Aspects of British Columbia

Aspects ofBritish Columbia Aspects ofBritish Columbia, like its acronym, is an introduction, not a whole alphabet. Neither individually nor collectively do these essays offer a comprehensive explanation ofwhat makes British Columbia what it is. Nevertheless, whether read separately or together, they raise questions about the province, its past and its present, reveal some of its paradoxes, and offer some insights - not always concurring - into the nature of Canada's most westerly province. In the current constitutional debates, the phrase"distinct society" is a synonym for Quebec. Yet, as Terry Morley reports, in the aftermath ofthe demise of the Meech Lake Accord Premier Vander Zalm suggested that British Columbia could also require a form of "sovereignty association." That idea engendered little comment, possibly because many British Columbians have always assumed that they too are "distinct." They are curious about how and why they became so. Jane Fredeman observes that "publishing in and about British Columbia has from the beginning tried to explain why people would go there." She endorses the traditional explanation , namely the desire ofpeople to exploit or enjoy the province's rich resources. In agreeing with this thesis, Jean Barman stresses "the individual decisions made by thousands ofmen and women to settle in British Columbia and call the province home." Barman specifically argues that the distinctiveness ofBritish Columbia can be largely explained by its "unique" demography caused by the high proportion ofimmigrants, especially the highly visible Asians and, at times, an "overwhelming number ofBritons." The relatively affluent British immigrants clearly made an impression on British Columbia but, as Morley points out, British immigrants came from both the "working" and the "upper" classes. Moreover, as Robert McDonald's study demonstrates, by 1910-1913 natives ofCanada greatly outnumbered natives of the British Isles in both the social and business elites of Vancouver. While British Columbia may be a distinct society, it is obviously not a homogeneous one. Morley rightly decries the oversimplified traditional portrayal of British Columbia politics "as a conflict between polar opposites," but polarity has some real historical bases and cannot be ignored. British Columbia society is not, and never has been, egalitarian. The essays by McDonald and by Eric Sager and Peter Baskerville illustrate this well. The principal subjects ofboth papers lived within a mile or two ofeach other within the .city of Vancouver, had come to improve their status, and discovered that upward mobility was a myth. Nevertheless, they had very different experiences and are remembered in different ways. Those of"advantaged social background" endeavoured to replicate the well-recorded elite institutions they had previously known, such as gracious homes, gentlemen's clubs and private schools - all of which have been much recounted; the unemployed and those working people who suffered the "fear ofjoblessness" were largely faceless individuals saved from oblivion chiefly by the cold statistics of the census. Journal ofCanadian Studies Vol. 25. No. 3 (Automne 1990 Fall) 3 Such contrasting experiences perpetuate the perception ofpolarity. In Bonita Bray's discussion of the 1935 production of Waiting for Lefty by the left-wing Progressive Arts Club, it is evident that the polarity of Vancouver society contributed to censorship, to a debate about the play as propaganda or art, and to an ambivalent response to the actors' success at the Dominion Drama Festival. The intensity ofthe response to Lefty was undoubtedly stimulated by the appearance ofa socialist political party, the Commonwealth Co-operative Federation (CCF) in 1933. According to Robin Fisher, however, that event created only "the possibility ofpolarization in British Columbia politics, it took the decline ofreform to bring it about." But reform, albeit ofa conservative kind, did appear in response to the CCF. Dan Hawthorne argues that the Department of Education responded to the rise ofthe CCF and a perceived "breakdownofthe liberal-capitalist world" by designing a new curriculum "to buttress the established order." Hawthorne also notes the similarities between the educational policies ofBritish Columbia and Ontario in the 1930s and the 1960s. That observation suggests another paradox about British Columbians. One manifestation of their thinking ofthemselves as distinct is their belief that "the East" - generally translated as the rest ofCanada, especially the "golden triangle" ofToronto, Ottawa, and Montreal - does not understand them. Echoes ofthe...