COLUMN: Think Again – British Columbia doesn’t need a new name

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/06/2021 (1425 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Some municipal politicians have too much time on their hands. That’s what I thought when I heard about a resolution proposed by the Village of Pemberton at a recent Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) meeting.

The resolution requests that the provincial government consider changing the name of British Columbia. According to the rationale provided in the resolution’s preamble, the Pemberton Village Council wants a name that better reflects B.C.’s diverse population.

Let’s start with the obvious question: How did B.C. get its name in the first place?

This region came under British control in 1846 and was called “Columbia” after the Columbia River. When it became a British colony in 1858, Queen Victoria changed its name to “British Columbia” to avoid confusion with Columbia in South America. It retained this name in 1870 when British Columbia officially joined Canada as a province.

While the name British Columbia obviously emphasizes the British aspect of its history, this does not, in and of itself, make its name offensive or exclusionary. The reality is that Britain had a huge impact on the development of our country. The opening preamble of the Constitution Act 1867 even states that Canada shall have “a constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom.”

Ironically, the municipal politicians who proposed this name change have overlooked a much more obvious candidate—their own village. That’s because the Village of Pemberton is named after Joseph Despard Pemberton, a former surveyor for the Hudson’s Bay Company and a nineteenth-century B.C. politician. Shortly before retiring in 1868, Pemberton authored a resolution calling for “the admission of British Columbia into the Confederation on fair and equitable terms.”

Pemberton also played a key role in surveying and developing Vancouver Island for settlement. In addition, Pemberton was a member of the landowning elite who supported strict property ownership requirements for politicians. Thus, if the village’s municipal leaders are serious about erasing visible reminders of BC’s colonial past, they should start by renaming their own village.

While the resolution was defeated at the UBCM meeting, it garnered 40 per cent support from all the municipal politicians in attendance. This means that the push to rename British Columbia is no longer relegated to the political fringes. No doubt this proposal will resurface in the future.

However, we need to be careful with name changes, particularly when a name has been widely used and accepted for a long time. People tend to become quite attached to the place they live, and the name of that place usually means something to the people who call it home.

There are also important practical considerations. Changing the name of a province would, among other things, require amending the Canadian constitution, force all residents and businesses in that province to change their mailing addresses, and probably lead to a plethora of other name changes. These are not minor concerns.

To better understand why the Village of Pemberton proposed this name change in the first place, I decided to watch the video of the council meeting where the resolution was voted on. To my surprise, when this resolution came up, no one spoke for it or against it—they simply passed it unanimously.

It’s shocking that any municipal council would propose something as drastic as changing the name of their own province without a single council member offering up at least some kind of rationale for this proposal. Transparent decision-making is an essential aspect of good governance and it was sadly lacking at this meeting.

British Columbia doesn’t need a new name, but I think the Village of Pemberton could use a new council.

 

Michael Zwaagstra is a high school teacher and a Steinbach city councillor. He can be reached at mzwagstra@shaw.ca.