Document Information

Date: 1879-04-08
By: Canada (Parliament)
Citation: Canada, House of Commons Debates, 4th Parl, 1st Sess, 1879 at 1079-1080.
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SEPARATION OF BRITISH COLUMBIA FROM THE DOMINION.

PROPOSAL TO INTRODUCE A BILL.

MR. DECOSMOS: I move for leave to introduce a Bill, entitled an Act to provide for the peaceful separation of British Columbia, seconded by any gentleman opposite who thinks proper to second it.

MR. SPEAKER: Who seconds the motion?

MR. DECOSMOS: The hon. member for Sunbury?

MR. BURPEE (Sunbury): No.

The motion was not seconded.

MR. DECOSMOS said he was glad to find that certain hon. gentlemen who were condemning British Columbia from hour to hour on the floor of this House as an incubus, an excrescence; those who threw insolent epithets at the Province of British Columbia—

MR. MACKENZIE said there was nothing before the House.

MR. SPEAKER called the hon. gentleman to order.

MR. DECOSMOS said he thought he had as much right—

Several HON. MEMBERS: Order.

MR. DECOSMOS said he hoped the House, or the Speaker, would not ask him to take him seat, because, before the day was out, the occasion might arise when

[Page 1080]

he would insist on that indulgence which was granted to hon. gentlemen on both sides of the House.

MR. THOMPSON (Cariboo) moved the adjournment of the House.

MR. DECOSMOS said he had heard from time to time, in this House, the grossest insults that had ever been offered to any people, cast on the people of British Columbia. That Province had been called an excrescence, an incubus, had been charged with endeavouring to gain something from this Dominion without any equivalent. He moved this
resolution, and he asked those hon. gentlemen, who said they wished to get rid of the Province, to second the motion. Not a single hon. member, from the Premier, down even to the member for Sunbury, or the member for Charlotte, dared to second that motion.

MR. HOLTON said the hon. gentleman could not introduce a Bill, and claim a seconder on a motion to adjourn. It was utterly irregular.

MR. DECOSMOS said he merely wished to draw the attention of the House to the unfortunate position in which the Opposition stood; also, to the unfortunate position in which the Government stood. The people of British Columbia had as little faith in one side as they had in the other.

Motion, with leave of the House, withdrawn.