The Packet

Debatable history. Myth stakes. Flight facts. Wise words.

“De-naming British Columbia,” by Ry Moran (August-September 2021) was a well-documented article, and it touches on a subject that needs to be discussed.

I have no problem in renaming when it comes to issues like this that are reconciliatory and that recognize that derogatory names by their nature should not be perpetuated.

Where I draw the line, though — and I would think many Canadians would agree — is the wholesale misrepresentation of facts to support a good cause. We see too much of this these days.

What is needed is a factual presentation of history, which this article portrays, albeit with total one-sided hyperbole as the basis to show the “White man” as evil and the Indigenous people as innocent victims.

Brian Preston Portland, Ontario

Your August-September issue is really wonderful. I also want to say that the article “De-naming British Columbia” by Ry Moran is particularly good.

I am not so concerned with changing the name of British Columbia as a symbol but rather as a way for Canadians to acknowledge injustice experienced by Indigenous peoples.

The word “reconciliation” is erroneous in this context. It is for the rest of Canada to acknowledge the injustice meted out to the Indigenous people over the centuries. Ry Moran seems to have understood and expressed himself very clearly and correctly, in my opinion. Many thanks for this issue.

Grace P. Marshall Toronto

In “De-Naming British Columbia,” Ry Moran writes that various place names in the province are “a reflection of the principle of terra nullius

– a European legal fiction which held that land not occupied by Christians was vacant….”

While it is true that some Europeans frequently acted as if it was no one’s land, it is incorrect to ground legal effect for such conduct in terra

nullius. The Supreme Court of Canada determined that point in its 2014 Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia Aboriginal title decision when Chief Justice McLachlin stated, “The doctrine of terra nullius (that no one owned the land prior to European assertion of sovereignty) never applied in Canada, as confirmed by the Royal

Proclamation of 1763.”

Richard Krehbiel Kisbey, Saskatchewan