The West in Canada: Cities, Politics, and New Societies

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The West in Canada Cities, Politics, and New
Societies

• Introduction
• Immigrant Societies
• Terminal City
• Better Terms
• The West and Canada

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Lives

• Mary Kennedy, St. Andrews Parish, Manitoba

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Lives

• Nan Bourgon (nee Capewell), Derby England to
  Bulkley Valley, BC

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Lives

• Leong May-ying, Guangong, China to BC

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Immigrant Societies

• 1 Society ? place
• 2 Only fragments of societies immigrate
• 3 Fragments encounter novel circumstances
• 4 Above leads to social change

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Immigrant Societies

• Cheap land and poor markets ? family settlement
  flat hierarchies
• resources attractive and markets good ? capital
  and labour
• Selective migration ? cultural fragments mixing
• Recombinations

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Terminal City

• Prairies 13 cities larger than 5,000 people by
  1911
• BC 5 cities larger than 5,000 people by 1911
• 50 British Columbians in Vancouver area
• Vancouver
• forest industry
• stock exchange
• exhibition
• Grain port by 1920s

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Better Terms

• 1903 emergence of political parties in BC
• Conservative Party and Richard McBride
• The argument for better terms
• BC large and expensive to administer
• Little manufacturing, so have to buy lots of
  goods, so give lots to feds through tariffs and
  import duties
• Had to buy Cdn goods at protected prices
• But had to sell minerals, fish, timber on world
  markets
• Sense of separateness
• Mr. BC versus Miss Canada
• Prairies as promised land
• Regional Tensions

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The West and Canada

• Basic lineaments
• societies of recent immigrants dedicated to
  resources production, development and progress
• structures to support such societies within
  Canada
• somewhat adversarial political relationship with
  the rest of Canada
• islands

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The West and Canada

• Progressive Party
• Populism

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Questions

• To what extent did geography determine the
  creation growth of cities?
• Compare and contrast the influence of the
  transcontinental railways in the rise of one
  major urban centre over its rivals in the
  prairies and in BC?
• What was the role of urban promoters (boosters)
  in the creation growth of cities?
• Why did Vancouver become more important than
  Victoria?