Do Archives Matter?
There has been much talk lately of defending BC and Canada. Canadian flags are flying in apartment windows and on lawns. There’s a giant maple leaf pinned to the front of the BC legislature. In the February 2025 Speech from the Throne, the BC NDP government sat in the legislature and invoked the province’s past as a foundation for the challenges ahead:
“Our province has everything we need to succeed: a strong economy supported by many different industries; abundant natural resources and clean energy the world needs; and our most important strength of all – the people who call this extraordinary place home. The people of B.C. are hardworking, highly skilled and resilient. This is who we are. Throughout history, British Columbians have risen to meet the moment.”
If we accept that BC’s history tells us how we might succeed in this moment, one might expect to hear about renewed government support for the cultural institutions that help explain who we are – especially in the face of annexation talk from our neighbour.
Mostly what the government proposes in its speech is a defence of BC and Canada’s sovereignty over resource extraction. “This is who we are,” the Lieutenant Governor read in the legislature.
If we know anything about who we are in BC, it is thanks in part to record keeping. Records from the past can be accessed at archives and are used to interpret and understand the past. If we’re not American, the BC Archives is one of the most important institutions that offers explanations as to why.
At the end of 2024, the Friends of the BC Archives (FBCA) released a position paper titled BC Archives: New Facilities; New Directions. If you’re not a member of that non-profit society, you probably missed the paper. Let me break it down for you in two sentences:
Since 2004, the BC Archives has suffered significant cuts to its budget and mandate. Its ability to help people in the province access and tell their stories is severely compromised.
Archives are places where we have the potential to make sense of who we are. Destroying cultural heritage and access to the past is intended to make way for a fascist future(think book burnings).
There’s a reason that archives (and cultural and educational institutions as a whole) are being targeted by the US federal government. Russia has attacked archives in Ukraine, Israel has destroyed archives in Palestine.
Archives matter.
The FBCA’s position paper deals with policy and archival standards that are not accessible to most people outside the archival profession. However, this excerpt sums up the scale of the problem for British Columbians:
“Archives are authoritative sources of information that underpin accountable and transparent administrative actions. They must be managed from the point of creation, by archival professionals and agencies working under the umbrella of effective and up-to-date archival policies and laws. The BC Archives as currently configured cannot fulfil this essential role.”
A new building will not fix structural problems at the BC Archives. Our cultural institutions have been hollowed out and now is the time for renewal. Talk with your friends and family about the need to support cultural heritage in BC, write to your MLA, write a letter to the editor.
It seems the BC government has no interest in supporting its provincial archives. Soaring rhetoric and increased resource extraction are the proposed solution to the threats we face – something that makes us exactly the same as those we say we are different from.
We Might Have Been the 51st State
In the last dispatch, I talked about efforts to annex BC/Vancouver Island in the 1860s. On Sunday, 30 March, John Adams will be giving a tour of Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria where he will visit the graves of many influential people who pushed for annexation. For tour details, click here.