“Vancouver Island is a wonderful place to live and work, but… Federally, as well as provincially, the governments have largely ignored Vancouver Island,” Richardson, an island native, told the Star in a phone interview. A new political party in British Columbia believes that Vancouver Island should become Canada’s 11th province, and a former Toronto MP is leading the charge. Robin Richardson, the Progressive Conservative MP for the Beaches riding (now roughly Toronto-Danforth and Beaches-East York) for nine months in 1979 to 1980, is the founder and leader of the Vancouver Island Party. Richardson, an economist by trade, said he became interested in the idea of provincehood for Vancouver Island while writing a book on British Columbia’s pre-Confederation history two years ago – in particular, the fact that mainland British Columbia and Vancouver Island were separate colonies until 1866. On its website, the party has a seven-part plan for achieving provincehood, with the first step focusing on electing party members to the legislative assembly in the 2017 provincial election.

Source: thestar July 01, 2016 20:00 UTC