Victoria — Old Town, Chinatown & Inner Harbour
British Columbia Parliament Buildings
Listen at the stop, then read the transcript and follow the sources behind the story.
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Transcript
The present Parliament Buildings opened in the 1890s, decades after Victoria became the colonial capital.
Their architect, Francis Rattenbury, designed an elaborate complex meant to project confidence in a young province. The dome, stone façades and ceremonial grounds make government look older and more settled than it really was.
British Columbia joined Canada in 1871, partly after the federal government promised a transcontinental railway.
The legislature has since governed a province shaped by resource extraction, immigration, Indigenous land claims and intense regional growth.
The building's architecture belongs to an imperial political culture, but the laws made inside affected people who did not share equally in that power. Chinese residents faced discriminatory taxes and voting restrictions; Indigenous peoples faced dispossession and restrictive federal and provincial policies.
The façade says permanence. The political history says argument.