NO REPEATING BARRETT’S REMARKABLE LEGACY
Proposed proportional voting system wouldn’t have seen him leading B.C.
The New Democrats staged two memorials for the late Dave Barrett on the weekend, one a formal sendoff in the provincial capital, the other a more down-to-earth “gathering of the clan” in Vancouver.
Both featured lengthy tributes to a premier who accomplished much during a mere three years and three months, from the monumental — ICBC, the Agricultural Land Reserve, Pharmacare — to smaller actions that resonated for British Columbians of a certain age.
Premier John Horgan acknowledged one of the latter in his remarks, when he observed that the Barrett government decision to ban corporal punishment in the schools likely spared him the strap on more than one occasion.
At the Saturday event in the provincial capital which I attended, the inspirational speakers included Bob Williams, 85, and Bill King, 87, both senior ministers in the Barrett government of 1972-75.
The estimated crowd of 800 in the auditorium at the University of Victoria also heard from Joy MacPhail, an NDP minister in the 1990s and lately chair of ICBC. She drew a laugh when, in mock sarcasm, she thanked Horgan for appointing her to oversee the troubled corporation.
Happily, there were plenty of laughs, not least from the three children of one of the more witty storytellers to ever inhabit the B.C. political arena.
Son Joe recounted how his father liked to stir things up at home as well. Once, after the son returned from university with hair over his shoulders, dad greeted him with: “You look like Jesus.” Joe, no slouch at a comeback, replied: “Well, son of God.”
Daughter Jane told how, like many teenagers, she didn’t want people to know what her dad did for a living, so she told them he was a plumber. Then, after a pause worthy of her master-of-thepublic-platform father, she punch-lined that it was an apt choice, given how plumbers will end up covered in a certain substance when unclogging a sewer.
Son Dan followed with the time premier Barrett, who had been getting death threats over his more controversial policies, was walking through downtown Victoria and noticed Harvey Beech, his ever present aide, lagging behind.
“Get up here Harvey, you should be out front, protecting the premier of B.C.,” Barrett urged. “Well you know what they say boss,” returned Beech. “You can kill the man, but you can’t kill the idea.”
Not especially comforting for a premier under siege — though the father would incorporate the exchange into his bottomless supply of anecdotes for all occasions.
Joking aside, the weekend proceedings included several reminders that the Barrett government’s legacy generated a huge backlash at the time.
Lt.- Gov. Judith Guichon acknowledged as much in her tribute to B.C.’s 26th premier, when she confessed that as a member of the ranching community, she’d had her doubts about the Agricultural Land Reserve. Only in retrospect did she come to see it as the treasure it is for all B.C.
Anger over the ALR and ICBC, over taxes and spending, and a government that was seen as going too far too fast, explains why Barrett was gone from the office of premier after just 39 months, never to be returned.
He called a snap election in the fall of 1975 only to be defeated by the combined opposition of three parties that had fought the previous election as separate entities. The centre-right remained sufficiently united to keep him at bay despite his two more tries at a comeback.
I thought of that development Saturday when hearing the current premier and other New Democrats marvel at the scope of Barrett’s accomplishments without a nod to the electoral system that helped make it possible.
Under the winner-take-all electoral system known as first past the post, Barrett won a comfortable majority of seats in the then-55-seat legislature with 40 per cent of the vote. It would prove to be one of the smallest shares of the popular vote won by any majority government in the past 50 years, equalled only by the margins that gave the NDP its other majorities in 1991 and 1996.
Under the proportional representation system favoured by Horgan and today’s New Democrats, Barrett’s party would have won just 22 seats in 1972, not the 38 they captured under first past the post. They would have faced 17 Socreds, nine Liberals and seven Conservatives.
Following the practice of the day in most Canadian jurisdictions, Barrett could still have become premier at the head of a minority government.
But lacking a majority, it’s not likely he could have ramrodded legislation through the house at the one-bill-every-three-days pace Barrett admirers trumpeted on the weekend.
To survive even a few months, never mind three years, Barrett and his 21 colleagues would have had to water down their agenda and shelve some of the most contentious aspects. Otherwise, once the protesters started assembling on the front lawn of the legislature, the Opposition parties could have combined their 33 votes to bring down the government and force another election.
Remarking on the Barrett legacy on the weekend, his longtime friend and former policy adviser, Mark Eliesen, ventured that “no government in Canada has accomplished so much in so little time.”
Nor is any future government likely to come close to equalling the feat, if today’s New Democrats manage to get rid of the electoral system that helped make the Barrett revolution possible.
No government in Canada has accomplished so much in so little time.
MARK ELIESEN, former adviser to late Dave Barrett, premier of B.C.