Sunday April 7, 2024 | VICTORIA, BC [Updated April 9, 2024]
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Tartan Day which is celebrated on April 6 has become an annual celebration of Scottish culture, connections and heritage in Canada.
Tartan Day is celebrated throughout the world in honour of the Declaration of Arbroath (April 6, 1320) which was the Scottish nations Declaration of Independence. National Tartan Day was recognized officially in Canada on October 21, 2010 by the Honourable James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages.
Tartans:
A tartan represents a clan, a family and a community, and is an enduring symbol of Scotland that is cherished by over 4.7 million Canadians of Scottish ancestry.
Tartans were first brought to Canada by Scottish settlers. There has been a strong presence of Scottish names in Canada.
Names that are Gaelic in origin include Angus, Campbell and MacGregor. Norman-French origin is found in the clans Bruce, Cummings, Fraser, Grant and Sinclair. Ultimately Norse (i.e. Scots who were infiltrated or conquered by Vikings) are Gunn, Lamont, Macdonald, MacDougall, MacLeod, MacNeill and Sutherland. English (Roman lineage) heritage clans include Johnson, Leslie and Stewart (although this final family was originally Breton and came over with the Normans).
There are over 8,000 registered tartans worldwide including the Canadian Maple Leaf as a national tartan, provincial tartans and the Victoria City of Gardens tartan.
BC Tartan created for Canada’s centennial:
The British Columbia tartan was designed by Eric Ward in 1966 as part of celebrating Canada’s centennial in 1967. In 1974 it was officially adopted as the provincial tartan.
The Pacific Dogwood is the official flower of the province and is represented by white in the tartan. Green is for the BC forests which cover an area twice as big as all of the New England states and New York State. Blue is for the Pacific Ocean. Red is for Canada’s national emblem of the maple leaf and gold is for the sun and the crown in the provincial flag.
The BC tartan was recorded in the Lyon Court Books on January 8, 1969.
Place names & family names:
Many Scottish place-names in Canada are based on surnames. The main types are occupational, descriptive, patronymic and territorial.
Examples of occupational names are Avenir (OF. avener, oat merchant), Faulkner (falconer), Gardiner (gardener), Lymburner (lime-burner), Milner (miller), Pender (impounder of strayed cattle), Sclater (slater), Sellars (M.E. seler, a saddler), Shearer (cutter of cloth), Spence (dispenser of food from the larder) and Stewart (originally the “steward” or chief manager of the royal household).
Patronymic derivatives of occupational names are Macoun or Macgowan (son of the Gow or blacksmith) and MacIntyre (son of the carpenter).
Descriptive names are Auld (old), Young or Yonge, Baine (G. ban, white or flaxen-haired), Reid (red-headed), Duff (F. dubh, dark), Campbell (G. Caimbeaul, crooked mouth), Cameron (G. cam-shron, hooked nose), Strang, strong, or else OF. estrange, a foreigner), and Tod (nickname, “the fox”).
Patronymic names may be Scandinavian (with a suffixed-son), Gaelic (with a prefixed Mac “son of”), and English (with a suffixed genitival -s).
Formed on the Scandinavian model are Allison (son of Ellis), Anderson (son of Andrew), Dawson (son of Dawe or David), Ferguson (son of Olr. Fergus, the grandfather of Saint Columba), Jameson (son of James), Matheson (son of Matthew), Paterson or Patterson (son of Patrick), Ni-colson (son of Nicol), Robertson (son of Robert), Robinson (son of Robin), and Simpson (son of Sim or Simeon).
View Royal celebration:
Yesterday Local MLA Mitzi Dean (Esquimalt-Metchosin) took part in a Tartan Day celebration of Scottish culture and heritage at the Scottish Community Centre in View Royal.
“Thanks to everybody who made Tartan Day a success. I appreciated the opportunity to catch up with John Devine, the head of the Scottish government’s Canadian office,” said Dean in social media.
Visits to Canada:
Back in July 2023, The Research Centre for Scottish Studies at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby welcomed members of the United Kingdom parliament, Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) and Alyn Smith (Stirling). They were in Vancouver to attend the 30th Annual Session of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA), with interest in the current research and outreach projects at the centre.
In the week of April 8, 2024 (April 9 and 10) the delegation will undertake a two-day visit to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia in Victoria – one of the legislatures studied when the structures and procedures of the Scottish Parliament were being designed.
The delegation will observe the BC Legislative Assembly in action and have a series of meetings to discuss key issues and share best practice, meeting counterparts including the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly the Honourable Raj Chouhan, Members of the Legislative Assembly and Kate Ryan-Lloyd, Clerk of the Legislative Assembly.
While in Victoria, the Presiding Officer will meet the British Consul General, Thomas Codrington, and the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, the Hon Janet Austin OBC.
Thomas Codrington arrived in Vancouver as the British Consul General in February 2022. He is the UK Government’s representative in British Columbia, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories.
Mixed Member Proportional Representation:
Scotland’s Parliament was established in 1999, with elections to be held using Mixed Member Proportional Representation. “This is what it looks like when the government actually cares what you think,” said Fair Vote Canada back in 2022.
“The Scottish Parliament was always envisaged as a place where parties would have to seek compromise and consensus,” said First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in 2022.
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