WI Separate BC and VI?

[Nicole]

IIRC, British Columbia (hereby reffered to as 'BC') and Vancouver Island (hereby reffered to as 'VI') were different colonies, but BC ran into financial difficulties and the colonies agreed to share the debt.

But what if for some reason VI and BC did not merge into one colony? Say BC doesn't splurge as much, and still runs into debt, but enough that it eventually pulls out. Is this minor enough that in 2004, the only real difference is that Canada has an extra province and whatever the butterflies cook up, or would there be effects deeper than that?