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  #1  
Old Posted Apr 14, 2018, 8:01 PM
Docere Docere is offline
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Is there a "Far West" identity in BC and Alberta?

i.e. Something based on "natural beauty", transplants etc. that unites BC and Alberta and excludes Saskatchewan and Manitoba because their population growth this century to has been much more modest. Akin in some ways to both California and Colorado being out west, but excluding the Dakotas.

I'm guessing hell no, especially nowadays.
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  #2  
Old Posted Apr 14, 2018, 8:19 PM
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Originally Posted by Docere View Post
i.e. Something based on "natural beauty", transplants etc. that unites BC and Alberta and excludes Saskatchewan and Manitoba because their population growth this century to has been much more modest. Akin in some ways to both California and Colorado being out west, but excluding the Dakotas.

I'm guessing hell no, especially nowadays.
I think BC and Alberta have strong enough provincial identities with additionally strong identities for each of their cities, that they don't feel the need to be bundled into one bloc.

Come to think of it California's like this, even though it's in the "far west" or the "west coast", its state identity is strong enough to stand on its own (and that's not even counting divisons internally like NorCal, SoCal etc.) without being bundled with other western states.
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  #3  
Old Posted Apr 14, 2018, 10:21 PM
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BC and Alberta are not in the same region. The Rockies are a huge divider both physically and psychologically. We generally don't think the same way.
Exceptions being Canmore/Banff for BC and Fort St. John for Alberta.
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  #4  
Old Posted Apr 14, 2018, 10:48 PM
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The Reform party back in the day won its seats mostly in BC and Alberta, evenly split between them, but that's two decades or more ago
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  #5  
Old Posted Apr 15, 2018, 6:58 AM
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Alberta and BC are more regional rivals than friends, although I wish it weren't so because we really have much more in common than not (all Canadian urban areas are essentially the same with geographic differences being the only real marker). An interesting factoid from StatsCan though. Regardless of which growth model is used around 2038, Alberta will surpass BC as the 3rd largest province by population and will be second by 2050 or so since both Quebec and BC have relatively stable low-growing natural populations with only growth from immigration driving trends...

One of several articles on the topic...

http://www.macleans.ca/economy/econo...gest-province/
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  #6  
Old Posted Apr 15, 2018, 3:33 PM
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I hope this chat doesn't go less off the rails, but I think it's safe to say that BC is not as homogeneous as Alberta. The Lower Mainland and Victoria areas are quite different in mindset versus the rest of BC, the latter of which has more in common with Alberta. My $0.02, of course.
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  #7  
Old Posted Apr 15, 2018, 7:17 PM
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Rural Alberta like Rural BC is pretty homogenous but the cities are quite diverse...

The visible minority rate for BC, Ontario and Alberta overall are 30.3% 29.3% and 23.5% respectively... The national average is 22.3% But when you look at the cities... Edmonton is 37.1% Calgary 36.2% which is about the same at the outer GVRD cities... Richmond of course is listed as 76.6% but New Westminster, West Vancouver, Delta are in the 30-ish range...

Interesting...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_minority#Alberta

Getting back on track, when I said life in most suburbs around the major cities are the same, I mean from an urban planning context. Each area has the same density, the same house design, the same strip malls with the same shops... In Edmonton each strip mall contains a Tim Horton's, and Esso/Shell, a Big 5 bank, Subway, for example. No matter what area of the city it's the same... Even if the ethnic mix is slightly different from area to area the shopping, the architecture, the cars, all the same...
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  #8  
Old Posted Apr 15, 2018, 7:28 PM
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Looking from today's vantage point, it's funny that Reform did better in BC than in Saskatchewan (though Reform did well in Saskatchewan too).

I'm guessing the unpopularity of the BC NDP in the 1990s played a role in sinking the working class NDP vote in BC a lot of which went Reform, while Romanow's popularity (at least relative to Harcourt and Clark) probably kept the NDP in contention federally.

Saskatchewan however trended rightward during the 1990s and by 2000 the Alliance vote in Saskatchewan and BC was almost even. From 2004 on Saskatchewan has clearly been the second most conservative province.
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  #9  
Old Posted Apr 15, 2018, 7:34 PM
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Originally Posted by Docere View Post
Looking from today's vantage point, it's funny that Reform did better in BC than in Saskatchewan (though Reform did well in Saskatchewan too).

I'm guessing the unpopularity of the BC NDP in the 1990s played a role in sinking the working class NDP vote in BC a lot of which went Reform, while Romanow's popularity (at least relative to Harcourt and Clark) probably kept the NDP in contention federally.
Interior BC is where all hyper-Conservative Albertans go to die... Literally. Kelowna is the retirement choice of the alt-right and where Stockwell Day washed up on his Jet ski.

My observational theory about Western Canadians is that we always tend to move one province west. Most Saskatchewan expats are found in Alberta, Ex Albertans almost always settle in BC... Even amongst my graduating class of Journalism students in 2007, half are in Vancouver, 33% remained locally and the rest scattered to places like Calgary and Fredericton...
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  #10  
Old Posted Apr 15, 2018, 9:42 PM
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BC is dominated by Vancouver, both politically and economically. And I would argue that Vancouver is so different from Edmonton and Calgary that there's very little feeling of "brotherhood." I've been in all three cities and when I'm in Vancouver I feel like I'm in a totally different country. The culture is more progressive in Vancouver, but then you also have the COMPLETELY different climate/environment. On the surface you might say that both provinces are very dependent on natural resources for their economies, and that's true, but when you're in Vancouver you never get a sense of it. You don't really come across people that are flying in and out of coal mines, for example. But when you're in Edmonton it sometimes feels like 9/10 people are oil sands workers or somehow in tune with what's happening "up North."

Immigrants are also different. Yes, percentages are similar, but the type of people that are immigrating into these 3 cities are very different. Vancouver seems to get almost entirely white collar immigrants, whereas Edmonton and Calgary are more skewed towards blue-collar migrants. Vancouver also gets people that Alberta doesn't get, period. For example if you go to the North Shore suburb of Vancouver the dominant immigrant population is Iranian. There are also a ton of Iranians in the downtown core. When I was in Edmonton I only met one other Iranian in two years. Calgary has some. And there are other examples as well.

The three cities are very different in how they're set up as well. Calgary and Edmonton are just two big suburbs. Vancouver is only 75% nothingness (sprawl). The suburbs in Vancouver are moving towards the downtown Vancouver model so in time we can even say the percentage will be more like 50-60% sprawl.
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  #11  
Old Posted Apr 15, 2018, 10:47 PM
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Originally Posted by Abii View Post
BC is dominated by Vancouver, both politically and economically. And I would argue that Vancouver is so different from Edmonton and Calgary that there's very little feeling of "brotherhood." I've been in all three cities and when I'm in Vancouver I feel like I'm in a totally different country. The culture is more progressive in Vancouver, but then you also have the COMPLETELY different climate/environment. On the surface you might say that both provinces are very dependent on natural resources for their economies, and that's true, but when you're in Vancouver you never get a sense of it. You don't really come across people that are flying in and out of coal mines, for example. But when you're in Edmonton it sometimes feels like 9/10 people are oil sands workers or somehow in tune with what's happening "up North."

Immigrants are also different. Yes, percentages are similar, but the type of people that are immigrating into these 3 cities are very different. Vancouver seems to get almost entirely white collar immigrants, whereas Edmonton and Calgary are more skewed towards blue-collar migrants. Vancouver also gets people that Alberta doesn't get, period. For example if you go to the North Shore suburb of Vancouver the dominant immigrant population is Iranian. There are also a ton of Iranians in the downtown core. When I was in Edmonton I only met one other Iranian in two years. Calgary has some. And there are other examples as well.

The three cities are very different in how they're set up as well. Calgary and Edmonton are just two big suburbs. Vancouver is only 75% nothingness (sprawl). The suburbs in Vancouver are moving towards the downtown Vancouver model so in time we can even say the percentage will be more like 50-60% sprawl.
Don't really think of Calgary as a "blue collar" city at all.
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  #12  
Old Posted Apr 15, 2018, 10:51 PM
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In a way, Vancouver is more similar to Winnipeg in terms of vintage, though obviously Van grew much more rapidly in the postwar years. Their populations were pretty similar in the first half of the 20th century (both passed the 100,000 mark in the 1911 census both had populations of around 250,000 on the eve of WWII).

In contrast Calgary and Edmonton didn't even reach 100,000 until after WWII.
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  #13  
Old Posted Apr 16, 2018, 6:40 PM
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I definitely don't think that there's even that much homogeneity between BC and Alberta small towns. There may be some traits that are similar such as the politics but overall I do find BC small towns to be quite different than Alberta ones, to varying degrees.

Quote:
BC is dominated by Vancouver, both politically and economically. And I would argue that Vancouver is so different from Edmonton and Calgary that there's very little feeling of "brotherhood." I've been in all three cities and when I'm in Vancouver I feel like I'm in a totally different country. The culture is more progressive in Vancouver, but then you also have the COMPLETELY different climate/environment. On the surface you might say that both provinces are very dependent on natural resources for their economies, and that's true, but when you're in Vancouver you never get a sense of it. You don't really come across people that are flying in and out of coal mines, for example. But when you're in Edmonton it sometimes feels like 9/10 people are oil sands workers or somehow in tune with what's happening "up North."
I pretty much agree with this. Vancouver is a completely different beast from the Alberta cities. Calgary used to be brash and ballsy but this last downturn has really hit that city hard. It'll bounce back though. Edmonton is and will remain the work camp for the oil sands
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  #14  
Old Posted May 30, 2018, 4:41 PM
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I hope this chat doesn't go less off the rails, but I think it's safe to say that BC is not as homogeneous as Alberta. The Lower Mainland and Victoria areas are quite different in mindset versus the rest of BC, the latter of which has more in common with Alberta. My $0.02, of course.
Even within the Lower Mainland there are vast differences. Abbotsford is the Bible Belt of BC where only 15 to 20% of the population have no religious affiliation. By contrast, the most right-wing area of BC - the Peace -- is over 50% of the population without a religious affiliation. Same goes for the most left-wing ares of BC like downtown east side of Vancouver. The interior of BC and Vancouver Island are not very religious compared to the rest of Canada. The only exception is the area between Smithers and Prince George.

As for the old days of Reform, it's really quite interesting how well they did in BC, even areas that tend to vote NDP. That's because it wasn't really about right versus left, but rather western alienation.

For example, the North Coast riding was historically NDP, and then it went Reform, and then when the Reform/Alliance merged with the PCs, it went back to the NDP. That's because the Reform got huge numbers from the NDP, namely the union types who like regionalism issues. Once the party became more of an old school national party again, they were no longer interested in the right-wing choice, so they voted for Nathan Cullen.
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Old Posted Jun 1, 2018, 8:54 PM
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AB and BC are where Laurentian institutions matter least. Their histories and economies are markedly non-Laurentian. SK is different because it hasn't seen as much population growth to dilute its also distant Laurentian influence.
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  #16  
Old Posted Jul 3, 2018, 4:55 PM
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Originally Posted by Abii View Post
BC is dominated by Vancouver, both politically and economically. And I would argue that Vancouver is so different from Edmonton and Calgary that there's very little feeling of "brotherhood." I've been in all three cities and when I'm in Vancouver I feel like I'm in a totally different country. The culture is more progressive in Vancouver, but then you also have the COMPLETELY different climate/environment. On the surface you might say that both provinces are very dependent on natural resources for their economies, and that's true, but when you're in Vancouver you never get a sense of it. You don't really come across people that are flying in and out of coal mines, for example. But when you're in Edmonton it sometimes feels like 9/10 people are oil sands workers or somehow in tune with what's happening "up North."
....
The three cities are very different in how they're set up as well. Calgary and Edmonton are just two big suburbs. Vancouver is only 75% nothingness (sprawl). The suburbs in Vancouver are moving towards the downtown Vancouver model so in time we can even say the percentage will be more like 50-60% sprawl.
BC natural resources extraction (Mining /Oil/Gas) is a smaller part of the overall economy.

These days I would not put wood products into the natural resources extraction category as the forests are closer to being farms that get harvested every 50 years.

Due to the more diverse economy BC can afford to be for environmentally focused.
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  #17  
Old Posted Jul 14, 2018, 11:03 PM
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BC natural resources extraction (Mining /Oil/Gas) is a smaller part of the overall economy.

These days I would not put wood products into the natural resources extraction category as the forests are closer to being farms that get harvested every 50 years.

Due to the more diverse economy BC can afford to be for environmentally focused.
Is BC really less resource dependent or has its housing bubble masked underlying economic weakness?
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  #18  
Old Posted Jul 17, 2018, 7:01 PM
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spent time in both, prefer BC, found them to be worlds apart culturally and politically, my 2 cents.
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  #19  
Old Posted Jul 17, 2018, 8:09 PM
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spent time in both, prefer bc, found them to be worlds apart culturally and politically, my 2 cents.
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  #20  
Old Posted Aug 1, 2018, 8:56 PM
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BC is more white collar while Alberta is blue collar. This leads to increased socialism in BC and capitalism in Alberta.

Also, there is the debate over the pipeline which is causing a large conflict between the two.
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