Join the Friends of the City of Vancouver Archives for their annual fall fundraiser on Sunday 20 October, 2013, at 2p.m. The topic is “From Chaos to Control: McBride, Joly, and the Rise of Party Politics in British Columbia,” and the speakers are Dr. Jack Little and Dr. Patricia Roy.
City of Vancouver Archives, 1150 Chestnut Street in Vanier Park
All tickets $30
* ticket sales on Eventbrite beginning September 30.
Seating is limited. Light refreshments.
Description: As the 2oth century dawned, British Columbia politics were a tangled mess. Governments came and went rapidly as loose groups of supporters formed new coalitions. A young MLA in New Westminster, Richard McBride, found an unlikely ally in Lieutenant – Governor Sir Henri Joly de Lotbinière, a Protestant Québécois appointed by Liberal Sir Wilfred Laurier and formed a government under the Conservative banner on 1902. Party Politics had arrived in B.C.! McBride’s stable administration, which lasted until 1915, oversaw the greatest economic boom of the era, and provincial politics never looked back. Drawing on material from their two recent biographies, Patricia Roy and Jack Little explain the circumstances leading to this political evolution and reflect on matters of party discipline and governance relevant today when a portion of the populace dreams of politicians “representing their constituents” and “voting their conscience.“
