Here’s our petition:
To:
The Members of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia
Dear Members of the Legislative Assembly:
I believe that our province is neither British nor Columbian and therefore deserves a more appropriate and more descriptive name than the one it currently bears.
It is called British because the British once claimed it as their colony. However, they did so for a grand total of thirteen years (1858-1871), and even during that brief interval they effectively controlled only a very small portion of its territory. It is called Columbia after the Columbia River, most of which flows outside its borders, and ultimately after Christopher Columbus, who was willfully ignorant of its existence, claiming that the Atlantic Ocean stretched uninterruptedly from Europe to Japan.
The name British Columbia fails to acknowledge the ethnically non-British members of our society, who will soon comprise a majority of our population, and may be deemed an affront to our Aboriginal peoples.
I believe that Cordillera is a far better name for our province, and I support the initiative of the Cordillerans for a Non-British Non-Columbia to bring about this change. I urge you to legislate a referendum to allow our citizens to choose a new name for our magnificent and beloved province.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
To sign it, go to our campaign page at change.org.