Today is a Provincial Holiday called British Columbia Day. I sat and asked my brother what this means, then I looked online. According to my brother, wise as he is, today is a heritage day, where we celebrate the diversity that is B.C. Awesome, eh? But that leaves open a lot of interpretation. What is the heritage of B.C? Why did we start celebrating something so vague?

According to online resources, it started not in B.C, but in Alberta (the next province over). They declared the first Monday in August as Heritage day. While Albertan heritage is a bit easier to define than BC’s, this act gave Alberta more holidays than the rest of English Canada by one. So The Federal Government marked that day to be each province’s Heritage day, (In Ontario they have many different names for it depending on the city you’re in).

So thank you Alberta for giving us British Columbia Heritage day. Now I pose the question: What is B.C. Heritage? It can be hard for a lot of people to understand that B.C. is bigger than Vancouver: I’ll let that sink in a bit. Vancouver is not BC. Most of B.C. is Mountainous, has a lot of snow in the winter, is “rural” at best (Even the cities are not very large), people are welcoming, and helpful. Vancouver on the other hand is very urban, get almost no snow ever, is muddy beaches, ocean front, and forested. The city is warm, strangers are less likely to talk to each other, and has a much, much higher crime rate.

Since Vancouver has the highest population density of B.C. some people might say that it is Vancouver’s culture that should be celebrated. And I present this view to you in that case: If We celebrate Vancouver’s culture and heritage only on B.C. Day, because of population density, then by the same logic we should start celebrating Chinese culture, or India culture, or Philippine Culture. Vancouver has recently (and not so recently) had a huge number of immigrants from the other side of the world, and at this point, they outnumber the races we traditionally view as Canadian (First Nations, Caucasian, and African) in the area.

So, do we integrate the new Canadians, into Canadian culture with good old Canadian warm welcomes or do we integrate ourselves into their culture because they outnumber us….? I believe today is a day for every single family to stop what they are doing in B.C. and celebrate however they want. This way we all are celebrating our own heritage, no matter what it may be. That has been the Canadian way for my whole life. We accept that our neighbours are different, and let them live however they want as long as they are not hurting anyone. And if you are lucky enough to celebrate, or spend the day with a family from a different culture, you might learn a bit more about them. (Hey it’s like traveling around the world without going far!)

BC is where I grew up, and without the ethnic diversity I had around me while growing up, I probably would not be the same man I am today. Today is a day to embrace that, not to segregate that. Vancouver is nice, with their big city attitude, but I still prefer my small towns, but as I have traveled a bit I can sit and understand how a lot of new Canadians feel. My family has had difficulty integrating back as well, and if you had no point of reference it would make it much more difficult. So Just remember as you relax today that B.C. doesn’t have 1 heritage, it has 1 heritage for almost every culture in the world, and that makes us stronger, not weaker.

Happy B.C. Day everyone! Go have fun and respect each other!