Walking past the front steps of the legislature, the crack of the flag snapping in the wind caused me to look up.
I stared at it for a moment, then turned to my companion: “Quick, call Captain Von Trapp. The anschluss has begun.”
Then I paused to reconsider. No, the forced union happened 150 years ago. This was the opposite of anschluss.
I turned to her again: “Quick, call Che. The revolution has begun.”
Few would recognize the flag of Vancouver Island. That's because it was designed but never actually flew before the colony of Vancouver Island merged with the colony of British Columbia in 1866.
But this week, the standard was unfurled outside the legislature in all its glory: A blue ensign upon which sits a white circle containing what appear to be a beaver, two swizzle sticks and a Mr. Floatie emoji. (Curious: why a beaver instead of a marmot?)
Obviously, this was a signal to rise up and rebel, to cast off the yoke of mainland persecution. Probably the work of the Sovereign State of Vancouver Island movement, a shadowy group that emerged in 2013 to demand that our Pacific paradise separate from the rest of Canada. They were serious (I think).
At least, they were serious enough that a second separatist group, the Vancouver Island Province movement, took pains to distance itself. (Shades of Monty Python's Life of Brian: “Excuse me. Are you the Judean People’s Front?” “Eff off! We're the People's Front of Judea.”)
The big distinction behind the two movements was that while SSVI wanted complete independence, VIP merely advocated Vancouver Island becoming its own province within Canada.
The latter notion, that the Island should be isolated not just geographically but politically from the rest of British Columbia, is an idea that pops up now and then. (Just last week the topic made it to the Everything Esquimalt discussion group on Facebook, with contributors pointing out that the Island's population of 765,000 is already greater than that of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, or Newfoundland and Labrador; of course, it was also suggested that the new province’s capital be moved to Esquimalt.)
Vancouver Island was, in fact, once independent. The colony was created in 1849, and in 1856 became the first elected parliamentary democracy west of Ontario. It was not always an easy ride. The elected government clashed frequently with the colony’s third and last appointed governor, Sir Arthur Edward Kennedy, prompting him to assert there were two classes of people here: “those who are convicts and those who ought to be convicts.” (Kind of makes Christy Clark’s comments on Victoria’s “sick culture” seem almost gushing by comparison.)
It was in 1865, just before the merger of Vancouver Island and B.C., that Queen Victoria allowed colonies to fly the blue ensign, incorporating the colony’s badge. In Vancouver Island’s case, that meant the seal designed by the Royal Mint’s Benjamin Wyon, which included the wand of Neptune, Mercury’s wand of commerce, a pinecone representing our forests and a beaver representing the Hudson’s Bay Company. This information comes from Laurie Gourlay, president of the Cedar-based Vancouver Island and Coastal Conservation Society, the group that urged the flag be flown at the legislature this week. (It also flies over Adams Storage in View Royal now and then, but that’s another story.)
Gourlay was also a driving force behind the Vancouver Island Province movement and its 2013 petition pushing for standalone status. Its website, viprovince.ca, still declares “Vancouver Island has the economy, culture and environment to govern itself as an equal partner in the journey that is Canada” and expresses the desire for provincehood to be bestowed on May 16, 2021.
Not sure VIP will win consensus, though. Jeez, you can’t even get Islanders to agree on whether they want a bridge to the mainland, let alone self-government. (Actually, a bridge to the mainland was approved five years ago. It's just that they put Victoria city council in charge of building it, so....)
For now, then, we’ll just fly the Vancouver Island ensign as a way to recognize our past, a symbol of the freedom that preceded the shotgun marriage of 150 years ago.
I struck a defiant pose and cast my gaze across the legislature lawn to the Belleville Street horizon (where the flag of another independent nation-state, the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority, dominated the sky, confusing the tourists).
“Vive l’Ile de Vancouver,” I intoned, channelling my inner De Gaulle. “Vive l’Ile de Vancouver libre.”
