard for people.

As for what to change it to, well that is anyone's guess, but first step is to just open the discussion and go from there.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Just changing the name, or removing a statue or art work, doesn't really do anything except provide immediate satisfaction. The reason for the change or the removal is hidden from view, and the history of that person or thing will be lost, when it should be remembered so that it never ever happens again..

IMHO, it would be far far better to leave the object up, but add a panel or two about the abhorrent past and why it happened.

Same for BC ..............

we all know, or should, why it was called British Columbia, so which part would you change, and why?

It is far more likely that a discussion that will happen faster is whether BC should leave Canada and join Washington State, Oregon and Northern California as a new unit called Cascadia, with possibly Idaho and/or Southern California added.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

I had no idea where the origins of the name came from, history of British Columbia wasn't taught in So. California, really very little was taught about Canada or the UK in general, most of history classes were about US history with a significant amount of time spent on history of Spanish and Mexico-US history, and Spanish-US history and such, but makes sense only so much time and too much history, and British history really isn't relevant in So. California, nor is Canadian history for that matter.

This is apparently where the name originated form according to the Canadian Government.

"The southern part of the area now known as British Columbia was called “Columbia”, after the Columbia River. The central region was given the name of “New Caledonia” by explorer Simon Fraser. To avoid confusion with Colombia in South America and the island of New Caledonia in the Pacific Ocean, Queen Victoria named the area British Columbia when it became a colony in 1858."

https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-he...lumbia.html#a1

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

No. It’s a good name. Everybody knows where it is. So we were nasty racist colonizers...yeah :thumbsup: Oh...and the French (oh yes...nasty racist colonizers, oh...and then we have the Dutch, Germans, Portuguese...and anybody else that thought they might have a chance to subjugate someone. It’s called history. I’m not suggesting it’s something to be proud of...but can’t we just move on? We can’t rewrite history but we don’t have to keep repeating it. Ruwanda, Kosovo and two world wars and countless other fiascos didn’t seem to teach us anything. We aren’t exactly covering ourselves in glory on migration anywhere are we...a quick glance at Turkey, Greece and Calais? Should we start apologizing immediately...or do we need to wait for a hundred years. The human race is pretty crap overall, but isn’t it better that parts of it is starting to try to be better.

Can’t we just reach towards new behaviours instead of this constant hand wringing for past sins?

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Make it Canadian Columbia !

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

It started off with Radishes and Gooseberries in the east, and eventually swallowed up so much land Washington and Oregon were involved, largely because of those nice felt hats. The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading into Hudson's Bay are responsible for much of why and how the colonizers came, so they make a good scapegoat. It's hard not to think of the Bay.
Hudson's Bay Company = HBC = Here Before Christ.
Bennet's Country (no longer applicable)
Bring Cash
British California
there must be tons more.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Change always costs money, in this case a great deal.
This gravy train will be driven by parasites who'll expect to profit from this needless campaign.
And.. like so many gravy trains it produces nothing, generates no wealth; it's simply a mechanism to get rich and muddy political waters.
And.. guess who'll be paying for it?
And.. guess who'll be shovelling cash out of your bank account into their's and/or manipulating political unrest?
And.. ask yourselves, who's driving this train and if they're politicians then vote them out?

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

From past comments on BE something involving Lululemon, rain, yoga, hipster...

From recent news, maybe throw in something to do with guessing blood alcohol levels. :sneaky:

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

I'd assume if BC were to change their name, it would likely be something to reflect Native peoples and their historical use of the land, that seems to be the direction being suggested.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Once again Millie I totally agree with you. It is history, in the past, warts and all but many want to whitewash the past as if it never happened. Personally, if my street, town, city, etc had its name changed it would be interesting to see who would pay for all the name changes..street signs, road signs, city documents, business cards etc. Crazy hand wringing.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Absolutely.
I live in a small town called Aldergrove.
I've never liked trees but do like DIY, so I really really wish I could rename it as 36ft-ladder-town.
Any takers?

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

It’s British Columbia opposed to America Columbia it’s named after the river. How does changing the name make the actual place any better? Would t it be better to spend the money doing something that would actually make a difference?

https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-he...-columbia.html

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

I agree!

Everyone is trying to re-write the past.

We shouldn't re-write it so that it disappears. That doesn't correct anything that happened then. It happened because that was the way people thought back then.

What we need to do is acknowledge the past, acknowledge that the thinking was wrong but that good things might (and probably were) done after that time.

Then we need to ensure that the past is not repeated in the now.


As to who pays for the removal of the statues, the renaming of streets, towns, provinces .............. who do you think???

Not the people who are now demanding it.

All the people who pay city/property taxes and provincial and federal taxes will pay for it. They will skyrocket.


There was some re-naming of streets in country areas where we had our cabin, from the English to add the Indigenous name.

If it was on the tribal property, then they paid for it. If it was not, there was an added little bit on the property tax that we had to pay.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

I tried rewriting it but I still don't have a villa in the South of France overlooking the sea. :lol:

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

The sign said Breakfast Served At All Times, so I said I'd like a mushroom omelette during the Renaissance.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

bummer...me too - you me, next summer - sounds like a plan ;)

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

History of B.C. didn't begin when the first Europeans arrived. What was it originally called. Perhaps \Kwakwakaʼwakw

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

That’s more Vancouver lol and let’s face it: ‘There is more to British Columbia den dis’ (true AP style there)

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Ah, I may have lived more poorly than the rest of y'all because my ex-wife has one of those.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Will she host a BE coming out party?

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

She's gay positive, or gay indifferent anyway, so I imagine so. I'm going to have some trouble doing that though.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

it could be argued that the history of BC did begin with Europeans as the whole concept of a province under a confederated federal government is a European construct for government. The land existed prior of course but would not have had a single name since the First Nations would not of seen it as a single territory.
Renaming the province in a First Nations language or based on culture is going to depend on which of the many first peoples you want to give the right to name the whole province too. Perhaps the Tlingit or the Coast Salish or Nuu chah nult or Kwakiutl. Oh wait but that’s only those on the coast, maybe Sylix in the Okanagan or the Kutenai in the east, but their territory also extends into Alberta, so we better get Jason Kenney to agree to redraw the border. There is also the issue over which of the first nations you want to prioritize, maybe the Squamish or the Nk’MIP? All of which have distinct culturally identities and languages. Oh yea also the issue of setting an arbitrary date on which you want to apply it, since different people arrived at different times in history, is 10,000 bc ok or would you prefer 1090.

I find that those wanting to rewrite history often don’t even know the history they are trying to change. They just know the don’t like it. Human history evolves, it isnt black or white (excuse the term)but many shades of grey and trying to rewrite it makes no meaningful change other than making people feel better about themselves.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

I couldn't find a direct Alan BC reference so this will have to do.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

By coming out I actually meant coming out of lockdown :lol:

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Most of this makes sense, a new name would be no more historically relevant than the old name but "making people feel better about themselves" is a good enough reason for me. It doesn't matter what a place is called so if a popular vote chose "Black Lives Matter Province" or even "Trumpland", fair enough. Popular votes don't work though, in the UK that gave us Boaty McBoatFace and, in Canada, it gave us Bob, neither of which were worthy enough for the governments of the day so we got RRS Something Worthy But Tedious and Nunavut.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

i generally agree but I don’t think helping the majority (white people) feel better about themselves (aka Were not racist we changed the name of the province) is meaningful.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Oh, no, it's not meaningful. Perhaps if there was an old name to go back to, but in this case a new name would be invented to seem old. It's tacky but no more so than having pink flamingoes on the lawn and we all do that.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

In response to the original question - no, what's wrong with "British Columbia"?

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

How many white people don't even know what the native name of their own town means, even when it's been in use by colonists for centuries? I had to look Toronto and Ottawa up, even though I probably learned it in school. Most names that I know were used by the inhabitants to describe water features, since those were constant and so the whole country is dotted with them. Ditto the names of many American states and cities. If it wasn't for an endless loop of historical vignettes on television many wouldn't know that Canada comes from Kanata (the village or community). In some cases using a different name doesn't come too hard, for example we're used to calling the Queen Charlotte Islands Haida Gwaii now, but it took an international ecological campaign over the forests and a movement to protect the remains of the settlements and totems on the islands before it happened. I think maybe 20 or 30 years ago there was something in the news about a woman whose family was the last one from the settlement where downtown Vancouver stands. She tried to sue for a reserve for her band, even though they'd been pushed out and assimilated into other bands or lost to the city before she was even born. It didn't work but did draw attention to it, and Chief Dan George helped with that. Iirc he said something about how it wasn't that long ago his people were hunting deer in Stanley Park, and he was right, it wasn't that long ago. Maybe they could re-name Stanley Park, but I think British Columbia as a province name is there to stay.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Found it:

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Food for thought

Though today the majority of Canadians are white, the land that is now “Canada” was first occupied for thousands of years by the aboriginal peoples of North America. These people had lived on the northern half of the North American continent ever since homo sapiens first arrived from Asia, most likely via the Bering Land Bridge,around 21,000 B.C.

https://thecanadaguide.com/history/early-history/

The ancestors of Aboriginal peoples are believed to have migrated from Asia many thousands of years ago.

http://www.canada.com/pdf/discover_canada_eng_37.pdf

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

......... and there are at least 27 First Nations in BC alone, each with their own languages and dialects.

Who chooses which??

Certainly should not be the whites, or even the Blacks, who all came much later. But which of the 27 arrived first?

It's a discussion that could go on literally for centuries, not just years.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

The Tyee article linked in your original post came out after weeks of news showing statues of famous people with connections to slavery, and others of characters with infamous pasts being pulled down following George Floyd's killing.
There was a call to change the name of British Columbia weeks before Floyd's killing, by a native artist named Lawrence Yuxweluptun, as an introduction to his politically-themed show in the Museum of Anthropology at UBC. Artists give a lot of thought to their Artist Statement that viewers are greeted with at the gallery, so the name thing is obviously important to him, but I take this more as a reminder to be aware of the land and it's history (and that much of it is unceded land and still going through the treaty process) than a clarion call to change the name.
https://vancouversun.com/news/staff-...l-yuxweluptun/

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

I think its starting to get way out of hand now,,, why change, apart from being an complete waste if money, where do we draw the line? do we change the name of every British name of a town and city in the world??,,,,personally I think its a ridiculous idea.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

that's a great example, certainly. Another - but switching between allegiance to two colonial powers, rather than showing any deference to first peoples - is Kitchener, ON, which was renamed from Berlin in 1916, so that the (largely German) residents could show their loyalty to the British Empire in the middle of the Great War. Kitchener apparently wasn't even in the running until shortly before the final poll. There had been a plebiscite of sorts to change the name, but to what wasn't decided until later. Losing options on the ballot included Kitchener, Brock, Adanac (Canada spelled backwards), Benton, Corona and Keowana. There was little interest, and a very poor turnout in the voting. 346 people voted for Kitchener

Of course, Kitchener is problematic in itself as a name. Horatio Herbert Kitchener (what a name!) was largely responsible for the rapid expansion of Roberts' use of concentration camps in the Second Boer War. There have been several (so far unsuccessful) attempts to raise the issue and get the town to change its name once again

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Catchy name.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

There's nothing wrong with discussing the potential for name change... but if it's not stamped on pretty quickly it'll grow legs and become a movement.
Once this happens all manner of hangers-on and parasites become involved. There'll be interest groups formed, lobbying for this name or that name and most importantly politicking and fund raising.
In no time at all inertia will increase to the point where there never was a discussion about whether the name should change but only how soon, to what and most importantly 'how can it benefit me personally'.
It's a complete waste of time, effort and resources unless there's a wide groundswell driven need, but these trendy movements tend to be initiated from the top and it's the rest of us that pay for it.