Dave became leader of the NDP in 1969 when the NDP under my old classmate, Tom Berger, lost yet another election to WAC Bennett. He led them to an upset victory in August 1972. He was later an NDP MP and ran for the leadership of the national party – and lost – but it’s his term as premier that I want to look at today.

I came into the Legislature the year he lost the government, never to be premier again, in December 1975 and sat across the chamber from him. That’s not quite accurate since Barrett lost his seat in 1975 but with a bit of the coin of the realm, Bob Williams was induced to resign his Vancouver East seat and Barrett swept back into the Legislature and became Leader of the Opposition, a post Bill King held while Dave was outside looking in.

It was an interesting time to be a rookie MLA and Cabinet Minister. Bill Bennett and Barrett, not to put to fine a point on it, hated each other’s guts and it showed between the two parties in the House.

How did Barrett lose in 1975, barely 3 years after he took office?

Looking at that, one must examine his record and that discloses that two very large policy changes he initiated which remain today and will remain – the Agriculture Land Freeze and the Insurance Company of BC, (ICBC). Both of these policies were bitterly fought by the Socreds and the business community at large. On the Land Freeze, Barrett initiated one of the largest demonstrations on the Legislature lawn ever seen and the Socreds, never guilty of understating an issue, raised the spectre of a communist takeover in Victoria. What they conveniently forgot was that an earlier land freeze was brought in by WAC Bennett who reduced the size of farms open to subdividing to 5 acres. At that time the Socreds in the Bennetts’ home town led the demonstrations. Only hard right wingers would now support serious revision of the freeze.

ICBC was controversial though nowhere as much. While the Socreds and allies opposed ICBC, again the communists  were at work, the public had no sympathy for the private companies and when we took office in December 1975, we saw that the scrambled egg could never be returned to its shell.

Where did Dave go wrong?

He scared people by using public money for highly questionable purposes. He bought the town of Ocean Falls after the mill died for want of trees; he bought a restaurant near the legislature immediately dubbed “Barrett’s Beanery”; he bought up a huge pile of BC art, most of which remains in the basement of the Parliament Buildings; he started a potato chip plant in the Kootenays on a letter from Safeway which said they would look at what was produced – it failed; and he bought Panco Poultry, immediately dubbed “Pinko Panco” which produced “all left wings and assholes”.

Barrett brought in a mining royalty which was ill thought out and stubbornly maintained it so that when I campaigned in the mining town of Logan Lake, standing outside a mine as the workers came off shift, they asked me why I was standing there freezing and shaking hands when they were going to vote for me anyway. And they did – it was one of my best areas.

Let me pause with an anecdote. One of my staunch supporters, the late Art Redman, owned a trailer park which was, itself a polling station. The vote was 34 Mair, 0 NDP and 2 Liberals. When that vote came into what was already a very excited campaign headquarters, Art rushed up to me and said “Rafe, if it takes me a year I’ll find those two fucking Liberals!”

I personally think Barrett lost in 1975 because WAC Bennett said “the NDP couldn’t run a peanut stand”, a theme successfully played upon by the Socred opposition.

The icing on the cake came in a strange way and was in fact based upon a piece of nonsense. Here’s how it happened.

During Ministers’ “estimates”, that being what they expect to spend in the next fiscal year, Members were allowed unlimited time to ask questions, questions which usually consisted of fiery statements with a question mark tagged on. As part of reforms to the practices in the legislature, the NDP put a time limit of 135 hours, all told for all ministries.

Bill Bennett decided upon a way to make this work to his advantage. The Socreds used up the entire 135 hours before it was the Finance Minister’s turn. It must be made clear that his estimates traditionally pass in a few minutes, since while his ministry doles out the money to other ministries, it spends very little itself.

When the Finance Minister’s turn came the Socreds tried to question him but were ruled out of order.

Bennett then, playing the tune set by his father and peanut stands to a fare-the-well, went around the province shouting “not a dime without debate”. It was a phony, contrived issue but it worked especially when Barrett made the huge tactical error of cutting off Bennett’s legislature pay during this absence allowing Bennett, a Kelowna millionaire, to pull out the “poor me” card.

Dealing with changes to legislature practice Barrett brought in three first class ones – Hansard, Question Period and he made the chairmanship of the Finance Committee a member of the opposition.

I mustn’t leave this bit without telling this story.

After we had won in 1975, our House Leader, Garde Gardom, thought about this 135 hour limit on debating estimates and concluded that it was pretty reasonable after all and suggested to the NDP House Leader, the late Dennis Cocke, that it be followed. I don’t know precisely what Cocke said but it was something like “you have to be ……. well kidding – you will never get through the estimates by the time our members are done with you!” True to his word the NDP spun out the estimates until two or three days before Christmas including what was customarily the Summer break.

We deserved it … and we knew it.

How does the Barrett era look now?

Not nearly as bad as it did in December 1975. There are few premiers who have ever left office, after just a bit over three years,  instituting two permanent public policy decisions, ICBC and the Agricultural land freeze, and several long overdue changes to House Rules.

Barrett made a fundamental mistake – he forgot that the NDP are not the natural governing party and could not beat a unified opposition. He scared people, not so much with his main changes noted above, but with the silly things as also noted above. Bill Bennett painted Barrett and the NDP as wastrels who “couldn’t run a peanut stand” and Barrett provided the prima facie evidence of its truth. This coalesced the opposition and he lost. In this context it’s useful to note that in 1972 the NDP won a near landslide with 39% of the vote and in 1975 lost a near landslide … with 39% of the vote!

My conclusion is that Dave Barrett, controversial as he was, made a very positive and substantial contribution to our province and it’s long overdue that this be recognized.

From this aging politico to another – Happy Birthday Dave and many more of them.

At the outset, the Liberals under Gordon Wilson looked like the Socreds re-branded. That perception stayed until Gordon Campbell launched his term in office with a billion dollar tax rebate to the well off. His government looks increasingly like a party of the hard right. Whereas Bill Bennett with the Social Credit Party created a wide tent welcoming all who weren’t disposed to the NDP.

In the election of December 11, 1975, of which I was a part, there were federal Tories and Liberals galore.

In the 1979 election, which coincided with a federal election, it was quite common to see lawns with Social Credit and Liberal signs, Socred and Tory signs and even Socred signs along with NDP signs for the federal vote. My campaign workers bust their asses for me while at the same time they were bitter foes right outside our campaign offices and they fought in the federal campaign.

There are rumblings that the BC Conservative party will campaign in our next election in 2013. This would be a big mistake for at least two reasons – the political vacuum is in the centre not the right and British Columbians won’t vote for provincial branches of a federal party. That’s why, when Gordon Wilson took over the BC Liberals in 1991, he immediately divorced his party from the federal Liberals.

The NDP is an exception to this rule because no one thinks they’re going to form the next government in Ottawa.

It’s not easy forming a new party. For one thing, you must worry about money the same way the post 1972 Socreds and the 1991 Wilson Liberals did. It’s always hard to wrest funds from those to whom you haven’t proved yourself.

Another problem is that all the wing nuts, professional malcontents and political wanabes flock to your colours. Preston Manning had that problem when he founded the Reform Party. But, why the hell should an undertaking like this be easy?

The fact is that the best thing Campbell has going for him is the apparent weakness of the opposition NDP. He may find, however, that unorthodox though it’s been, Carole James avoidance of the head to head clash and strategy of building up support in smaller communities might work better than many, including me, think it will.

The main thing is that British Columbia needs a middle of the road alternative and for that to happen, the time to get started is now.

The latest polls put Gordon (Pinocchio) Campbell in deep doo-doo at 23 points behind the NDP.

First, let’s talk about what this means for the NDP. As Carole James looks at the numbers she will note that while the Liberals are way down, neither she nor her party have much benefited in the new numbers. In fact, the Green Party and the moribund Conservatives get more than one fifth of the action and though neither of them shows any ability to win seats, they can split the vote.

It also shows a remarkable opportunity for a new party of the centre. In spite of the idiotic blatherings of former Tory MP Randy White, the Conservatives are not going to get heaps of support because those angry voters won’t vote NDP thus rocketing some as yet unnamed Conservative into the Premier’s office.

Because Mr. White evidently doesn’t understand B.C. politics, here are some reasons why the local branch of Mr. Harper’s party is not even in the picture.

1. As Gordon Wilson understood and acted upon when he became leader of the BC Liberals, he immediately shed all connections to the federal party. British Columbians don’t like federal parties in their provincial elections. This doesn’t apply to the NDP because they have no chance of forming a federal government.

2. As emphasis to number one, a provincial Conservative party will forever be blamed for what Stephen Harper is doing and has done.

3. The political vacuum is at the centre, not the far right. British Columbia is not a right-wing province. Though we have elected lots of Conservatives and before them Reform Party MPs, that’s because we wanted reform and, given the stark choices, the Tories seemed a better bet than either of the other parties. Rafe’s Axiom II applied — “You don’t have to be a 10 in politics, you can be a 3 if everyone else is a 2.”

Campbell will not be the opponent

Back to James. What does she do?

Her present policy, evidently, is to avoid the arena but to tiptoe around the spectators, telling chambers of commerce that she and her party are safe to vote for. I believe that’s a naïve approach.

She must judge the next election with the realistic strategy that since the Liberals will have a new leader, probably Carole Taylor, Diane Watts or Mike DeJong, she must govern herself accordingly. As long as James evades the issues of this day (more on issues in a moment), she’s really no better off than a Carole Taylor or Diane Watts who will be able to say “I wasn’t part of the past; let us deal with the future of this great province, blah, blah, blah” In essence their position will be “new pitcher, new strikes.”

Since most Liberal candidates will not have been in the present caucus, the Campbell baggage will be reduced, leaving James to face a newly branded Liberal party. She should prepare with that in mind.

Here’s the important part for the NDP. Either they take a stand against the James strategy or they get rid of her. They must make this decision before the end of this year. The NDP have a glorious history of eating their whelp in the manner of a frightened mother mink, a habit they must break now by either support for James’ policy or get it over with and install Adrian Dix or Mike Farnworth.

NDP’s great opportunity

Assuming the NDP does get its act together, why will a Liberal comeback be difficult if not impossible?

The answer is contained in what will hereafter be called “Rafe’s Axiom III,” namely, “never create an unpopular issue that will still be around at election time.”

To do so, is tantamount to suicide.

When I was in government an eon ago, we had an example of Rafe’s Axiom III. We had just been elected and had to clean up an NDP mess. The finance minister, the late Evan Wolfe, brought his proposed budget to cabinet, which called for raises in the price of rye, scotch, vodka, gin and beer.

Premier Bill Bennett gave one of his famous black scowls and said “don’t tax the workingman’s beer — do you want every voter in his watering hole reminded, every day from now until voting day, of our unpopular 1976 budget, which they otherwise would have forgotten?”

Lousy logic but great politics.

Let’s look at Premier Campbell’s violations of Axiom III:

1. Thanks to the Basi-Virk trial, the offloading of BC Rail to CN will still be an issue in 2013 — so will the fact that he had sworn in two elections that he wouldn’t do it.

2. Because of his spectacular election falsehoods about the huge deficit B.C. had, relying on ancient but much more digestible numbers, the Liberals will not be able to rely upon the myth that they know best how to manage our financial affairs.

3. The Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) will be a constant reminder, as beer would have been in Bill Bennett’s day, of this hated tax, an issue spliced with election untruths about it. In this latter regard, let me tell you that no deal like this with Ottawa can happen suddenly. In my experience, to put this whole deal together would required at least three months, perhaps longer.

4. One can only guess at what consequences will flow from Bill Vander Zalm and Chris Delaney’s successful campaign against the HST but, sure as God made little green apples, they won’t help the government!

5. As I predicted back in 2002, the destruction of wild salmon by lice emanating from fish farms will be very much in play in 2013 and, rightly, the Liberals will wear it. It’s now clear that Pinocchio and his minions knew about the sea lice problem before they removed the moratorium on increasing the number or capacity of fish cages and that they then hid the scientific evidence about that problem from the public while maintaining that all the science was on their side.

6. Pinocchio’s unbelievable rivers policy, where large international companies are destroying our rivers to create power at a time when BC Hydro doesn’t need it, forcing Hydro to export it for half or less than what they paid for it, will be front and centre — especially if, as I suspect, it results in civil disobedience.

7. More and more the Campbell decision to destroy wild habitat and farmland with his idiotic Gateway decision will be seen not only as environmentally destructive but lousy economics as it becomes obvious to all that Deltaport will not need to expand now that the Northwest Passage is open and the huge Panama Canal upgrades are finished.

8. A very antsy bunch of voters will, every day it pays a large toll on the new Highway 1, be reminded of why it hates the Campbell government.

9. Above all, Campbell and his government will be seen as serial tellers of blatant falsehoods.

Pussycat politics won’t win

Does all of this bode so evil for the Liberals that they will be facing a 2002-like wipeout?

On the merits it should, but merit doesn’t always count in politics. However they face this dilemma — if Campbell goes, the leadership contest will serve, as did the NDP convention that elected Ujjal Dosanjh, a public display of very soiled linen indeed.

On the other hand, if they do not replace Campbell, the next election could be a wipeout, especially if a new version of the old Social Credit Party with a credible leader (John Cummins and Vicki Huntington come to mind) appears on the scene.

Finally (no saying thank God!) all of this makes the issue of NDP leadership and policy the deciding factor.

Can pussycat politics prevail in this province? Or does winning require a snarling tiger? It’s one or the other, folks.

The New Democratic Party must answer that question soon.

Very soon.

Cartoon by Ingrid Rice.

Voters are mad as hell, but that’s a long way from building a serious ‘third party.’

There is a lot of chatter about a significant new party coming to B.C. politics. Given the appalling state of governance and opposition, such a discussion is not surprising.

Gordon Campbell and his so-called Liberals are in high odor indeed and have created a number of issues that will still be around to haunt them in 2013, the time of the next election.

The NDP are high in the polls but that is much more reflective of Campbell’s unpopularity than the popularity of Carole James & Co. In fact the NDP have got to hope that in 2013 that the Liberals will be so unpopular that, like 1991, a fencepost with hair could beat them. But, as reflected in this space before, the NDP can’t run their affairs on the assumption that Campbell will be around but on the worst case scenario, namely that the Liberals will be led by Carole Taylor or Diane Watts. There is absolutely no indication that the NDP will change leaders. If they do, it will probably be too late. The NDP have always had the habit of eating themselves into a bad stew when they select leaders.

So doesn’t this all point to a new party that might make a serious difference in the next election or even win?

Unhappily for the province the answer is no.

Bring back Socreds?

Let’s start off by acknowledging that the BC Greens would lay claim to “third party” status today. But their base has proven to be too limited to surge to prominence in the next election. Who else then might?

The first possibility some mention is the comeback of the Socred or Reform parties. I’m told that the old Social Credit party is under the control of two or three people and is in no position to present itself, as it did in Bill Bennett’s day, as a middle of the road populist party. That’s sad and brings back the past where in 1991 Rita Johnston bested Grace McCarthy for leader with an election coming up. I think most “pols” would agree that if Grace had been around in the 1991 election she probably wouldn’t have won but would have held the party together sufficiently to have a sizeable opposition such that in the election following they would be competitive. But that’s not what happened.

The Reform Party is for — and I avoid a lawsuit — the optimistic misfits who always dominate the early going with any new or revived party.

What about the Progressive Democratic Alliance, the dream child of Gordon Wilson who, alas, has not been in the legislature during Campbell’s reign. The PDA is not going to be the answer nor will Gordon Wilson try very hard to revive it.

The most talked about alternative is the Conservative party under former federal minister, Randy White. It won’t work for a number of reasons not the least of which is that they would always have to deal with the federal Conservative wing for whose peccadilloes they will be obliged to explain away.

Gordon Wilson’s war

It’s instructive to look back to 1987 when Gordon Wilson became leader of the BC Liberal Party. Immediately upon taking the chair, Wilson began to remove any and all connection between what until then was a national party with a provincial wing and create a new independent party. He also knew that his party always had to look independent to be independent and he got lucky when the Meech Lake Accord came down which would have, amongst other things, have given Quebec a special constitutional place in our national affairs. I got to know Gordon very well during this period and can tell you that he it may have looked like political opportunist but he genuinely opposed it. He got behind Newfoundland premier, Clyde Wells, the leading anti Meech politician and a very popular symbol of opposition, especially in B.C., to the deal. Sincere though Wilson was, the presence of the Meech Lake Accord was serendipitous and got Wilson known and respected and helped the BC Liberal party to look to voters like a B.C. party.

Wilson got lucky again during the leaders’ debate in the 1991 campaign which he worked very hard to be part of and succeeded.

Working from a physical position between Mike Harcourt for the NDP and premier Rita Johnston and was able to get off this zinger as Harcourt and Johnston quarreled — “this is a perfect example of why nothing ever gets done in Victoria.” He of all people knew that under our system all decisions are made by the premier’s office and that the function of the Legislature is to rubber stamp government legislation and policy. In fact, however, it would become the campaign’s most successful slogan which Wilson converted into 17 seats, up from zero. At that, though Wilson’s new party went from zero seats to 17, he was a long way from winning.

NDP’s vote ceiling?

It’s instructive to look at past election results were you’ll see that the NDP garner about 40 per cent of the vote — the exception being the trouncing they took in 2001 when they got 29 per cent and two lonely MLAs. When there are no viable other options and it’s a two horse race, they lose. When there are viable alternatives, such as 1972 and 1991, they win, with the exception of 1996 when with 42 per cent they managed to win against the Liberals who had 46 per cent. The conclusion, in my view, is that in a straight fight between Carole James against a Carole Taylor or Dianne Watts, without a viable third party in the race, the NDP will lose. With a viable third party — and the key word is viable, the Liberals have a good chance of winning in spite of their brutal record.

Let’s go back to Randy White and the Conservatives. The first question is how do they position themselves to the left of the Liberals which is where they must be to have any hope of achieving any electoral success?

How does Randy White build a team, especially when history tells us that any new party attracts the eccentric, to put it mildly? I see no evidence that White himself has any personal charisma and there’s no evidence that any such people are lining up to support his party.

How does he raise any serious money? The business community will look for the best prospect of a friendly government and will support the Liberals, especially if they have a leader who can dissociate themselves from the mess Campbell leaves. The unpalatable truth is that you need money, and lots of it, to fight in all constituencies.

Perhaps White’s most serious problem will be to cut loose from the national party while looking to members of that party for funds. Funding problems also exist, big time, for a new party.

Too soon to place wagers

Most of the forgoing has Gordon Campbell leaving before 2013 and that’s not certain, for many reasons the major one being that leaders who don’t want to go are very hard to dislodge. By 1988, Bill Vander Zalm had become a very unpopular leader of the Social Credit Party and the dissidents wanted to turf him out at the annual conference that year held in Penticton. The knives were out and there was provision in the constitution to remove a leader in a secret ballot. The backroom weasels moved a motion that whether or not there had to be an open vote to do so before any secret leadership vote could be taken! Vander Zalm stayed. Likewise, if Campbell wants to stay, he’ll probably stay creating the same sort of divisions in the party that faced the Socreds after Vander Zalm left.

The NDP face a similar problem although they are so fractured at the best of times that they’re more used to it. As long as James’es numbers stay high, her supporters, especially party president Moe Sihota, will probably fight her fight successfully.

It’s all so like a horse race; who has the best post position? What shape will the track be in, fast, muddy or maybe sloppy? How good is the manager, namely the jockey? And what about the campaign committee, the trainer, the veterinarian, the grooms?

As we ponder our betting options, my wager is that we’ll know a lot more about the race by this time next year.

One of the real downers in this business is having to criticize, if not dump on, people you like. And politicians, like most people, are pretty nice people who are trying to do a good job.

However, I don’t think Carole James can become premier — and the NDP will, unless I miss my guess, come to the same decision before the next election.

Hard to be leader

It’s not easy to lead the NDP. While all parties have a left and right and centre to them, the NDP have factions which remain factions no matter what. I’ve used this example before, so forgive me, but you would never see the Liberals ask Jimmy Pattison to give the keynote address at a convention. If they did, no matter what Pattison said, it would be easy to say, “There they go, the Liberals are kissing the backsides of big business again”.

They will do handstands to make sure that their speaker, though a supporter of the party, doesn’t divide the party or scare the pants off the voter. One of the big reasons for this is that while Campbell relies on Big Business for his money, high-profile business people know that their job is to write cheques, not make speeches.

On the other hand, the NDP simply must have someone from one of the factions that make up the party speak at their convention, which leaves them open to “there they go again, kowtowing to Labour, or the teachers, or the fuzzy red intellectuals” or whatever.

All parties have difficulty reinvigorating themselves after an electoral loss or with a change of leader, especially the NDP. There was Bob Skelly in 1984 after the loss in 1983, Ujjal Dosanjh on Feb. 20, 2000 when the party was on the ropes following the resignation of Glen Clark and the brief interregnum of Dan Miller, and Carole James on Nov. 23, 2003 when the party had only three MLAs. Nice people — that may have been the problem — but losers.

Mike Harcourt’s selection in 1990 only looked good if you don’t consider the election results of 1991. That was the year the Socreds self-immolated and the public, unwilling to throw their support to the NDP, gave them 40 per cent of the vote, less than they received in 1986 when Vander Zalm won! If you go way back to Dave Barrett, who became leader after the 1969 election rout, you see that he won in 1972, the year the W.A.C. Bennett government collapsed, with only 39 per cent of the popular vote.

You must be thinking, or perhaps hoping, that I was working up to something — and here it is. It may be time for a new party to appear on our political scene. It’s a long shot — but let’s take a look anyway.

The (tenuous) case for a new BC party

Barring a miracle, the Liberal Party, with or without Campbell (especially with), will be somewhere between unpopular and hated by 2013. Environmental questions, including the fish farms and the energy policy — and Campbell’s record on such matters — will emerge as big issues. Don’t forget the hated HST which, if it passes, will be a daily reminder. The NDP may, as in 1972 and 1991, face a badly wounded party, hoping that they can get 40 per cent of the popular vote and win. Can they win with a weak leader? Can they fill that vacuum — or might that vacuum attract another player into the game?

It will be very tough for a new party to gain traction. It will be utterly impossible if it simply emerges out of the mist of the past with the usual right-wingers to whom Preston Manning and Stephen Harper are seen as limp wristed pinkos.

The political arena doesn’t need a new party of the right. The one that’s in the government now is conservative enough for all. The open space is in the middle — especially the middle-left, the centre and the middle-right — and it’s precisely the territory that was occupied by the Bill Bennett Socreds from 1975 until 1986. That’s when Bill Vander Zalm took over the party, shoved it to the right and created the vacuum filled by Gordon Wilson and his B.C. Liberal Party in 1991.

To create such a party and have it ready for 2013 is a herculean task. Critical to its even being born is the group that shows up to form it and the leaders it selects — Wilf Hanni need not apply. No new party has been successful since W.A.C. Bennett in 1952. Thus the vacuum may well be filled as it was in May 2009, with half the voters saying “a plague on both your houses” and staying home.

Three candidates to lead NDP

Will the NDP change leaders then, and come up with a potential winner in order to have a good shot in 2013?

With difficulty. Leaders are hard to dislodge — see Bill Vander Zalm and the Socred efforts to be rid of him.

First, you need a ruthless “assassin” — and going back to the days of Brutus, that person usually doesn’t get the crown. This means that the rank and file must make the move at a convention — and political conventions are fixed to ensure that that sort of thing doesn’t happen.

I see three people who I believe could win against either Campbell or his successor.

Adrian Dix is clearly one of them. While the “forged memo” clings to him, it’s not likely that the Liberals will have much luck being the pot that calls the kettle black.

John Horgan, if his health permits, would be an eminently saleable option.

And here’s a name out of the blue (I haven’t spoken to him about this) — George Heyman. He is a former labour leader who did well for his troops without looking scary as hell. As executive director of the B.C. Sierra Club, he is also in a perfect position to watch and wait. Lastly, he has sufficient standing in the NDP, which would allow him to seem remote from the dirty work that changing leaders entails.

Given my record of picking political winners, you will no doubt give this opinion just the weight it deserves.

Post script

On another matter, who says Tiger Woods has some obligation to answer questions from jocks who don’t want answers — just the chance to “pile on”?

Cartoon by Ingrid Rice

Carole James is no autocrat — and her party, for better or worse, lacks discipline.

Much note has been taken in the press of the conflicting speeches of Jim Sinclair and Carole James at the recent NDP conference, with Sinclair representing the BC Federation of Labour and James speaking for herself and those who support her. I was surprised that columnists don’t understand that this sort of thing is endemic to this party.

First, one should know about the NDP’s “mother,” the CCF (Cooperative Commonwealth Federation). The Canadian Encyclopedia says this: “the CCF was founded in 1932 in Calgary as a political coalition of progressive, socialist and labour forces anxious to establish a political vehicle capable of bringing about economic reforms to improve the circumstances of those suffering the effects of the Great Depression. The main impetus for the formation of the new party came from farmers’ organizations (including the United Farmers of Alberta, which governed that province), and a handful of academics… allied with both farmer and trade-union organizations.”

The Columbia Encyclopedia version of the founding convention of the NDP puts it like this: “The New Democratic Party (NDP), a Canadian political party, was founded in 1961 when the CCF reorganized itself and entered into close ties with Canadian labor unions, especially the Canadian Labor Congress (CLC). The CCF, formed in 1932, began as a largely Western Canadian federation of farm, labor and socialist groups with a democratic socialist program of increased welfare measures, moderate nationalization, and government economic planning.”

Clearly, then, the distinction between “labour forces” and “trade unions” is key to understanding the foundation of the New Democratic Party.

Coalitions, and covering up

In days of yore when I sat in the legislature, I was always amused by NDP members calling us Socreds “a coalition” — as if they weren’t a better example of that than we were!

I think the distinction between the NDP and the Social Credit Party, aka the Liberal party of B.C., is that the former wants to gain power without ironclad party discipline, while the latter wants to keep it and knows that ironclad discipline is critical to that goal. The NDP coalition in power usually displays the traits of a shaky partnership — one of differing influences and issues trying to find a method of governance that keeps everyone in that coalition relatively at peace with the government. The Socreds/Liberals, on the other hand, display the discipline of people who put “staying in government” ahead of any wishes of partners in their coalition — or of those they represent.

In saying this, I’m not supporting or condemning either party — instead I’m demonstrating the different considerations each party’s leaders have.

Look at it this way. The very last keynote speaker the Liberals want is a union-bashing capitalist opposed to minimum wage, in favour of “right-to-work” legislation while insisting on cutting corporate taxes. Yet the very opposite of that was the person selected by the NDP for its keynote speech. It has no choice but to give its “left” the big speech, whereas the Liberals hide their “right” in the nearest closet.

That the Socred/Liberal approach is more successful, as is revealed by a quick look at election results in B.C. since the advent of W.A.C. Bennett. The NDP record is worse than that — only once, in 1996, have they won an election in a head-to-head combat with a strong opponent. In 1972, Dave Barrett simply filled a vacuum created by the collapse of an old, tired government. In 1991, after five years of Vander Zalm and his unfortunate successor, a fencepost with hair could have won for the NDP — in fact, they did it with a fencepost without hair.

Transparency versus autocracy

When Jim Sinclair spoke last week, he did so as a politician with his own constituency. He must speak for them because that’s his duty, and it’s the way he gets re-elected. He was there to make sure that the interests of the labour movement were shared with the convention in no uncertain terms. Moreover, it’s the labour movement that has lost its special voting bloc arrangement in the party, thanks to Carole James.

This is an awkward political situation. But is it to be condemned because it pays more than lip service to democracy and washes most of its laundry openly?

Put another way, is government by autocracy better because it is unyielding and pays no attention to those who disagree with it? Is government by autocracy better than a government that might, from time to time, dither because it is trying to deal with different issues within the party? I don’t know that answer. I just say that this is the way it is.

There is no doubt that the pundits are right in saying that James has a tough row to hoe. The NDP constantly creates circles that are impossible to square, and the leader must somehow deal with that. It’s not that Jim Sinclair doesn’t want the NDP to win. He just wants different things pledged towards that victory. He’s scarcely the only cross James must bear.

Left, more left, and further left

This isn’t a new or unique problem for the “left.” The British Labour Party has dealt with it, starting with the first time they were in power under Ramsay Macdonald. Interestingly, the Labour Party was founded as a working alliance between the trade unions and socialist societies such as the International Labour Party and the Fabian Society, a sort of parlour gathering of intellectuals like the Webbs and George Bernard Shaw.

Macdonald was a minority government prime minister in 1931 when the depression came, and he entered into a national coalition with the Conservatives under Stanley Baldwin. On the urgings of King George V, he then called (and won) an election as the leader of a “national government,” which split the Labour party, killed the Liberals and left Macdonald as prime minister. The breakdown in MPs was 554 seats — comprising 470 Conservatives, 13 National Labour, 68 Liberals (Liberal National and Liberal) and various others. In the meantime, a Labour party led by Arthur Henderson won only 52 seats while the Lloyd George Liberals won four. Macdonald governed for four years with only 13 seats!

That split in the Labour party is still there — although the “right wing” of the party has dominated the “left” since the end of World War II.

The proportional representation piece

Can the NDP survive and prosper under Carole James, or under anyone else for that matter?

It will be tough, but there is a solution which is now probably out of reach. That would be some sort of proportional representation that takes power away from the “party” and gives it to MLAs.

NDP Leader Carole James knows this and supports it, while powerful members of the party like David Schreck and Bill Tieleman oppose it.

And that’s the NDP’s abiding problem in a nutshell.