BC’s first NDP gov’t “here for a good time, not a long time”
Posted November 17, 2012 9:52 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – They say you should be careful around a young man in a hurry, but the same could be said of governments too.
Vancouver City Councillor Geoff Meggs is co-author of a new book covering the tumultuous yet transformative term of BC’s first New Democrat administration.
“Ever since that first government, BC politics has been locked into a kind of bipolar situation where the possibility of an NDP government has been treated as a nightmarish prospect.”
Meggs admits Dave Barrett and Company weren’t always popular, but credits them for shaping much of the province as we know it today during just 39 months in power.
“Whether it was the Agricultural Land Reserve, or ICBC, or the provincial Ambulance Service or even our democratic institutions like Hansard, which existed in every other province before it came into BC, Question Period.”
The book also reminds us British Columbia was a very different place before 1972.
“People who didn’t grow up here at the time don’t recall what an ice box BC politics had been locked in for a 20 to 25 year period with the same Premier. The world in turmoil, the Vietnam war, the Sixties, Women’s Liberation, and so many profound changes and BC [was] in sort of a political time warp where none of it happened.”
When Barrett defeated W.A.C. Bennett, many were surprised, including Barrett himself.
Most didn’t expect the New Democrats to win a second term in 1975, that’s why their guiding principle was, we’re here for a good time, not a long time.
“Very few cabinet ministers were prepared to sort of say, well, I’ll lay the foundation now and I’ll try to do more later. Most just were literally hell-bent for election and implemented the programs that they had promised as fast as they could.”
Meggs admits the government’s too much, too soon style may have done it in, but it also serves as an example of what can happen when politicians dream big.
“Well, I think that it’s very exciting to consider what can be done. You’ve to be real about what can be done politically, but I think the possibilities are much larger than we allow ourselves to think these days,” he explains.
“It’s a cautionary tale in some respects, but it’s a very exciting one as well.”
Meggs co-wrote the book with Rod Mickleburgh of the Globe and Mail.
The Art of the Impossible Dave Barrett and the NDP in Power 1972-1975 is available through Harbour Publishing.
