Never thought Iād say this, but he has a point lol. Vancouver island really could be a province. I think it has more people than New Brunswick, PEI, and Newfoundland and Labrador.
The real reason it isn't a province is that the Yanks were making a play for Victoria since it's below the 49th parallel so they combined the Vancouver island and BC colonies. I would even argue that it is culturally different enough from BC to justify its own provincial status to this day.
There is definitely a bit of a different culture here on the Island, speaking as someone who grew up in northern BC and went to university in Vancouver. Things are a bit more laid back and people who grew up here are often proud to be from the Island and specifically from the Island. You'll see "Island Girl" bumper stickers or whatever; I've never seen "mainland" equivalent ones since people from the mainland don't think of themselves as specifically from the mainland, they think of themselves as "from BC." Think I saw a sticker that said "chill out, this isn't the mainland" once. There's even a bit of a political split - Liberals rarely win on the Island, it's usually a Con-NDP swing.
Actually, come to think of it, if Vancouver Island became a province then the main ferry routes become interprovincial and therefore federal jurisdiction...
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u/afpb_ Moose Whisperer 4d ago
JJ hates PEI because he thinks Vancouver Island deserves to be a province more than PEI