Monarchy in British Columbia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Queen in Right of British Columbia | |
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| Monarchy | |
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| Incumbent: Elizabeth II Queen of Canada |
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| Style: | Her Majesty |
| First monarch: | Victoria |
| Formation: | July 20, 1871 |
The Monarchy in British Columbia is a legal entity formally known as the Crown in Right of British Columbia, which serves as the institution from which the power of the state flows within the province of British Columbia (BC), forming the core of the province's Westminster system of constitutional monarchy. The present Canadian monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, since February 6, 1952, who is known within British Columbia's legal jurisdiction as the Queen in Right of British Columbia. As the monarch does not reside in British Columbia, a vice-regal representative, the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, is appointed to carry out all the monarch's duties in the province.
The Crown in Right of British Columbia was established by an Order-in-Council of Queen Victoria in 1871, though the governments of the previous incarnations of the province, going back to the establishment of the Colony of Vancouver Island in 1849, have been monarchical in nature, and historical links with the Spanish and British Crowns extend back even further, to the late 1700s.
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[edit] Constitutional monarchy in British Columbia
Within the Canadian constitutional monarchy system the headship of state is not a part of either the federal or provincial jurisdictions; the Queen reigns impartially over the country as a whole[citation needed]. However, due to Canada's federal nature, each province in Canada, as with the federal government, derives its authority and sovereignty directly from the one Canadian monarch, meaning there effectively exists within the country eleven legally distinct crowns with one sovereign[citation needed]. Thus, British Columbia has a separate government headed by the Queen; however, as a province, British Columbia is not itself a monarchy.
A lieutenant governor is appointed by the Governor General, on the advice of the Prime Minister of Canada, to serve as the Queen's representative in the province, carrying out all the monarch's constitutional and ceremonial duties of state on her behalf. His Honour The Honourable Steven Point is the current Lieutenant Governor, having served since October 1, 2007.
The viceroy is provided an official residence by the Crown: Government House in Victoria. The building belongs to the Crown; being held in trust for future rulers, and cannot be sold by the monarch. However, members of the Royal Family have owned property in a private capacity: Princess Margaret, sister of Queen Elizabeth II, owned Portland Island, though this was offered on permanent loan to the Crown in Right of British Columbia.
The Crown in Right of British Columbia performs a vast number of functions and duties central to the provincial government, judicial system, and system of honours, as well as owning provincial Crown corporations and Crown Land.
- Further information: Monarchy in the Canadian provinces
[edit] Symbols
Images of St. Edward's, the Tudor, and King's Crown are visible on provincial symbols such as police badges (see the Vancouver Police Department badge), and the Order of British Columbia, the latter illustrating the monarch's place as the ceremonial head of the Canadian honours system. Portraits of the monarch are often found in government buildings, schools, and military installations. The Crown is also included on the Lieutenant Governor's personal flag, or vice-regal standard, visible above the shield of the Arms of Her Majesty in Right of British Columbia, which, in turn, is surrounded by ten gold maple leafs, symbolizing the ten provinces.
Monuments to members of the Royal Family are located across the province, including a statue of Queen Victoria on the grounds of the Parliament Buildings. The foundation stone of this statue was laid by Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, in 1919, when he visited the capital as part of a two-month tour of the country.[1]
Gifts may also be offered to members of the Royal Family from the people of British Columbia: Queen Elizabeth II was given a necklace and earrings made of British Columbia jade, to mark her visit in 1971. As part of her Jubilee Year celebrations, this gift was amongst others on display at Buckingham Palace throughout the summer.[1]
- Further information: National symbols of Canada, Canadian royal symbols, and Flags of the Lieutenant Governors of Canada
[edit] Royal presence
Members of the Royal Family have been visiting British Columbia since before the province joined Confederation, either as a royal tour, a vice-regal tour, or as a "working visit" (meaning in association with a charity or military organization instead of a state affair). Queen Elizabeth II has traveled to British Columbia more than any other member of the Royal Family, touring all parts of the province from Burnaby to Prince Rupert.
[edit] History
In March, 1778, Captain James Cook arrived, with HMS Resolution and Discovery, at Friendly Cove in Nootka Sound and claimed the land surrounding for King George III. Captain George Vancouver reached agreement with Captain Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, who had claimed much of the Pacific coast of North America for the Spanish King, at the Nootka Convention, whereby a treaty was reached in 1793 which allowed the colony of British Columbia, and all lands north of California, to remain as a possession of the British Crown.
Most of the area of British Columbia was explored and settled by agents, first of the North West Company, and later of the Hudson's Bay Company, searching for ever more supplies of fur and materials for other goods. Following the start of the Cariboo Gold Rush, Queen Victoria first dispatched Colonel Richard Clement Moody and the Royal Engineers here to establish sovereignty, build a capital and provide needed infrastructure in 1858.
| “ | Henceforth the wild and unoccupied territory on the North West coast of North America shall be known as British Columbia... with the capital city at New Westminster.[2] | ” |
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— Royal Proclamation of Queen Victoria, 1858 |
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The Duke of Argyll was appointed Governor General in 1878, and he, along with his wife, Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria, traveled widely across the British North American territories. Their extensive visit to British Columbia in 1882 did much to reconcile the province to Confederation.[3]
On July 21, 1871, British Columbia became the seventh province to join Canada, causing the Governor of the United Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia to take on the dual role of representing the sovereignty of the Crown in British Columbia, while also representing the Federal Government in Ottawa. Five years after this date, the Governor General, John Campbell, 9th Duke of Argyll, and his wife, Princess Louise, arrived in the new province and spent three months in Victoria.[4] The Princess proved so popular that when the Governor General announced that the awaited completion of the transcontinental railway would pass through Kicking Horse Pass into what has since become Vancouver, rather than by the Yellowhead Pass to Bute Inlet, then Premier Robert Beaven asked the Duke whether it would be possible for Vancouver Island to become a separate kingdom with Princess Louise as Queen.[5]
This situation remained in place until the passage of the Statute of Westminster in 1931, which effectively ended the ability of the parliament at Westminster to legislate for Canada, and started the process of the legal division of the Crown over the Empire. By the time of the 1939 tour of Canada by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, it was well accepted that the monarchs were present as King and Queen of Canada, and not King and Queen of the United Kingdom; to enforce this, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King accompanied the Royal couple as Minister in Waiting, and not a British minister.[6] Thus, the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia was now seen as a direct representative of the Canadian sovereign within the province.
During that 1939 tour, the King and Queen ventured to British Columbia, where they stopped in Vancouver, Victoria, and a number of other smaller communities in between. The Prime Minister was enthused, stating in his diary on May 29, 1939: "The day in Vancouver was one of the finest of the entire tour," he wrote. The following day in Victoria, he wrote: "Without question, Victoria has left the most pleasing of all impressions. It was a crowning gem...."[7]
In 1903, Lieutenant Governor Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière was the last Lieutenant Governor in Canada to dismiss an incumbent premier from office.[8] This occurred before political parties were a part of British Columbia politics. While the practice is for the Lieutenant Governor to name the leader of the political party that wins the most seats, the royal prerogative of naming a premier has been important in British Columbia history. For example, after the general election in 1952, the new Social Credit Party and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (now the New Democratic Party of British Columbia) each fell short in forming a majority. Despite the CCF holding one fewer seat than the SoCreds, Clarence Wallace, the Lieutenant Governor of the day, was under pressure to call on CCF leader Harold Winch to form the new government.[9] The selection of SoCred leader, W.A.C. Bennett, resulted in the start of a twenty-year dynasty for Bennett.
Queen Elizabeth II made her first appearance in British Columbia during a coast-to-coast tour of Canada in 1951, when she was still Princess Elizabeth. Her last visit to the province was in 2002 for her Golden Jubilee celebrations. It was during this trip that she, along with Wayne Gretzky performed a first: dropping the ceremonial puck at the beginning of an NHL exhibition game between the Vancouver Canucks and the San Jose Sharks, in front of a cheering crowd of over 18,000 people. Premier Gordon Campbell said during the visit to British Columbia: "Your Majesty, much as the world has changed in the last 50 years, one thing has always remained constant – the sincere affection between the people of British Columbia and their Queen." [10]
[edit] First Nations and the Crown
| “ | The Office that I hold represents the Canadian Crown. As we are all aware the Crown has a fiduciary responsibility for the ongoing well being of Canada’s First Citizens.[11] | ” |
The status of the First Nations (aboriginal) people of British Columbia is a long-standing problem that has become a major issue in recent years. With the exception of what are known as the Douglas Treaties, negotiated by Sir James Douglas with the Native people of the Victoria area, no treaties were signed with the Crown in British Columbia; many Native people wished to negotiate treaties, but the province refused until 1990. A major development was the 1997 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in the Delgamuukw v. British Columbia case that aboriginal title still exists in British Columbia. Two-thirds of the bands in British Columbia, represented by the First Nations Summit, are now engaged in trilateral negotiations with the Crown in Right of British Columbia and the Crown in Right of Canada. Only one treaty, the Nisga'a Treaty (1998) has been signed in recent years, and that one outside of the current British Columbia Treaty Process. There is considerable disagreement about treaty negotiations; many non-native British Columbians are vehemently opposed to it, while a substantial minority of native people consider the current treaty process inadequate and have therefore refused to participate.
[edit] Royal connections
British Columbia's monarchical status is illustrated via associations between the Crown and many private organizations within the province, as well as through royal names applied to a plethora of regions, communities, schools, buildings, and monuments, many of which may also have a specific history with a member or members of the Royal Family.
[edit] Communities
The Crown's presence at the most local levels is demonstrated in part by royal and vice-regal namesakes chosen to be incorporated by communities across the province. Communities with royally or vice-regally associated named include:
| Towns/cities named for Canadian sovereigns include: | ||||||||
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| Community | Named for | |||||||
| Victoria | Queen Victoria | |||||||
| Prince Rupert | Prince Rupert of the Rhine | |||||||
| Prince George | ||||||||
[edit] Education
At various levels of education within British Columbia there exist a number of scholarships and academic awards either established by or named for members of the Royal Family. The Queen Elizabeth II Centennial Scholarship was set up by the Government of British Columbia to coincide with the visit of the Queen to the province in 1971, to take part in the province's centennial celebrations. It awards one major scholarship of $60,000 and two minor scholarships of $5,000 to Masters students.[12]
Schools across the province are also named for Canadian sovereigns, royal family members, or either federal or provincial viceroys.
[edit] Landmarks
A number of buildings, monuments and geographic locations are named for Canadian monarchs, members of the Royal Family, or federal or provincial viceroys. As well, there can be found plaques, cornerstones, trees, and statues, documenting the official visits of members of the Royal Family.[1]
The Queen Charlotte Islands were called such after Queen Charlotte, wife of King George III. On the island is the Queen Charlotte Mountain Ranges and Queen Charlotte City.[13] Other islands include James Island, named for the first Governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island, Sir James Douglas[citation needed]. Waterways between the islands also bear royal names, such as Princess Louisa Inlet, named for Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria.[14] Branching off the inlet are Prince of Wales Reach, named after Prince Edward when he was Prince of Wales; and Princess Royal Reach, named either for Victoria, Princess Royal, daughter of Queen Victoria, or for Queen Victoria's mother, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, who was born Mary Louise Victoria.[14] During her 1958 visit, Princess Margaret was presented with the deed to Portland Island, which she offered to the Crown on permanent loan in 1966, after lengthy correspondence between the Lieutenant Governor and Kensington Palace. The island and surrounding waters eventually became Princess Margaret Marine Park.[1]
Numerous mountains in British Columbia bear names with royal associations: Queen Peak, in the province's north, was named for Queen Victoria in 1933, as is Victoria Peak[15] One of the highest summits in the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains is Mount Queen Bess, named for Queen Elizabeth I. In the Vancouver Island Ranges, Mount Albert Edward is named for Prince Albert (later King Edward VII), and Mount George V is named for King George V. Mount King Edward, in the Canadian Rockies near Athabasca Pass, is named for King Edward VII. Around Queen's Reach on Princess Louisa Inlet are five mountains that derive their names from children of Queen Victoria: Mount Victoria, after Victoria, Princess Royal; Mount Albert, after Prince Edward Albert; Mount Alice, after Princess Alice; Mount Arthur, after Prince Arthur; and Mount Helena, after Princess Helena, all part of the Pacific Ranges cmoplex.
Other outdoor spaces are: Consort Park, named for Victoria's consort, Albert;[15] as well as Queen Elizabeth Park, in Vancouver, honouring Queen Elizabeth, the late Queen Mother; and Princess Louisa Marine Provincial Park, associated with the above Princess Louisa Inlet.
The names of streets and highways within the province also have royal foundations, including King Edward Avenue, named for King Edward VII, King of Canada from 1901 to 1910, which runs across midtown Vancouver, beginning at Crown Street and terminating at the Kingsway. Also, King George VI Highway (commonly known as King George Highway), in Surrey, is named after King George VI.
King George Station, near the intersection of King George Highway and 100th Avenue, is named after the above mentioned highway. Other buildings of royal note are the Royal Jubilee Hospital, a teaching hospital in Victoria; the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver; and King Edward Station, which is proposed to be opened in 2009. Also, University of Northern British Columbia was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1994.[16] Similarly, Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught laid the cornerstone for the new Provincial Library at the Legislature. During her 1958 visit, Princess Margaret opened the new floating bridge in Kelowna; two plaques mark the ceremony.
One mansion in British Columbia nearly became a royal palace: In 1940 Hatley Castle, near Victoria, and built by former Lieutenant Governor of BC, James Dunsmuir, was purchased as a residence for King George VI and his family,[17] intended as the place the King would live out the duration of the War. These plans fell through, however, and the Royal Roads Military College, originally established as a replacement for the Royal Canadian Naval College, which had been closed in Halifax in 1921, moved in. It later became the combined Royal Canadian Navy and Royal Canadian Air Force College in 1946, but was closed in 1996 due to cuts to the Department of National Defence's budget. It is now Royal Roads University.
[edit] Royal designation, charter and patronage
Organizations in British Columbia may be founded by a Royal Charter, receive a "royal" prefix, and/or be honoured with the patronage of a member of the Royal Family.
- Further information: Monarchy in the Canadian provinces: Royal designation, charter and patronage
[edit] See also
- Monarchy
- Federation
- The Canadian Crown and First Nations, Inuit and Métis
- Debate on the monarchy in Canada
- Symbols of British Columbia
[edit] External links
- Office of the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia
- Speech by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Vancouver, October 7, 2002
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d British Columbia Archives: The Legacy
- ^ The Royal Westminster Regiment: In the beginning
- ^ Canadian Heritage: 2005 Royal Visit: The Royal Presence in Canada - A Historical Overview
- ^ Ormsby, Margaret A.; British Columbia: A History; Macmillan; Vancouver, 1958; p. 287
- ^ Ormsby; p. 289
- ^ Library and Archives Canada: The Royal Tour of 1939
- ^ Library and Archives Canada; Behind the Diary: The Royal Tour of 1939
- ^ Francis, Daniel (ed.); The Encyclopedia of British Columbia; Harbour Publishing
- ^ Mitchell, David J.; W.A.C.: Bennett and the rise of British Columbia (ISBN 0-88894-395-4)
- ^ CBC News: Queen drops puck, raises cheer in arena; October 7, 2002
- ^ Speech by Lieutenant Governor Iona Campagnolo, Kyuquot First Nation Community Reception; January 13, 2005
- ^ Queen Elizabeth II British Columbia Centennial Scholarship
- ^ Queen Charlotte City: Our Story
- ^ a b Schweizer, William H.; Beyond Understanding: The Complete Guide to Princess Louisa, Chatterbox Falls, Jervis Inlet; EOS Publishing; Seattle, 1989; p. 54; 0-925244-00-7
- ^ a b The Canadian Encyclopedia: Victoria
- ^ British Columbia Archives: Chronology of Principal Royal Visits to British Columbia
- ^ Office of the Lieutenant Governor: Speech by Iona Campolo, Retired Heads of Mission Association's Gala Dinner, Royal Roads University, Hatley Castle, Victoria, BC, February 5, 2007
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