Talk:British Columbia

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  1. Archive 1

Contents

[edit] SHIFTING FORTUNES

aight, I guess it's time we actually work on the shifting fortunes part about how the NDP came along and destoryed us, damn socialists, aight I guess that's POV besides I cannot write anything about the NDP without going on a huge rant. TotallyTempo 20:35, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, well the same is true for those of us who would write about the Socreds or the Campbell psuedo-Liberals....which is IMO one reason we've all shied away from writing too-recent history; too easily POV, y'see, and not an easy one to de-blinker oneself of either.Skookum1 00:58, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Oh, I'll do it. I hate them all, and in BC you can't get much more NPOV than that. Fishhead64 01:58, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Francais

Is there any reason the French name for BC is listed in the first paragraph? I've nothing against French, or official bilingualism, but it seems odd for English language Wikipedia. I notice some (but not all) of the other provinces have this as well, but I see no logical reason for it.Bobanny 21:26, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

It's because of the pan-Canadianist pretense that because BC is a province of Canada, it should have a bilingual name (why this is done for the Latin "Nova Scotia" into French, when we don't say "New Scotland" in English, is another matter); I agree with you and I think once-upon-a-time removed the French, but I guess it's back. There's a certain lexical irony/injustice in the French translation, too, because the "Columbia" part of the name comes from the river (via the fur district named after it), not the country (i.e. Columbia as the poetic name for the US, with nothing to do with Colombia except the shared namesake); the river got its name not from the poetic name of the US, but from Capt. Gray's ship The Columbia, which was the first to enter and sail up the river (so 'tis claimed); and the ship was named for the US, by way of its poetic name. Confusing, huh? Yeah, but the upshot is that in French the name of the river is la fleuve Columbia, but they insist that BC's name in French should be la colombie-brittanique i.e. from la colombie, which is the name for the South American country. This is not just bad history of course, it's downright incorrect; We are expected to use accents on Montreal and Quebec when writing English; they can't even be bothered to get our name, and its history, right. "They" includes me, by the way, as I'm 1/4 Franco-canadien and, for someone born in BC, speak it pretty well (from my own initiative, not from family background). Anyway, in a historical/lexical sense the French name SHOULD be la columbia-britannique; the clincher would be in any historical French-language HBC or NWC documents referring to the Columbia Fur District in French, i.e. as to which form they used; not that anybody in l'office de la langue francaise or the academie francaise gives a ****. My two bits, and what-for.Skookum1 01:06, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I took out the French name simply because this is not French Wikipedia. French is an official language of Canada, and that is reflected on the Canada page. It is not an official language of BC, however, and there are hundreds of languages spoken in this province. Listing them all on an language-specific encyclopedia would be cumbersome and ridiculous, even though many other languages arguably deserve inclusion more than Canada's other official language. Also, the French name is included in the infobox, and doesn't need to be repeated in the main text. Moreover, it adds nothing to the article, IMHO. Bobanny 22:48, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
But why is it in the Infobox? The field there says "Alternate Name", which in our case is typically "B.C." and otherwise is Dogwood Province (officially) or Pacific Province (informally). I saw the bit about Canada's official language in someone else's edit, but French is not current in British Columbia (there is no "official" language in BC as such, though English is obviously the language of most government and business). I agree with the bit about giving fair rep to other languages, first of all, were there one, to a First Nations name, but even certainly Gum Shan or whatever it is that BC is called in Chinese (Gum Shan historically meant North America, with a focus on California), likewise other languages long before French. If they'd gotten the translation right (la columbia brittanique instead of la colombie britannique) I wouldn't mind so much ;-). But this is English language Wikipedia, so it's the Alternate Name(s) in English that matter, not those from other languages.Skookum1 23:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the name of the province in the french version of the Canadian constitution is "la Colombie-Britannique". The federal constitution is equally authoritative in english and french, so it is proper to consider that the province has an official english and french name. It is also correct that there is no "official" language provincially, although in some instances english is mandated (i.e. in civil court proceedings). That all said, there is no harm or foul in listing the french-language name of the province in the article, especially as it is a correct legal name for the province. Agent 86 00:06, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

There may be a legal and constitutional basis for including French, but it's still a relatively arbitrary inclusion. I believe a more powerful argument could be made for including First Nations names, or a Chinese translation for that matter, and that would be a cultural argument, not legal or constitutional, but equally legitimate and, in this case I believe, would better reflect the reality of the province. In that case, it opens up including many names. The bottom line for me is still that this is an English language encyclopedia. It's also an encyclopedia that strives to be multilingual, but by having many different language versions, not by trying to pack in many languages into all the articles. And if the name of the province is translated into French, why wouldn't the same logic be applied to the Nanaimo bar or other BC articles? Bobanny 00:30, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Nothing arbitrary at all. The legal, constitutional name of the province is both the english and the french versions. If one's legal name on their birth certificate is "Pierre" or "Raoul", you wouldn't rename that person "Pete" or "Ralph" on their wikipedia article because their names aren't english. The logic does not extend to Nanaimo bar because Nanaimo bars don't have any sort of "legal" or constitutional name. Agent 86 00:53, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
All the words in the constitution are French - unless you're reading the English version, in which case the name la Colombie-Britannique doesn't appear. If Pierre was commonly known as Peter, then his article would use Peter, according to Wikipedia's naming conventions. In this case, it's not a matter of renaming anything, since British Columbia is the original constitutional and legal name of the province. Bobanny 02:39, 15 December 2006 (UTC) The legal and constitutional argument also can only go so far since a large portion of the province is still unceded Native territory. Maybe the constitution doesn't mention that the constitution itself is on legally presumptuous grounds in this matter, but the courts have. On a strictly legal basis, the grounds for including French as the only other translation of the name is arbitrary. Bobanny 02:53, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Rather than endless reversions, could we please settle the matter on the talk page? Personally, I don't know why anyone cares particularly whether the name of the province is also provided in French. The logic of its inclusion is obvious to me, however:
  • Canada has two official languages, French and English.
  • British Columbia is a province of Canada.
  • Therefore, British Columbia has both an English and French name.
For those who argue that French should be confined to French Wikipedia, I would draw your attention, for instance, to Germany or any other nation page, which provides the name of the country both in its official language and in English. Again, Canada has two official languages.
Moreover, I would draw your attention to the other provinces, such as Nova Scotia. Again, as constiuent parts of the whole that is Canada, both Canadian languages are used in naming the province. Fishhead64 23:47, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
I changed several other provinces the same time as BC, but the only reversions were here and Nfld. No one from Nova Scotia has added french back in (although it does mention that it's a Latin name). People, myself included, seem to have very clear-cut opinions about which they prefer on this, and I seriously doubt that a consensus is attainable in this case. Personally, I'm not interested enough in this issue to expend much more energy on it. One last point though is that "other articles do it such and such a way" isn't considered a good enough argument on Wikipedia, and it's clear there is no consensus in this particular case. Newfoundland has French and Irish Gaelic, so that example doesn't support the "2 official language" argument, and Germany is monolingual, so that example doesn't support the 2 official language argument either. How Germans say the name of their country is relevant info, whereas how BCers say the name of their province is, usually, in English, less usually in certain other other languages, and very rarely, in French. Bobanny 02:53, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I can't really understand why it would be an issue to include the French name. As mentioned above, Canada is a bilingual country, and by including the translation we help to demonstrate this. It doesn't detract from the article in any way, takes up very little space, and helps to make it just a little bit more distinct. (Keep in mind that "English language Wikipedia" doesn't mean that every single word has to be in English...) --Ckatzchatspy 06:07, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
The two language aspect isn't the point - the official language aspect is the point, and it is one you haven't tried to repudiate. The fact that most British Columbians are Anglophone is immaterial. Less than one percent of Belgians speak German, yet that page includes the name of the country in German, which is an official language. So your argument from common use within a jurisdiction doesn't hold. British Columbia only exists as a part of the Canadian federation, and is a creature of that federation. As a political entity, it is a constiuent of the whole, and French-speaking Canadians - who are citizens as much of BC as any other province - refer to that entity as Colombie-britannique. Fishhead64 06:19, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I found this link in the Quebec article - it's a list of geographic locations that the federal government requires to be presented in both official languages on maps. BC is on the list. --Ckatzchatspy 06:23, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I've never argued that French isn't an official language in Canada or that BC is not part of Canada. But just because something's official, doesn't mean it's important. That French is an official language is about as significant about BC as those pictures of the Queen they have in government buildings - it's not distinct, it's a generic Canadianism that has meaning in other places in Canada, but not here. It's meaningful in places where language is an issue, like Quebec or New Brunswick where it involves real people who speak these languages, but in BC it's trivia, and even here it's purely an academic argument. Just because it's official doesn't make it any less trivial or any more worthy of inclusion in the first sentence, which is possibly the spot that should be the most trivia-free free place in any article. That list of map names, btw, is for federal maps; Wikipedia is not a federal encyclopedia, nor a map, nor is it an encyclopedia about the government or a catalogue of government decrees. The government also says we should vote for them, and not cheat on our taxes or smoke pot, other instances where officialdom isn't always bang-on in defining the reality of BC. By the logic you're using, we shouldn't include anything about this place before BC joined confederation, or perhaps before it became a colony, because it didn't yet exist somehow. (And provinces aren't creatures of the federal government, and one of them is even aggressively anti-bilingual, officially). Bobanny 08:29, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kyle Washington and the Washington Group? and other thoughts

As you can see by the redlinks there's no article for KW yet; the second should perhaps be The Washington Group as I think the Washington Marine Group is a subsidiary (they're into more things than just marine industry now, can't remember what it was that was recently announced though - I don't follow the business pages in the rags); I found this out while writing about the cross-border culture/economy/society/history of the Pacific Northwest on Talk:Pacific Northwest and was a bit surprised, given the large role he's had in BC in recent years. He's not a British Columbian, though he does live here part-time, so he shouldn't be on the List of British Columbians, but he is one of the province's most influential and gung-ho business leaders, I think one of the biggest players but I'm not sure. I'm not familiar enough with business data or business bios to know what to write up even as a stub, so I'm posting this here if someone might take an interest in it.Skookum1 23:43, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Aha - there's a Washington Marine Group article, listing his father Dennis Washington as in control; but from what I know Kyle's in charge of operations or he's CEO or whatever (er, that's the same thing isn't it?); but it's Kyle who's got the profile in BC, not his Dad.Skookum1 23:51, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

In the same vein maybe we should have an article maybe on people notable in BC business and other fields who "did their thing here" but were never naturalized. Historically there's others: I'm thinking Mr. Hill from the Northern Pacific as well (who not incidentally was also on the board of the rival CPR; see http://www.dickshovel.com/two2.html); I'm not meaning recreational visitors like Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, who fished at Painter's Lodge regularly for years (that's probably another redlink but could use an article), although Errol Flynn's death in Port Coquitlam would seem to be of note; and Malcolm Lowry's in Maplewood of course. There were certain mining and forest industry people and companies likewise that were cross-border, including one bio I'll write up at some point on Ben E. Smith, an eye-patched NYC stock promoter who hyped the Pioneer Mine somewhat infamously back in the '20s and '30s; and a lot of major mine discoverers and other pioneers were Americans, esp. in the Kootenays. Maybe there's not enough to make the list worthwhile; it's just a thought in the wake of the Kyle Washington thing. John McCaw just occurred to me as well, although he just sold the Canucks, but he did build GM Place (I just checked that page, which is linked off the Vancouver Canucks page, but it's just a stub; is he Craig McCaw's brother or did the writer of the Vancouver Canucks article get things mixed up and created the "John" stub?...some of the list might also be film/TV industry people who work here but remain citizens elsewhere, ditto professional athletes.Skookum1 23:43, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Archive

All discussions before November 2006 have been archived in Talk:British_Columbia/Archive_1. Mkdwtalk 10:37, 21 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] shifting fortunes

Once I get my computer back, (sometime this week) I will tackle shifting fortunes and trun it into an awesome part of this article, hopefully I'll be able to do up to the 2001 election when our fortunes finally turned around. TotallyTempo 19:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry my computer graphics card is stuck in an endless loop which keeps reoccuring unless I use software rendering, dell now says they want the computer back to fix whatever they messed up. TotallyTempo 03:29, 4 December 2006 (UTC)


Aight I'm starting, I got part of an afternoon to kill...TotallyTempo 20:14, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Demographics

I just want to register my disagreement that we have to slavishly conform to Stats Can definitions. "East Indian" is a dated term that the Man should stop using because it only derives its meaning from its relative position to Europe and North America, like Orientalism generally (and it discriminates against Central Indians!). I believe "South Asian" has more currency. "Indo-Canadian" doesn't really work either because it's inconsistent with all the other categories, which don't use the -Canadian, probably because it refers to identity/current residence rather than ethnic origin. That said, I guess we're stuck with Stats Can thinking in lieu of consensus amongst editors on this and I'm too lazy to try and get a consensus. Also note that there isn't even an article East Indian on Wikipedia. Bobanny 18:28, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Whatev if we are using statistics by stats can than we should use the format they use. Besides if I were to say Indian especially in a population survey people would think I was referring to American Indians. It's just a way of distingushing one Indian from another.

Bobanny, I understand your frustration - the terms "East Indian" and "North American Indian" are not the ones I would normally choose! However, I do believe we almost don't have a choice - The most direct reason is the one I referenced when I reverted the changes, and is the same idea that TotallyTempo mentions in his comment above - we have to stay true to the reference if we are going to cite them otherwise verbatim. However there is a second reason - Ethnicity-related discussions can become horribly tainted with POV, and some ugly POVs, too - have a look at the White Canadian talk page, for example. So I really feel that the one safe, NPOV way to discuss ethnicity is to use definitions provided by as neutral an outside source as I think we're going to find - Note, I didn't say correct, I just said "neutral". AshleyMorton 16:08, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pauline Johnson

I've requested a peer review for this article. If you're interested in giving some feedback, click here. Thanks, Bobanny 00:26, 7 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] SHIFTING FORTUNES

ok guys I wrote the shifting frotunes section, keep in mind I am only 1 man, I did try hard to be NPOV and add in all the scandals not just the NDP ones. If you have any comments or critiques please feel free to post on my talk page and of course edit the article....keep in mind I did try to be objective as I could and I realise the article may focus a little too much on politics as opposed to the economy. I threw in something about the declining economy under the NDP, because it was true as for the 70's and 80's economy I had a difficult time finding economic statistics for BC on the internet. I was born in 1987 so I wasn't around to observe how it felt on the ground as it were. In conclusion: please do not kill me, it was a good faith edit. TotallyTempo 23:39, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Don't worry, it's tough to kill people over the internet. It's a start, and I think any POV problems can easily be overcome by further expanding this section, especially if the solidarity movement is covered, since published sources on that movement will invariably be lefty (but not necessarily pro-NDP). Bobanny 00:05, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
I actually thought it was a little POV, and could do with some emendation. Which I'm happy to do. Fishhead64 02:00, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
Oh, it's totally POV. I just wasn't stressing that point because TotallyTempo was pretty clear about not being very ambitious in the NPOV department. But it's POV in an obvious way that shouldn't be too hard for the rest of us robots to identify and take care of, is all.Bobanny 03:28, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
I totally agree in the hate-them-all department; one example of the media revisionism I'm on about below is the way governments/media claimed the people voted for so-and-so's agenda or such-and-so policy, when in reality they voted AGAINST the @#$%$&! dimwits that were getting tossed out; people in BC don't vote for something unless they belong to the extreme right (15-20%) or extreme left (15-20%); it's about voting people out, not voting for policies held by the second-choice that you have to thereby vote in...this is such a nostrum about BC politics that I'm wondering as to how it can be in the article; I know it's citable as a common analysis, but I don't know who or were exactly; stock-in-trade in op-ed writing over the years, though never listened to (by editors or voters).Skookum1 07:38, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Sure that's possible, I do have a POV, I am not a robot afterall, please, have at it. TotallyTempo 03:15, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

How do we know you're not a robot? Prove it! (see Turing test). As per my comments on your talk page, it's inevitable that there be some skew to past events because of the influence of the press, which was "socredish" throughout the modern era (and still is); rehashes and rewrites of past events and their meanings are stock-in-trade in newspaper columns and off-the-cuff editorializing in broadcast news (public or private). I'll flesh in a lot of stuff that's widely documented, and will cite when I can (need a tutorial in using the "cite" template though) but there's a lot of goo that's missing, even in a general history section as for this page, vs what should be much more detailed on History of British Columbia. But again, it's a given that popular knowledge of BC's past is shaped - deliberately - by the media here; latter-day accounts of the why and the wherefore of certain policies and issues and why they failed, why governments were really elected and turfed, and so on, are curiously twisted for those of us who lived through them. The past is reduced to sound bites and some cliches to account for the present, and also to justify the political status quo; much of the actual colour and "dynamic polarities" of the place is actually missing because most journalistic history always rationalizes the two sides; not resolving the dialectic so much as obscuring it, or making it seem like the way things are was all pre-determined, the NDP really are nasty, and the Socreds/Libs are BC's only hope etc; such propaganda has been in vogue since Amor de Cosmos and John Robson and others pumped the rabble-rousing well in the colony's earliest days.Skookum1 07:33, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, you caught me really I'm a run away robot... not really....amour de cosmos basically set the precedent fo BC politics, being mentally insane and all, anyways I think the section is looking good, maybe I'll add something about icbc on monday...thanks a lot for the help so far TotallyTempo 18:43, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, Amor De Cosmos (blows on knuckle, rubs on chest) - that was my baby! - lol Fishhead64 23:19, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bennett and VanderZalm section (!)

Don't know how I missed what's in there at present, unless it's part of edits since the last time I looked; the Solidarity Crisis was in 1983 and associated with the Bennett II government, not with the Zalm. I was going to add/rewrite bits of this section later today or tomorrow (trying to be NPOV, but still filling in the blanks on "things unsaid" in the version here, which is largely a pastiche of what you'd get if you interviewed a PacPress/CanWest drone about the past; lots of important stuff from the Bennett years; account of why Barrett government fell is largely that put forward by the Socredish rewriters of our history; boiling Miniwac down to the Coquihalla and Expo '86 is definitely part of the man's political CV, but the general air of fiasco and scandal which hung over his government is given a free ride here (as in the retrospectives on his career by PacPress columnists, who try to paint him as an "elder statesman" now); throughout Socred II years all the emergent troubles were blamed on three years of NDP rule in the distant past (that I wish I had time to dig out all the cites on because it's citable) as if the Premier's own father hadn't engaged in (as mentioned before), keeping two sets of books; it was Miniwac's policies which generated the term "voodoo economics", later applied to restraint-era programs of the Reagan and Thatcher governments....all this is one reason I've avoided taking too much part in this section; too easy to get POV....Skookum1 20:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Further to previous discussions, I'm also eyeing the existing sections here with certain date shifts; Shifting Fortunes should begin in 1972, as there's a case to be made that the WAC Bennett era is its own period, with the War and immediate post-War ('til '52) very different; as also with earlier discussions I think with Bobanny that the proper periods are more like, (those two can be combined, though),,,/52, 1945/52-1972, and so on; harder to cut up the 20th Century as the slashes indicate but certain eras are very clear, e.g., as well as WAC's years). More on this later.Skookum1 21:14, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi Skookum! Appreciate all the work, but one small caution - lets not get TOO detailed. Not only do we want to avoid falling into the grievous sin of recentism, but we don't want the section to get too unweildy. I suggest we leave the detail to History of British Columbia. Fishhead64 21:22, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
fishhead is right, though we will try to get a good grasp including everything in BC's political history would be a LONG article, maybe we should wirte an article called "Political Scandals of British Columbia" that would be a hoot. TotallyTempo 22:51, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
There's a List of Canadian political scandals (I think that's its name, so that may be a redlink if I'm wrong) but BC is a "special case". Deal is sometimes you have to decide what's a scandal and what's not; some of the murder investigations gone awry don't constitute political scandals but have political import/impact (I'll leave stuff like Rattenbury and Brother XII out of the discussion...for now). But suffice to say that the first acts of the colonial administration were all scandalous, and I don't mean in a moral sense; even Douglas' declaration of the Mainland Colony without authority to do so is technically a scandal; likewise in protocol terms the ugly treatment he gave Blanshard....). There's others too where things intersect; the Doman scandal and the Coquihalla overruns both tie into a buy-up of land in the Nicola Country by the Premier's brother; or they don't tie into it but are often seen as having been a handy smokescreen for it; the real scandal in the Bonner Affair (as that article should be titled; might link direct to Robert Bonner) was not Bonner's take on a little grease, although he certainly was the fall-boy; the real scandal is tha the forest companies got to keep the timber berths and licenses they'd bribed him for...; and so it goes back through the Pattullo and McBride years and into the hairy pre-party period up to 1903. Even with violations/variations of Lieutenant-Governor protocols/powers here there could be a big list...I was reading Rayner's book on BC scandals in the library during one of the recent power outages; never liked him when he was a columnist in the Sun but his book covers a lot of ground...L-G's have done a lot of weird stuff here, or been asked to. Rayner has a good account of the spicy stuff like Jim Nielsen's shiner earned in the fight with his ex-wife's lover, and how he showed up in the House with it next day. Peccadilloes of Willie Woodenshoes almost constitute a whole article, i.e. as a subarticle of his main one, from the golden shovel to the French-on-cereal boxes stuff through to his gladhanding the First Nations elders at Seton Portage one day and sending the Mounties in to club them the next...is that a scandal, or is that just politics as usual? This encyclopedia will also not be complete until an account from the party in the Bayshore is given, w. hopefully voiceclips of both Zalm and Faye Leung....03:40, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree we've got to figure out what should go where. How bc history is organized and allotted in these articles should make it more apparent what belongs where and make it easier to represent both right and left poles. I suggest 2-4 paragraphs (depending on size) in this article for history, but also try to work in a historical perspective in other sections. Perhaps the "history of BC" article could be a more detailed general history and "Politics in BC" could cover explicitly the political history of the province, which wouldn't be all that different a history of BC scandals. Bobanny 23:08, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
In truth, I've been wary of making any additions or changes to any of these sections because of their already considerable length. I'm wondering if they're longer than the History of BC page (?), and how much of them should be migrated/merged over there; I'm not sure that politics and history can be separated, other than writing the politics about our distinct political culture (without getting O.R.). There's things I'd like to add here, or things that need emendation, but given my prolix nature I've been holding off plunging in, mindful that this is a general article and not a BC one in specific; the '50s and '60s section in particular needs a lot more beef relative to what's already in the other sections. I'll be thinking about content here in the next few days and may expound upon the different-eras thing I've been on about,, the Great War and the Great Depression, WWII and the Coalition; the Bennett years; the NDP and Bennett II years to VdZ, then how it's been since Harcourt and the re-emergence of the Liberals; early history should be Pre-Contact and Imperial Rivalry, followed by Fur Trade Era (the marine fur trade is part of the imperial rivalry section; Fur Trade here means the NWC/HBC era to 1858), the Colonial and Pre-Railway period (really one period, not two). It's obviously important that content here should be reflected on/coordinated with the main BC History page, and with any other relevant subpages; is there some kind of template or section stub that can call for such coordination as a reminder to any future edits/ors? Anyway, I'll save my ramblings and sets of issues for over here, and if someone else can un-tangentify some of the content into the article where it's useful or needed maybe that's a way to go; I don't want to double the length of all the sections here, which as you all know I could easily do. Or triple ;-) Skookum1 03:18, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I didn't mean that we should (or could) separate history and politics, but the opposite. What I imagine is this article be structured to be more balanced between standard themes (Economy, history, infrastructure, demographics, politics, etc, or whatever the appropriate themes would be) and that they would ideally end up being roughly equal. The history section would be more general than it is shaping up to be (and is starting to dominate the page), with some of the historical content incorporated into other sections. "Infrastructure," for example, would include a fair bit of history in explaining the infrastructure, from trains to WAC Bennett's legacy, up into maybe the current Olympic-building and related follies. The idea here is that history is used to improve the other sections, rather than trying to cram in everthing imporatant that happened before Expo (or whatever the cut-off date is where history supposedly stops and the present begins). The History of British Columbia article would be the more in depth chronological treatment, and periodized accordingly. That would be much more detailed than here, but still would be general in that it would cover not only politics, but also immigration/demographics, cultural stuff, economic development, and of course trains and Doukhobors. The Politics of British Columbia article, which I just looked at for the first time, would essentially be another history article devoted to government history, including all the scandals, freaky politicians, and the like. I don't believe the "politics in BC" material that isn't historical needs much space to do the job (i.e., all the boring but obligatory, "BC has X number of federal political ridings, so many MLA's" and that kind of thing), and that article is just a stub now anyway so it's pretty open to be whatever editors think it should be. Anyway, I'd be happy to step back from the initial output and help out by editing other people's stuff, including trimming down your long entries, Skookum. Discussion and debate that comes out of that process should give us an idea of what new articles need to be created. Personally, I find it easier to either write material or edit material than try and do both at once, since it's a different mental process. And, like TotallyTempo, I'm looking at this as a way to learn more about BC history, and it seems you're the most qualified to try and lay down the general outline. Bobanny 06:03, 19 December 2006 (UTC) Oh yeah, I'm gonna stick a list of history books on BC and Vancouver that I own on my user page that I can use to do fact-checking for editors who don't happen to be at the library, or live in Onterrible, and can't find something reliable online or in what they've got. I've accumulated much more than I've read, and imagine I'll end up selling many of them when the chips are down, so it'd be nice to make more use of these books while I still have them.Bobanny 06:03, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I think on this page, given your comments (in the first part of your post), that the best thing for each period would be a summary of each period; hard to pick which major specifics in each era even so; the periods I've mentioned are the generally-recognized ones, or emulating them anyway; I'll see what I can come up with that's fairly condensed to start with :=) and pucntuates the why and wherefore without tripping over the details; so many interesting details that it's going to be tough. I'm the same, too - editing is different than writing, even though there's a curious combination of the two when you're trying to maintain previous vocabulary/wording while correcting or shifting the meaning (as with a recent edit to James Douglas (governor) earlier tonight). I think here it's about given an "illuminating" view on each era, with enough links to the respective articles (bios, scandals, megaprojects, towns, ridings whatever) that will have all the details; in the case of the riding articles they have full electoral histories (mostly done by me...) and room for profiles on issues and voting/population history in the riding. Likewise all the town and event articles are where details should be (of course) so the trick is giving a colourful and representative picture here that leads you on to want to read more in other articles. As Bobanny noted the History section now dominates the general-page article; it doesn't have to. US city pages are all fairly bland and with good reason; too much competing detail; I've only looked around a few, such as San Francisco and Seattle, to look over their structure and style of content. I get quite often frustrated with the brevity and "shallow history" in many US geographic articles; (or often outright wrong when it came to earlier versions of things like Oregon Country). Their political bios are excellent however, and I have yet to step up to bat and give the British/HBC diplomatic views/perspective on the Oregon boundary dispute in as much detail as they've come forward with on Polk and Jackson and so on. But even in the Oregon and Alaska Wikiprojects there's not a lot of good coordination; the California wikiproject often seems to get cited as a guideline. But it's like reading USA Today; all headlines and no news. More later.Skookum1 07:52, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scandals

So basically we have so many scandals we cannot possibly document them all, I went to the univeristy library, it only had 2 books on British Columbian history, one of which was written in 1925. We get the shaft over here, anyways, I'll look at that article the canadian political scandals. Furthermore if you can belive it I'm taking a break from watching a movie...if that's even possible. Just so y'all know I'm not gonna be on much till back in January cause I'm going to BC. I would really enjoy learning more about British Columbia's awesome history though, ontario ain't got nothing on us. TotallyTempo 04:48, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List/map of historical regions

Possibly a map would be better, and more for the geography and history pages than here; occurred to me because of the need for separate Boundary Country, Omineca Country, Chilcotin District, Lillooet Country, North Coast etc articles which aren't reflected in RD and other govenrmental organization. Going to be some overlap and some degree of hierarchy; what got me thinking about it was what the terms Southern Interior, Central Interior, Northern Interior, North-central Interior and so on; and also spun off a read through the history section about where New Caledonia was, at various times, what the difference between the Columbia District and the Oregon Country was, and where the unboundaried appellations like New Georgia and New Hanover were; I'm planning another map for the lengedary countries of the mythical Northwest Passage - Anian, Bergi, Cibola, which are shown north of or in Cibola's case inland from Nova Albion. Anyway, just notice that a map of BC's historical - not as defined by legislation (though very early ridings and land districts reflect the landscape to a great degree, though on a macro scale) but by how people talked about different places; the "Country" or "District" thing in most cases is interchangeable; I gave it to Boundary Country but might prefer Omineca District for that one, even though Omineca Country is also used; Lillooet Country means something slighly different from Lillooet District, and there are other such examples. There's also things like the way the Similkameen is now considered part of the Okanagan, likewise the Boundary as part of the Kootenay, while the Tulameen is part of the Similkameen, the Coldwater country part of the Nicola Country, and so on. I've got a good PD map of the original Land Districts, as they were in 1896 anyway, btw; if there's an article there now I'll add it.Skookum1 03:45, 21 December 2006 (UTC) PS what prompted this also is that there's no Slocan article yet, which I noticed a few pages before launching this post; there's probably other cases of important name-localities not having articles yet.Skookum1 03:48, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I think this is an excellent idea. I've been hunting for a map of the Land Districts online for some time to no avail; one would think with their vague ongoing legal relevance it would be made available by the government, but no dice. Also worth tackling would be the regions (at one point termed "counties," I think) associated with the court system that I get the sense have fallen somewhat into disuse. Oh, and given the preponderance of hard-and-fast boundaries associated with the term "District," I'd recommend sticking to more vague terms like "country" for the collectively-understood but legally-undefined areas. The Tom 19:26, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] BCers?

19 years living in the province, and I've never once heard of it as a synonym for "British Columbians." Anyone? The Tom 19:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

over a decade here, and I have heard it, but very infrequently, probably because it doesn't roll off the tongue very smoothly with that double vowel sound in the middle, so it doesn't accomplish much as a short form of British Columbians. I think I've seen it in print too, and maybe it has more currency in print than verbal culture because it takes up less space. Bobanny 20:28, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
I've certainly heard it enough times that it doesn't seem odd that it's being used. I certainly agree with Bobanny that it does sound clunky, which is why I've never been too fond of the term. Agent 86 22:51, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough. I guess the followup question is whether an infrequently-used term deserves billing in the lead paragraph, when that might give the impression it's commonplace. The Tom 01:09, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
It seems logical in relation to other articles to have the standard "people from...are known as...," but yeah, it's not that common, and with British Columbian already there, I'd say it's unnecessary, but don't feel strongly about it. Bobanny 01:46, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
I think it is frequent enough to warrant inclusion, but bracketed to indicate it is an alternative to the more popular "British Columbian." Fishhead64 01:47, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Fishhead may outrank me seniority-wise (? - I'm 51), i.e. no. of years in BC, but it's common enough that it's got to be mentioned; there's no other genitive form of "BC" to use either (BCite? BCian?) and whenever a contracted form is used, that's it. "Are you from BC" or "is he from here" is more common than "are you a BCer?', "is he a BCer?", but neither of the latter is unheard, either. I have heard "BCer" used on broacast news, though more likely Global than CBC (when the transplants from the mysterious east aren't mangling local placenames, as in rhyming Sooke with "book" in the windstorm converage). It's worse in French btw; colombiens-brittanniquois (or more accurately, etymologically but not in practice, colombiens-brettonais as "britain" and "breton" are actually the same word in Celtic roots; not that the French care); in practice AFAIK CAnadian French uses simply "les colombiens" and drops the brittanique part in that context...and if it's a francophone BCer they're talking about they'll say franco-colombien. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Skookum1 (talk • contribs) 20:09, 23 December 2006 (UTC).
...or, in English, "French Columbian" :) Fishhead64 23:35, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Sometimes they'll just say colombien, especially as an adjective but also in shorthand speech; think I've even heard it in broadcast French, maybe here in BC only. I asked once why it wasn't colombard and the reply was it would have had to do with a place la colombe ("the dove" or Colomb, the French version of Columbus; it's because colombien is derived from the "country" name rather than from the name that you get the -ien ending instead of -ard (which sounds cooler IMO); but the root of the country name, as mentioned before, is the Latin/poetic name for America, "Columbia"; but it's the river (le Columbia) that the colony/province is/was named for, not the US, even under its poetic name (and the "poetic" sense of Columbia meant the continent itself, not the nation-state). All very confusing but "things get lost in translation" as well as in generational memory, as the meaning/origin of British columbia is obscure even to people educated in BC. Words get around: the same etymology gives us Cologne/Këln, Columbus, colony, colon and more; can't remember what "Columbus" is in French; Spanish of course it's Colón, and Spanish has colonia, now meaning a suburb but from the Greek original meaning; Colombo (it.) and Columbo (Port.). There was a while when there was some sophomoric campaign to "de-colonialize" the name and rebrand us "Canadian Columbia" (retch); eradicating history to satisfy the vanity of the present. But it's a common vice nowadays, in any language/culture.Skookum1 04:46, 24 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] cutting the history

ok don't be alarmed I'm not planning on totally getting rid of the history or anything (after I was the guy that started this historical domination of the page to begin with) I'm thinking about how to karate chop this section and simply copy paste it onto the history of British Columbia page. I'm just trying to figure out how to shorten it. TotallyTempo 07:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I was going to propose doing this, too, pending streamlining of what's in the History of British Columbia article, but I've been busy in an AFD and its associated troubles these last few days...;-0 ; what I mean by streamlining is having a look at it, making sure a good range of stuff is covered and "making it flow" (which I'm good at doing to others' writings, despite the ponderousness of my own). Then switching the content of the History article with the History section of the BC article, as the latter is getting "nice and juicy" and still has room to grow (I've still got stuff to add to the Coalition years, and other eras, that shouldn't be left out...). Also, articles such as Demographics of Vancouver and so on we should make sure conform to the same facts without unduly mirroring or aping content; it's easy for all subject matter -economics, population, transportation, more - to be submerged within "history" and while there's necessarily repetition of certain facts and themes I think we have to watch out that the history section of each article does stay on its principal focus; transportation, population, whatever...so that all do not become squished together and basically repetitive; you should learn something more on the subpages, not less, and what you already read on the main page, if you see it again on the subpage, should have more detail etc. There are other pages in various topics I could point to where several articles are actually redundant, but titled differently and laid out differently enough that while they all talk about the same thing there would be resistance to any merge proposal.Skookum1 09:57, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The "Big One" in the next week?

According to CBC.ca, the "Big One" may strike in the next week. Apparently, the cause could be a major slippage in the subduction zone, where the Juan de Fuca plate meets the North American Plate, that will result in a quake similar to the quake that occurred off the coast of Sumatra on Dec 26, 2004.

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/02/02/bc-quake.html

WoodenFeet 00:41, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand how this is relevant to the article, but since I live in Richmond, I think I'll be spending some time on the mainland next week ;) Fishhead64 00:58, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I could not find a suitable article to bring this news up, so I figured that this article would be the next best thing. Perhaps you (or anyone else) point me in the right direction? WoodenFeet 01:34, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. Wait if/until it happens. Fishhead64 01:42, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Try the news section at Portal:Vancouver. News media and encyclopedias are not the same thing, though there are spaces for news on WP. Better yet would be WikiNews. Bobanny 02:34, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I heard that too, I'm prayin for you guys out there. If it is it's buhbye richmond —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TotallyTempo (talk • contribs).

Hey guys by the way on a flight from ottawa to BC I actually set next to a geologist who worked for the Canadian Geological survey. He said that this particular story was way overblown. He said basically we cannot predict earthquakes at all, and what we do know we know from historical records. The range for the lower mainland is a big one every 300-700 years, the last one was sometime in the 1700's, so we're jjust coming into the window of opportunity now. He also said that the only reason it seemed more likely now was that there were a larger number of smaller earthquakes in recent weeks. Basically he approximated that the chances increased from 1 in a thousand to 1 in 900 or something along those lines. I don't think any of this should be included in the article, I'm just passing it along for y'all. cheers. TotallyTempo 07:46, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Government versus regime

Instead of reverting back and forth between government and regime, how's about duking it out here?

Under the Campbell regime the economy of British Columbia has revived substantially, aided significantly by improvements in global resource markets.

Regime, in this context is nothing more than a synonym. There's no inherent negative connotation with the word itself. When I talk about my fitness regime, it doesn't mean I'm some sort of fascist. The sentence in question is favourable to Campbell, so any negative association readers might have would surely be neutralized anyway. On the other side of the coin, "regime" doesn't mean anything different here than government, and the two are interchangeable. Bobanny 21:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Given that the word "regime" does tend to have a negative connotation, I think it deserves some explaining why "regime" is a better or more fitting word than "government". If one is simply a synonym of the other, I would give deference to the word that has little or no baggage in comparison. Explaining that we're simply replacing a word with its synonym doesn't seem like a strong enough reason for the change. pbryan 23:03, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree that the two words are synoymous and I suspect most people wouldn't attach any negative connotation to the use of the word in this context. However, I think Pbryan is right. Given that to some readers, "regime" is a perjorative and that "government", not only in the context of the sentence but also in the context of the article, does have a specific meaning, I'd say choose the word that is less of a red flag. Agent 86 23:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
I really don't have a preference, but where does 'regime' have a negative connotation? It's the qualifier that has the connotation, as in "totalitarian regime." Even in the recently touted phrase, "regime change" in reference to Iraq, the implication is that it's changing a bad one for a good one. In the phrase "the Campbell regime," Campbell is qualifying regime, not the other way around. Also, in what world does "government" not have an equally negative connotation? The POV argument seems a red herring in this case, same as if someone objected to referring to Campbell as a "politician," which definitely has a negative connotation. It seems to me that the argument for "regime" is that it was there first. Bobanny 23:47, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I withdraw any objection to the use of the term "regime". As was pointed out, regime was the word originally used in the article, and is actually a more accurate term in its context. I have now purged the pejorative connotations of the word I had developed in my vocabulary. Too much CNN? ;) pbryan 00:11, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
well, that was very gracious, a rare thing on these talk pages. In all fairness, regime is used more often in political realist discourse than anywhere else, which is generally skimpy on moral considerations. Bobanny 08:40, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Self-referencing for a moment, here's what Wikipedia says about "regime":

"A regime (occasionally spelled "régime", particularly in older texts) is the set of rules, both formal (for example, a Constitution) and informal (Common law, cultural or social norms, etc.) that regulate the operation of government and its interactions with the economy and society. For instance, the United States has one of the oldest regimes still active in the world, dating to the ratification of the Constitution in the 1780s. The term need not imply anything about the particular government to which it relates, and most political scientists use it as a neutral term."

I'd had reservations about using the term, and can still see the possibility of a negative connotation. However, given what has been covered here, I'm now inclined to think it's OK. ---Ckatzchatspy 08:48, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
As the original editor that wrote that sentence, I'm in Carleton University and a political science major. The reason I used regime was because I tend to read it a lot in the textbooks I am assigned to read. I figured it sounded more professional than the campbell government. Personally I have nothing against Campbell, and would vote for him if I still lived in BC. I didn't mean it in a negative sense, simply a way of clarifying the Campbells regime was different from Dosanjh's regime.
"Government" is the Canadian norm, IMO, and "Campbell government" means "Campbell's government". We do use "regime", granted, but not quite in the same way, nor is it a contitutional-convention term like "government" is (as in government-of-the-day).Skookum1 23:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Official language

Official language: English - from the table

I'm all for not having French put there, over all the other languages that "de facto" might be properly there (name one, any one), but I'm uncertain as to whether BC has an OFFICIAL language. I know it's the official language of the Legislature, but I don't think there's been any legislation actually making it the official language of the province. This was debated in colonial times, when both Scots Gaelic and Chinook Jargon were put forward as secondary official languages in the colonial assembly, but that was never gone forward with. But, again, I'm pretty sure there's no OFFICIAL language legislation, not at the provincial level anyway; other than House rules, which are perhaps citable via the Office of the Speaker?Skookum1 23:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC) OfficialLang =

I'm going to look into this, because I had to field this question hundreds of times in the course of my last job for the prov gov't, and there was a citation we used in the answer that English is the official language. I'll get back...--Keefer4 02:40, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps I should specify that I meant it was the official language of provincial government services, which wouldn't obviously trump the fed legislation for those areas of jurisdiction (but I think that's obvious)--Keefer4 02:52, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Error in naming

In the caption for the picture of the last spike being driven into the CPR there is an error. The caption says Lord Strathcona while it was actually Sir Donald Smith.

I changed it back because a) "Sir Donald Smith" is a redlink, and b) Sir Donald Smith was Lord Strathcona. Bobanny 16:20, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
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