Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Kitchener, where I go to get the BMW serviced,, could reasonably change back to Berlin now. That would reflect cultural heritage of the place.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Somehow University of Berlin-Waterloo doesn't sound right.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

But that is exactly what happened. Names of places home to thousands of years of human occupation, and complex, sophisticated civilizations and cultures were just erased and written over with new colonial names without consent. The people didn't disappear. Their culture didn't disappear. They are still here. It's a mindset that needs to be changed. The cultures in BC are thousands of years old, up to 10,000 years old in places. These place names existed for literally thousands of years. They still exist and are in use. BC is just a temporary blip on the map. It can certainly be written over just as disgracefully as the colonizers who wrote over the Indigenous place names.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Perhaps they could rename it. Then ancestors of others could ask for them to be replaced on the basis that their ancestors had been subjected to having the the shit out of them with sticks while they had to run a gauntlet, or seeing how long the visitor could last while keeping away from the fire we have lit after fixing their innards to a tree.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

but BC is now a thing. It is a province of Canada and needs a name, and no name for the province existed previous. If you were arguing for renaming cities and towns there is a case to make but not for the province itself.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

They're going to call it Mountain Equipment Co-op. :lol: The cities and towns that have Indian names have had them since they were founded, in most cases, and reserves have in many cases either replaced the English names of their land and bands or added their language to them. Ontario and Manitoba and Saskatchewan all have good traditional names, and the rest of you are just stuck with the ones you've got; too late to change them.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/earth-scienc...rritories/9224

https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/earth-scienc...-capitals/9188
:D

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

This subject is something I remember some people talking about in the late 1980's when I first visited BC on vacation. A popular suggestion then was "Pacifica". Obviously nothing came about it then and I doubt if anything will happen in the forseeable future.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Didn't the Pacifica idea involve some sort of union with the nearby States? I thought it was a move to acknowledge that the people in fkaBC have more in common with those in California than those in Alberta and the parts of Canada east of Alberta.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

It's not too far off. Coastal BC is a lot like coastal WA and down to San Francisco but then as you get into So. California less in common with the PNW and BC.

So. California and No. California are different enough where people have proposed California splitting into 2 or more states.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

I think I'll toss a small grenade into the thread.
Perhaps we should engage in a much more entertaining (at least from the viewpoint english speakers among us) discussion about the much needed renaming of Quebec.
Since no self respecting member of the quebecois would countenance any name not in french so I'll nominate a first suggestion as "Wolfe-terre"
Not very original I'll admit, but it's been a warm day.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Just make any name change easy to pronounce and spell. Is it kwubec or kwaybec?

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

My children went to school in Canada and they hated the history class "there's no history in Canada so every year we have to do General Wolfe again". "Why don't you get 100% every time then?" I wondered. I should ask one of them if she knows now who Wolfe was.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

My history classes in high school varied by grade in California.

9th grade was world history but really it was history of Europe from around 1300's to 1700's.

10th grade was Mexican-American history, the history of Mexico-US through the years from Mexico's independence to the 1990's.

11th grade was Spanish-American history & California history pre-US statehood combined.

12th grade was US History which was just really the revolutionary war, civil war and WW2.

Guess there is far too much history to possibly cover everything in high school, so they stuck with the basics. We did however learn 0 about Canada, but then in So. California, Canada really shares no history, and of no historical relevance to the region, so they stick with Mexico and Spainish-American history since that is the history of the area.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

The Dixie Chicks have decided to drop the racism and keep the sexism. No one should be vulnerable because of their race. Or their sex. How many women are killed by men? Mmiwg.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Is Mmiwg a proposed name for the Province FKA BC? Sounds indigenous, has historical connections, that could work.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Umm.. Mmiwg = Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls ...

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

That was what I meant by "historical connections", it reflects life in Canada over the past decades and it has the kind of faux native sound that would be wanted from a new name.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

....and yet nobody has insisted that the Stanley Cup or the Grey Cup get renamed immediately.

Both named after front-line racists....

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Start a petition.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Isn't that because the audience for those games is old white men? I don't think the Grey Cup is ever mentioned in Ontario. Ice hockey is sometimes and it's represented on television by aging racists, race baiting (baiting Scandinavians!) is an acceptable part of the commentary. If baseball or basketball had a cup named for a racist then I think people would have noticed but ice hockey, American football in Canada and, for that matter wrestling, draw niche audiences who aren't tuned in to the idea that racism is problematic..

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

I'd honestly stick with British Columbia. I am also in general against all these name changes. One can find racism and sexism everywhere if one wants to. One tends to forget that there is a history behind everything, even though history wasn't always nice. Charles Lindbergh was also an ardent Nazi, and his statues aren't disappearing, nor is the plane "Spirit of Saint Louis" in some US museum......

Regarding BC, any other name, however this should include some reference to the Pacific Ocean, maybe "Pacific Canada" or "Pacific Columbia"....

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Columbia was part of the objection, since Columbus was effectively lost at sea before he was rescued by Caribbean natives and then started abusing them (he never actually set foot on America), so that won't help. I don't mind British Columbia at all, although the longer I hang around here the less appealing the name British becomes :sarcasm:. It's too diverse for any one new descriptive name. Maybe we should wait another hundred or two hundred years, and if humans have survived, we can talk about it again.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

I didn't know whether it would be "British" in reference to colonialism, or "Columbia" in reference to Christopher Columbus.

In the end, it's all history. One can find a racist everywhere. But again, it's history, and that's it. I am also against changing names and bringing down statues. History is not what was right or wrong back then, it's documentary.

Outside the Houses of Parliament there is a statue of Oliver Cromwell on a horse. Everyone into history knows he brought hardship and injustice to the Irish, but again, it's history. History doesn't change just because one brings down statues or changes names.

I hope that BC will be BC for a long time.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

A compromise might be to change the name to BC. Just BC. The colonial oppressors are disenfranchised and everyone still knows where it is.

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

How about Phoca vitulina :lol:

Re: Should BC consider a name change?
 

Hi

'Land of the bud' province ?

i was told once

name changes are good they wipe out history

cheers
J