Victoria City is a city of extremes. Mostly the culture is ‘high Victorian’, which means that it is of British Colonial heritage. The first official judge in Victoria City, according to local documentation was Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie (9 May 1819 – 11 June 1894). The Law Library at the University of Victoria, BC Canada, used to have a statue of Justice Begbie, about 7 years ago. Then something happened to the statue, which disappeared one night into thin air. This mysterious disappearance of the statue led to the resolve of the conflict between Victoria City Colonialism and one of the Indigenous tribes. Justice Begbie is known to have hung an Indigenous chief. This act of hanging the chief of a tribe, is like Nelson Mandela’s father who was a counselor to kings in South Africa, and who was virtually stripped of all his power within his village and within his tribe caused by the Apartheid Republic of South African regime. Many Indigenous individuals, and through some course work through the UVic Law Degree, draw a parallel with Apartheid South Africa and the current Canadian government. This is a subject which I will exit, because my Dutch heritage omits me from having an opinion on colonialism. Instead, I like to venture into historic accounts and learn what historians and academics had to say on the subject. I also like to explore history to find answers to our current day society. In Victoria city – the biggest divide, is in the lack of innovation and the underdevelopment of laws. Our city of Victoria is only 150 years old, that is when the city got inaugurated; and to me, that means my birth country is still in an infancy stage. The laws to protect humans are inadequate, and it is not the fault of the country to have inadequate laws. Western Europe took more than 2000 years to develop their law systems, so it is impossible for Canada to have caught up on their sophicated laws in 1/20 the amount of time. Canada is a unique country and unique laws. It will take at least another 1500 years to reach a mature stage of law creation, modification and implementation. Until that time, there will be cowboys who profit off the economical system of free entreprise and there will be citizens who suffer the consequences of the free enterprise Neo Liberal system in which so far (in 2017) is ingrained in many British Columbian’s psyches. As of July 18th, Victoria City will have a new Premier, Mr. John Horgan of the BC NDP however, in my opinion, it is going to take more then hypnotism to try to get the capitalist Neo Liberalism wolves to transform into socialist welfare state sheep.
My city. My Circus.
(Photograph of Victoria City Hall)
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