Talk:British Columbia/Archive 2

Major Employers
This list doesn't have any specific order, sourcing and relevance to BC as a province (Why would someone want to know that Costco is a major employer?)

Maybe consider a major employer by province list page?

Removing for now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.6.172.19 (talk) 10:16, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS THAT COUNT
what about the founding date and person? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hello71 (talk • contribs) 22:19, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

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)

Français
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...) --Ckatz chat spy  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. --Ckatz chat spy  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)


 * Two Years Is Long Enough: A Plea for Wiki-Authority Intervention


 * Well now folks, I think that nearly two years is MORE than long enough, essentially to RUIN a Wikipedia article by leaving it in such a disgraceful disputed state as this. TECHNICAL QUESTION: HOW DOES ONE GET THE ATTENTION OF WIKIPEDIA AUTHORITIES? (ATTN: Anyone who knows how: Please escalate this to official decision makers.) -- I OFFICIALLY ASK WIKIPEDIA AUTHORITIES FOR A FINAL RESOLUTION TO THIS SILLY BICKERING.


 * Like Fishhead64, and perhaps (if that is possible) even more so, I have ABSOLUTELY no personal stake in this whole tediously BORING and seemingly-unending Anglophone/Francophone warfare in which some Canadians insist on engaging. Therefore it is my DISINTERESTED opinion that Fishhead64's argument is rock-solid and airtight, and that Ckatz's observation that the Canadian Federal Government (which, Sorry Bobanny, does carry a little more weight than your personal opinion... Nothing personal on you, I swear it...) officially requires bilingual English-French cartographic citation – and by all simple, reasonable extension, bilingual citation in encyclopedias and other reference materials as well – eminently trumps all these personal, parochial-sounding anti-Francophone protestations. At some point, one has to recognize that one is outnumbered and outgunned and is losing a battle, and must gather what is left of one's dignity and, resigning to "live to fight another day," at last concede the point vis-à-vis (<==Oh sorry, I used French) one's many-times-over exaggerated POV obstinacy, and get up from one's position – prostrate in front of the trucks, if not the whole highway – and go home.


 * Again, I must reiterate, I do not know you at all and THIS IS NOT PERSONAL, as unfortunately I'm sure it will sound to you. There simply has to be some limit to one individual's power to hold an article hostage, and I think one year, eleven months and four days is well outside that limitation. In my usually "silent observer" travels round Wikipedia's many Talk pages, I have time and again witnessed seemingly-interminable battles being dragged out by ostensible grown-ups to the point of in effect permanently defacing the work of others if they do not agree with it. The following is a point that appallingly many WikiParticipants seem to fail to comprehend, but No one person owns any area of Wikipedia, even an article that that person may originally have written; there are a good many, however, who unfortunately do evince their delusion that they have more rights to a given subject area (by no means just this trivial little sub-nationalistic (ethnic) language dispute; and again, I don't know you, I'm just speculating from what I can see on this page that perhaps you may have lost your objectivity and hence perhaps you may belong to this group... Repeat, this is not personal...), ...more rights to a given subject area than others do, and travel about summarily reverting other people's good-faith and arguably reasonable edits ad infinitum. I call these "Owner" ("ownerous"?) folk "Militants" because they keep various corners of Wikipedia in a constant state of war unless and until others may finally surrender to them, and finally by attrition they get their way. THIS IS NOT THE WAY WIKIPEDIA IS SUPPOSED TO WORK. PEOPLE WHO INSIST ON DEFYING THE WIKIPEDIA COMMUNITY AT LARGE NEED SIMPLY TO SHELL OUT FOR THEIR OWN WEB SITES WHERE THEIR ABSOLUTE RULE CAN BE LEGITIMATED. ==>Please don't be a Militant, Bobanny; let's all try to play nice, or one of these days it'll be "Everybody out of the pool."


 * AGAIN, I PLEAD FOR SOMEONE WITH SOME REGULATORY AUTHORITY TO COME IN AND MAKE A JUDGEMENT – ANY JUDGEMENT – AND LAY THIS EYESORE OF AN UNWORTHY DISPUTE TO REST, ONCE AND FOR ALL. In the inimitable words of Rodney King, "Can't we all just get along?" CleanUpAisle7 (talk) 22:19, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

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)

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

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)

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)

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)

SHIFTING FORTUNES
ok guys I wrote the shifting fortunes 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 realize 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 after all, 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)

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)

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)

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)

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 —Preceding unsigned comment 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)

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. ---Ckatz chat spy  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)

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)

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)''

Marijuana section
The section on recreational marijuana use (which I'm not convinced belongs in the article in the first place) is taken word-for-word from marijuanaaddictiontreatment.com. What is the best way to deal with this? GaryColemanFan 19:05, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Delete it. TotallyTempo 18:22, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Marijuana section#2
Is it copyrighted by these people? Anyway, don't think it can be so big a problem that it needs such a huge writeup on the page? Unless anyone posts any objections to this soon I'll cut it down or delete it. Post below if think it should be cut down or deleted... ANHL 07:22, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Looks like someone has just cut down the section 'recreational cannabis' to about 1/4 size. However, lots of places have drug problems much worse than this but it isn't mentioned; sign below if you think the section should be deleted. ANHL 12:19, 20 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I pulled the copyright violation material... there might be some text that could be recovered, as it may be unique to this province. However, I do think the section should be smaller, in appropriate proportion to the rest of the article. --Ckatz chat spy  17:35, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I vote for deletion unless its actual significance can be shown. Either that, or add sections for alcohol use in British Columbia, etc. By the way, how can anybody know that BC produces 40% of the weed used in Canada? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.11.162.168 (talk) 18:55, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I think there's a police stat to that effect, actually. Or in Cannabis Magazine, either one.  Might evene be a DEA report re Canada somewhere...there's also rates-of-usge per province somewhere.

this can all only ever be estimates - for so long as the marijuana industry remains below ground, that is.Skookum1 (talk) 12:26, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Map appears to be wrong
The map of Canada showing BC colored in red appears to be wrong. It seems to me that some parts of Alaska are falsely colored red too. 87.122.35.115 (talk) 13:09, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I've looked at the map and can see or observe no parts of alaska that are colored red. The panhandle is clearly visible, however just because the panhandle is visible doesn't mean that there are no problems with it, but keep in mind that the map is large scale it's possible that some small inaccuracies did occur. However the overall point of the map is to give a general detail of where BC is, if someone is looking for the exact demarcation of the panhandle they may do better to look at the Alaska Panhandle page, rather then this map. So as such I feel no change is necessary. TotallyTempo (talk) 12:49, 19 December 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by TotallyTempo (talk • contribs)

Recreation/Parks Sections advertising?
I grew up in BC and I'm happy to say that but a lot of this article -- especially the recreation/parks sections -- seems like it was written by the BC Gov's tourism department. Is it just me, or does reading this just seem like an advertisement for tourism in BC?

Maybe they had an intern rewrite it as a summer project...?

I'd recommend revising parts of this so that the words 'much enjoyed' aren't used in every sentence.

My writing isn't the best but I thought someone should point this out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.50.32.221 (talk) 17:45, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Also related to BC parks: BC Parks doesn't run all of the parks, that work is contracted out to private companies. For example, Gibson's Pass Resorts Inc runs E. C. Manning Provincial Park. 128.189.148.160 (talk) 09:54, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

BC qustions
what does BC grow? What are some natural resources? Or business?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.47.107.138 (talk) 01:51, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I cannot give any actual statistics :( (don't have time to look up) but I know there are large areas of dairy, especially on Vancouver Island, and a lot of the mainland is devoted to logging. . . those would be the two biggest, mainly the logging, feel free to write something about it conningcris 21:05, 14 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Forestry is the largest legal crop, pot is thought to be the largest though of course no exact figures are available. Other than that agriculture is mostly dairy, beef (in the Interior) and other meats (poultry in the Lower Mainland being important), orcharding and wine.  Tourism and related services is the fastest-growing sector and Film & TV production are important in Greater Vancouver; as is transport (because of the port) and warehousing/distribution; it's tryint to promote itself as a financial centre....but then, everywhere is.  Fishing is still very important, but not as large a part of the economuy as it once was; also important are hydroelectric power, though lately we're a net importer and no longer an exporter of power....Skookum1 (talk) 21:14, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Can someone tell my why my other message keeps messing up? was first all in a box on one line, then I manually spaced it out, now two lines are in box and other 2 aren't...conningcris 21:06, 14 July 2008 (UTC)


 * It's because you indented the start of the line, which will "box" that paragraph; on talkpages always start unindented; if you want indent use a colon - ":" or multiples of same.Skookum1 (talk) 21:14, 14 July 2008 (UTC)


 * What does BC grow? You mean besides marijuana?  British Columbia does not have a large agricultural sector.  This is mostly due to the fact that only 4% or so of land is suitable for farming.  What little it does have is mostly devoted to corn and beef and dairy.  The climate isn't very favorable for many other crops.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by TotallyTempo (talk • contribs) 00:49, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * If you're concerned with legal crops, as I assume you are, I discovered this by doing a quick Google search - as undoubtedly any of you could have done: . I have neither the inclination nor the patience to add this to the article, but perhaps others will be inspired.  fishhead64 (talk) 01:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

ppresedent
juniors thre first presedent in canda —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.120.137.12 (talk) 15:56, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Ethnic groups table in the Demographics section
Can someone check this please. The ethnic grouping "Danish" appears twice in the table (end of the first collumn and the penultimate in the second collumn). Hovering over the links it seems that the first collumn entry links to "Danish people" and the second collumn links to "Croatian people". --Xania talk 23:33, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I made it, and my guess is a copy-paste error from making the table the way I did; the first one would be the Danish, the second the Croatian, as they're still in the order (in edit mode anyway) that they were in the source; the numbers should be right as they were separately calculated.Skookum1 (talk) 05:09, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, it'd been a while, my comment about sort order has to do with more recent tables for Abbotsford and Vancouver and one I'm working on for Prince George.....anyway fixed the Danish/Croatian thing; thanks for spotting it.Skookum1 (talk) 05:13, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Pacific Northwest
Vancouver is in the Pacific Southwest not the Pacific Northwest. That's why they refer to the region around Vancouver as the "LOWER" Mainland —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.66.73.65 (talk) 04:03, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It's never referred to as being in the "Pacific Southwest" - your confusion seems to be that "Pacific Northwest" references North America, not Canada. fishhead64 (talk) 15:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Lower Mainland is also of much more recent provenance and has nothing to do with hte Pacific Northwesst usage. its sense is to distnguish the Fraser Lowland from the rest of the Masinland - with other areas of the coast northwards styled "Up [the] Coast" and the Interior/North as "up country", i.e. those areas are the "Upper Mainland".Skookum1 (talk) 15:48, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * HAHAHA. Vancouver isn't in the pacific southwest buddy.  Washington and Oregon are typically considered the Pacific Northwest, since British Columbia is directly north of all that, I have a hard time believing it is the Pacific Southwest, North of the pacific Northwest.  That don't make no sense now does it....

TotallyTempo (talk) 00:52, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

1858, 1808, 1893, 1788, 1788
I think you see where I'm going with that; not just the sesquicentennial of the Mainland Colony but also the bicentennial of Simon Fraser's fabled/now-fashionably-derided trip to the sea, or almost the sea, down the Fraser. 215 years since Mackenzie, 220 years since nay naumber of events in 1788, and 230 from Cook. I remember that there was controversy somewhat about WAC's fun and games with the various centennials (I lived through three provincial ones - 1858, 1866 and 1871, plus the federal 1867 one; my pareents were volunteer event organizers throughout, but that's another story again. Perhaps this isn't the place to mention Simon Fraser's journey, or perhaps it is - I was stunned to see barely an explanation of him on the SFU page - "named after Simon Fraser, an explorer" and that was it; I added some of course, but incredible the "just some guy" attitude for a university that took the name with all the window-dressing of exploring knowledge and the arts....215 isnt' a year anyone celebrates, or 220 or 230, another 20 years and it's the 300th anniversary of Cook's visit.  1808 does represent the British toehold on teh coastal mainland in terms of diplomatic history, though, the ace-in-the-hole on the boundary question, or meant to be (as also was Ft Langley when it came along. it's also 195 years from when canny Scots-Canadian traders used good ol' US free enterprise and bought out the competition (also Scots-Canadian, though Ameican-owned/chartered); not that we got anywhere with that....to get back to my main point; would it be too wordy to include mention of Simon Fraser's 200th and its significance in terms of the evolution of the territorial claim that became British Columbia 50 years later? Certainly the older-era historians - OWM ("Old White Men", Begg, Howay Bancroft et al.) certainly seem to think so; but maybe this is better on the BC 150 page.....Skookum1 (talk) 04:34, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

150th anniversary section - remove it
There is an error regarding the date: July 4, 2008. In fact, I was there and the celebration mentionned in the 150th anniversary section found in the article about BC took place on August 4, 2008, on the same day of the Symphony Splash and the concert was followed by fireworks.

Sorry, I'm not used to Wikipedia editing...and everything related to it.

I hope someone will change the infos for the real ones!

Thanks

(66.203.210.49 (talk) 06:23, 19 August 2008 (UTC))


 * Actuall I don't see the point of the BC 150 section at all and think it should be removed; it's close to being spam and it's over anyway; this is not supposed to be brochure for government promotional campaigns, period. There' a whole history of such celebrations in BC, which could perhaps could be an article; before the string of centennials - 1958, 1866, 1967, 1971 and 1985, 1986 ad nauesam; I suppose Vancouver Island must have had one in 1949, but without a lot of money and no big media campaign as later ones were; I vuguely recall Victoria doing it's 150th in 1993 and the Island doint it's 150th in 1999; i remember the Cook bicenntennial in 1976...this is just another one; before 1958 there were the diamond and silver jubilee celebrations; we didn't have centuries so celebrations wer on 50s and 75s....the section is too long and largely irrelevant to the overall tone and purpose of the main-article copy; I say remove it, it doesn't tell anyone anything about British Columbia in the encyclopedic sense, and it looks and reas like it's a brochure.Skookum1 (talk) 20:49, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Pre-Pay for gas in BC
Hi! I'm completely new. I work at a gas station and it drives us all up the wall that nobody seems to know that gas stations are required to make everybody pre-pay for their gas in BC. Everybody hates doing it and nobody seems to know how to do it or maybe they pretend they don't because they hope we're going to just suddenly start cheating and starting the pump for them or something. ANYWAY in my web travels I came across a travel wiki and I created an entire section in the BC article on paying for gas. I think it's appropriate for there but I think those who already know and love this article should be the ones to at least mention it in the travel section perhaps on here and I think IT MUST BE MENTIONED! PLEASE??

this is the link to the section i made on wikitravel http://wikitravel.org/en/British_Columbia#Getting_Gas

this is a link to the PDF that www.worksafeBC.com has about it http://www.worksafebc.com/publications/health_and_safety/by_topic/assets/pdf/workingalone.pdf

here is an article on it dated a couple of weeks before http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=bdda2985-a14f-4a4a-9a44-c960d4737d50

StressedGasStationKid (talk) 07:52, 23 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Be bold! and include the information - it wouldn't take more than a few words or a sentence. fishhead64 (talk) 16:21, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

There I hope that'll do. StressedGasStationKid (talk) 05:44, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Politics section changes
I amended the bit about Social Credit being right-wing; they differ strongly from the Neo-Liberals in their application and support for nationalization and are similarly "left" in certain other policy areas; the Coalition should be mentioned here, I'd say, and it's in respect to that that this caught my eye:
 * ''Aside from intervals of NDP rule from 1972-1975 (1976-1990 British Columbia Social Credit Party) and 1991-2001, the "Socreds" or their de-facto successor, 2002-2007 the BC Liberals, have controlled the legislature for the past 55 years.

Well, I'm not sure, I may have inserted that a long time ago; but really if the "de-facto successor" (which is a rather POV claim, admittedly) is the Liberals, then their de-facto predecessor, enemy camp though it was at the time, was the Coalition; in fact, today's Liberals more resemble the Coalition than they do the Socreds (especially given Social Credit's occasional "socialistic" lapses - talk about a heresy huh? but that's what nationalization is, plus WAC's various deals with the big unions...). Also the opening bit about the BC Liberals being unrelated to the federal party is no longer true; there's been an official rapprochement and BC Liberal members and MLAs were active in the Martin campaign (boy, were they ever); cant' say they are now the same on policy/ideology, though; in that regard they remain different despite the veneer of "party solidary" between the federal and provincial parteis that's supposedly in place now. I also obviously added a brief (and it is brief) rundown of the legacy of scandal in BC, which it is unconscionable to leave out of this section as it's such a hallmark of the province's political culture; as is polarization come to think of it, but I'll have to think about how to word that. I've done my best to be NPOV about naming scandals, giving "equal time" or close to it, though the specifics of more recent scandals like that of John Les and Richard Van Loen (sp?) I didn't have on hand; I could have named Christy Clark and whatisname that was Finance Minister who resigned in the wake of the Ledge Raids but was trying to conserve space. The historical scandals that could be mentioned by name here are the Texada Island Scandal, invovling Amor de Cosmos, the Cottonwood Scandal, involving Chief Justice Begbie and the Military Lands Scandal of 1859-60 involving nearly every military official in the colony at the time (including the Rear-Admiral). None have articles yet but will at some point; didnt' want to put redlinks on this page. If anyone thinks this is "too much to add to this page" I beg to differ; it's barely enough.....Skookum1 (talk) 18:03, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Islands
The Islands - Vancouver Island and the BC Gulf Islands
 * ''Full of beauty and natural splendour, the islands offer magnificent rain forests, towering mountains, sparkling blue seas, remote shell beaches, and secluded bays. Vancouver Island is the jewel of the Pacific Northwest and Canada, matched only by the cool Mediterranean climate, and pastoral vistas of the Gulf Islands.

Ash River                   The Islands - Vancouver Island and the BC Gulf Islands
 * ''Full of beauty and natural splendour, the islands offer magnificent rain forests, towering mountains, sparkling blue seas, remote shell beaches, and secluded bays. Vancouver Island is the jewel of the Pacific Northwest and Canada, matched only by the cool Mediterranean climate, and pastoral vistas of the Gulf Islands.

Ash River Burman River Campbell River Chemainus River Cluxewe River Cowichan River Englishman River Gold River Gordon River Harris River Heber River Little Qualicum River Mahatta River Megin River Nanaimo River Nimpkish River Nitinat River Oyster River Puntledge River Qualicum River Quatse River Quinsam River Salmon River San Juan River Sooke River Stamp/Sproat/Somass River White River Woss River —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.17.155.186 (talk) 23:28, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

land speace
As canada is the 2ed bigest county British columbia his the most land speace which means that British There are 14 designations of parks and protected areas in the province that reflects the different administration and creation of these areas in a modern context. There are 141 ecological Reserves, 35 provincial marine parks, 7 Provincial Heritage Sites, 6 National Historic Sites, 4 National Parks and 3 National Park Reserves. 12.5% (114,000 km²) of British Columbia is currently considered protected under one of the 14 different designations that include —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.17.155.186 (talk) 23:42, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Mountain biking
I think there should be a lil more information on MT Biking in the article. BC has had a MAJOR impact on the mt bike community. Stuff that they started has spread waaaay across the world. They pretty much started the mt bike freeride community. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.186.5.69 (talk) 06:45, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * then go ahead and start Mountain biking in British Columbia, though bicycling history in BC is fairly interesting in its own right (the first pavement in the province - Stanley Park's Ring Road, then Park Drive - was paved expressly for bicycle use....but yea between Rocky Mountain and the other BC mountain bike/parts companies, and the trail-riding concepts/styles etc, definitely worth a brief mention here; but also worht a full article....so go write one, already...Skookum1 (talk) 04:27, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, there ya go, somebody already did....Skookum1 (talk) 04:28, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Topics on British Columbia
Please add to, edit modify the new Topics on British Columbia to reflect content about British Columbia for the portal, wikiproject, the article etc. SriMesh |  talk  20:03, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Integer decades don't work for history
I added - duplicated - material on the Johnston/Harcourt storyline without realizing it was in the '90s section; which points up the reality that the decade-markers don't work, the changes in government are where the sections should be; 1952 to 1971 or 1972, then 1990-91, then when Campbell got in;; the "1970s and 1980s" divisions don't work well....Skookum1 (talk) 04:19, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
 * At some point I'm going to re-break all the section headings, and also give some more content to do with early BC that's not only what a bunch of bastards white people allegedly were to everybody else, which is a POV myth, albeit a widely-circulated and easily-citable one due to the control of academic/media publishing by a certina POV........Skookum1 (talk) 19:05, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Early demographics
I reversed this edit which changed figures for 1851, 1861 and 1871. My edit comment was longer than the space avilable - main thrust is that the table should indicate in this period, and up even until 1911 and later, waht the proportion of FN peoples is. 1851 was an HBC "census" and there was another in 1841 or thereabouts. All but 300 or so in either of those years were First Nations....in 1861 there were still 60,000 or so FNs, so the figures as shown right now are wrong; are they meant to mean only colonists? In which case they're too high; and if not, they're too low (and the edit I reversed may have been an attempt to redress that). Thing is in 1864 there was the Great Smallpox Epidemic, and also by that time tens of thousands of Americans had gone back to he US to either kill each other in Dixie or mine for gold in Idaho and Colorado and Nevada. Even by World War I, some areas of BC remained majority First Nations in population (the Skeena, for one; the Chilcotin is still over 80% FN....Cassiar-Stikine-Atlin in the same range) So the Demographics section needs a major revisit; I dno't have harris' The Resettlement of British Columbia - I'll see if the Dal library has it and get one of my housemates to take it out fi it does.....Skookum1 (talk) 19:01, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Spanish Columbia?
A map has been placed at Spanish Empire suggesting that British Columbia was once Spanish. Whilst I realise that the Spanish made some far-fetched claims about their rights to the Americas and the Pacific coastline, the way it is depicted on this map is a little ridiculous. The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick t 01:53, 8 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually the map should go all the way to Cook Inlet, which was an arranged compromise of a certain overlap betweeen Russian and Spanish claims in the Pacific Northwest until a later arrangement set the northern limit of New Spain at the 42nd Parallel (i.e. this was before the Adams-Onis Treaty establishing that as the division between New Spain and the claims north of that which the US inherited by that treaty. The map is no more ridiculous than the one on Oregon Country showing all of southern British Columbia as part of the quasi-fictional US claim to 54-40, given that the Americans had never penetrated teh area north of the Columbia until "late in the day" and never got much north of the Columbia, other htan along hte coast, until the end of the "Oregon Country" period (1846).  Similarly, once Russian America maps get made, the Russian claims south to the 43rd parallel and the 52st Parallel will be shown because that's what the legal claim was.  Spain had the most active possession of the British Columbia area, in fact, if only along the Coast, among all the competing powers in that region and were the only ones to have any kind of major settlement in that region in teh 18th Century; it's a perfectly valid map and like I said, in fact should show the whole coastline north to Cook Inlet.see Cordova, Alaska and Valdez, Alaska...the treaty-specifics of the claim are in a book called the Nootka Connection by Derek Pethick which is linked on the Nootka Crisis and Nootka Convention pages.Skookum1 (talk) 02:29, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Like I said, claims (denoted with pink on the map in question) are one thing. But these areas of B.C. are shaded in red in this map putting it on a par with Mexico or Peru.  And not just the coastline, hundreds of miles inland too.   The Red Hat of Pat Ferrick t 02:34, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
 * and taht was indeed the Spanish claim, and there were no other contenders other than the indigenous nations of the region; the Spanish explored into the northern limits of the Great Basin, almost reaching the Snake River as well as the headwaters of the Colorado, and there are apocryphal stories that one party in search of Cibola made it as far as teh 49th Parallel; Balboa's claim was taken seriously enough by the Russians and the British that they saw fit to make counter-claims, which likewise are mapped simiarly despite no actual land presence of any kind (until the first decades of the 1800s); most maps showing competing imperial claims in the area will show a four-stripe pattern up to the line of the Continental Divide, with BC, WA, OR, ID and wesetrn Montana "parti-coloured" as a result (I remember clearly seeing at least three of these, one in my high school classroom and a others in textbooks). This coloration is no more dubious than the one on British Empire showing British "possessions" (actually just trading areas) south to teh current California-Nevada northern boundaries, and the Red River Valley, or like i said the US maps showing the "Oregon Country" as if it were rightfully parto f the United States, even though the only non-indigenous presence in the region affected was British; likewise the map on Stikine Territory, which shows an area vast in extent and entirely absent of any white occupation except certain locations near the Stikine River; Russian America maps show all of modern Alaska as Russian, even though the only actual Russian presence was at Sitka and Kodiak and a few scattered posts.  it's a convetion of "mapping imperialism"; in fact, speaking as a Canadian, showing places like the Arctic Archipelago, where no one lives and nobody has taken a plum nickel from the ground, as "Canada" are equally spurious and no less "ridiculous", but exist in terms of legal recognition.  Spain herself published maps showing this; Britain published other maps showing claims to areas no Briton had set foot in (though some of their Metis/French-Canadian employees may have), and the Americans published maps showing the Oregon Country in toto as already being the rightful property of the US based on the thin line of the Lewis & Clark Expedition's exploration; even though New Caleodnia (Canada), which was bisected by the northern limit of their claim, had a number of British (NWC) forts staffed only by Scotsmen, one half-Guyanese Scot (later Gov. Douglas) and a fair nubmer of Metis and Quebecois and Iroqouians.  Oh, and maybe 10-20,000 Carrier people and others...not a Yank in sight, but it shows up on US maps regularly.  Even today, there are parts of Mexico no Mexican or Spanish army or police force has dare set foot in, yet they show on maps as Mexico; ditto with much of Siberia re the Russian Federation.  Maps are all about political claims, not about actual occupation...In the case of New Spain's claims north of California, they were as legal and "on the map" as anything that came later for at least another century made by other powers...it's aperfectly elgitimate map, and in fact doesn't show the full extent of the spanish claim.  That it includes the basins of the Columbia and Fraser is quite natural given that Spain claimed the coast and in the conventions of international law in the period, that was tantamount to claiming the basins of any river draining to that coast....Spain was the biggest and most active player in the region until the Nootka Conventions, there's no reason why their claims north of california ''shouldn't be shown; and no reason why their map should be any less in extent than the similarly silly maps published by the Russians, British and (most of all( the Americans..Skookum1 (talk) 02:52, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Survey
I'm conducting a new survey since the last was done 3 years ago (an editors lifetime on Wikipedia) at 2009 Vancouver Vs. Vancouver, Washington Survey. Your input would be most appreciated. Mkdw talk 21:39, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Is it boring?
Is it a boring place to visit? Thinking going there but everyone tells me not to bother thats it's boring and all you see are trees,fish and bears.That doesn't interest me,so please tell me what is not boring about it please.It's free for me to stay there because of family,but I'm not into bears,whale watching,hunting,fishing or hiking-is there more to BC then this?If not I won't bother,I would rather pay for else were then have a boring trip.I'm looking for places to go shopping or museums(Dirrtypittie (talk) 01:20, 23 February 2009 (UTC))
 * ROTFL. "What wrong with you? - you don't like eagle watching or whale-stalking?"  In Vancouver, if you say you're bored, people will say "well, you could go mountain biking" (a certain kind of person, that is, who can't admit the place has its very true moments as "No Fun City").  But I'll tell you what - Vancouver is delirious as a place to visit for good eats.  Food, food, food, whether budget-range of blueplate, there's an amazing variety of restaurants.  And it's enough shopping-crazy to get people from Tokyo and HongKong on shopping binges; it' no New York, but it's not Peoria either.  Make it a tour de force of dining and you'll have a fine time, just be prepared to tip heavy and put up with often-rude service (rude in various ways, depending on where and waht kind of restaruant, including too-friendly servers, never mind ones who pointedly ignore you, like at Naam or Cafe de Paris....).  Museums - of a kind, t he most intersting ones tend to be the small town gold rush/mining/ranching museusm, and some of the big First Nations ("Native American" as they're called stateside, but not by us) ones, ep. the Museum of Anthropolopgy at UBC but also Capilano Canyon and a few others.....othr than that i can only chuckle.  Vancouver does ahev a reputation for being boring.  The cure is either beer or coffee....and if it's raining (as it probably will be), head to the Okanagan or Victoria.....actual fun, well, you have to make that yourself, we don't manufacture it locally....well, that's not quite true, we do grow some....Skookum1 (talk) 01:41, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

BC Magazine
I grew up on this mag to the same degree as National Geographic, and I have my reservations about removing it, but it is a commercial link, seeking subscriptions, and is therefore spam:
 * British Columbia Magazine though granted it's a bit of an institution, though I remember it with the Beautiful British Columbia Magazine title.....open to discussion on the merits of including it, but for now it had to be taken out for fear of allowing in other commercial sites...it never used to have advertising, now it does, if that weren't the case this woudl be a different argument....Skookum1 (talk) 19:08, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Too glowing
This entire article is somewhat point of veiw and "glowing"--142.35.15.81 (talk) 19:59, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree, but something more trenchant than the usual peacock or advertising seems needed....I'll reserve my often-tart comments about BC's high opinion of itself vs. its numerous habitual inadequacies ("world-class" inadequacies....).Skookum1 (talk) 00:46, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Is it BC or B.C. ?
There doesn't appear to be consistency regarding usage of BC or B.C.

Which should it be? My gut says use B.C. where you would say "Bee See" verbally, ie, if you were talking about another province you'd use the name in its place. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.78.0.71 (talk) 21:22, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * As far as I'm aware, not even the BC government has its own standard in that regard, as you'd find looking around different ministry and crown corp websites. The print media may have a standard, probably "B.C." for typographic reasons, but that's only within a network/print chain, and in magazine and book publishing it likely differs from publisher to publisher, ditto in the book-publishing industry.  It would be nice to have a standard, to be sure, given the number of occasions that it's more normal (for a British Columbian) to say "BC" or "BCer" instead of the respective full-name forms.  The only other parallel-level jursidiction in North America that uses an abbreviation regularly as an alternate name for itself is "D.C.", which is almost always with-periods....I'd suspect if there is a formal Wikipedia standard, it's with-periods but of course we often (in Canada/BC) don't see that and it's easier not to use it.  NB in the US, particularly the Northeest, "B.C." means "Boston College", although maybe with Vancouver's increasing trendiness/high media-film profile, that's changing.....Skookum1 (talk) 00:44, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia standard would appear to be "BC", since "B.C." redirects there....Skookum1 (talk) 00:50, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Cool
Ya dude sweet place been there 5 times!!--Seanwall (talk) 20:37, 3 April 2009 (UTC)--Seanwall (talk) 20:37, 3 April 2009 (UTC)--Seanwall (talk) 20:37, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Incorrect Image Caption
I may be mistaken, but I believe that the 'Last Spike' imagge in the 'Rapid growth and development' section is incorrectly captioned. At present I don't have time to find out who it is actually driving in the last spike, but I think this is something that needs looking in to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AntarcticPenguin (talk • contribs) 02:21, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

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)

Perhaps there should be a whole other page devoted to BC scandals? --Rabbit 11 (talk) 08:36, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

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)

Having heard it used is not enough for the encyclopaedia. I, for one, have never used the term, nor have I read it or heard it anywhere. (Lotuslanders, however, I have heard, and I generally take exception when I do). IIRC, "original research" does not belong in Wikipedia, so I have removed it, and I suggest it remain out unless someone can show two or more sources for its use.24.81.98.134 22:51, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

The only people I hear using "BCer" are the out-of-provincials who moved there in the last few years. I am a British Columbian plain and simple. IMO, it is not a term that any self respecting British Columbian ever uses. - Magnus
 * A self-respecting BCer wouldn't care if someone else thought only "out-of-provincials" used it; both of you sound like stuffy gooses; I'm 53 and have heard it all my life, including out of the mouths of politicians, and I've seen/heard it in teh print media as well.Skookum1 (talk) 03:25, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I can only recall "BCer" being used in more recent times, and more often by people recently come to British Columbia. That includes journalists. (and I agree, I hear it more from CanWest Global than either CBC or CTV) It just sounds like an outsider term. Reminds me of the term Quebecer, which I don't care for either. I don't use BCer, no one I know from BC uses it (aside from a some Ontarians and Albertans)- but then that might just be my circle of friends, associates and (of course) family. Skookum, on the other hand, is a term particular to British Columbia I do know and have heard other British Columbians use. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rabbit 11 (talk • contribs) 08:30, 3 May 2009 (UTC)