Western Refederation Party of British Columbia
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The Western Refederation Party of British Columbia ("RefedBC") is a populist provincial political party in British Columbia, Canada which was formed shortly after the 2000 federal election. The party believes that the western provinces are treated unfairly and should secede.
It was founded as the Western Independence Party of British Columbia to promote the separation of the four western provinces of Canada (BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba) to form a new, independent nation. Although it shared this goal with the federal Western Independence Party, it was never connected with that party.
The party has since slightly changed its focus; it now hopes to force changes to the way that British Columbia is governed within Canada. If it is unable to achieve these changes, then it would allow a provincial referendum on political independence from Canada for British Columbia.
The Refederation Party argues that there are three constitutional flaws in Canada. The first, that there exists no confederation document approved democratically. The second, that there exists no democratically achieved constitutional document and the third, that there is no constitutional basis for the federal governments rights to collect income tax.
RefedBC nominated four candidates in the 2005 provincial election, who won a total of 653 votes (0.039% of the popular vote across the province):
- Bruce Ryder won 275 votes (0.90% of the total) in Nanaimo-Parksville,
- Linden Robert Shaw won 168 votes (0.69%) in Nanaimo
- Allen McIntyre won 149 votes (0.62%) in Powell River-Sunshine Coast, and
- Mel Garden won 61 votes (0.21%) in Comox Valley.
[edit] Party program
The goals of the Western Refederation Party of BC are to change the political system in British Columbia by:
- Declaring that the citizens of BC should be the sole source of political power in the province.
- Creating a British Columbia constitution
- Implementing direct democracy based on the Swiss Model as a right of citizens.
- Negotiating changes in the relationship between BC and the federal government. The party states that if it is unable to attain the changes it wants with the federal government, then a referendum on separation will happen.
