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VICTORIA — Long before Quebec produced a political party bent on separatism, British Columbia entertained serious thoughts of quitting Canada.

The drive culminated in a resolution passed by the legislature 140 years ago this month under the leadership of then Premier George Walkem, elected on a promise to “fight Canada.”

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Framed as a direct plea to Queen Victoria, the motion called on Her Majesty to “order and direct that B.C. shall have the right to withdraw from the union” unless Ottawa got going on construction of a transcontinental railway.

The railway was promised in the terms of union under which B.C. agreed to join Canada in 1871. But through the middle years of the 1870s, the then federal Liberal government foot-dragged, believing the railway was not viable economically or financially.

As Liberal Edward Blake put it at one point: “If the Columbians should say — you must go on and finish this railway according to the terms or take the alternative of releasing us from confederation, I would take the alternative!”