LY-AUGUST, 1972

THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

;

HE COULD BE

When you're Number Two, you have to try har-

r.

Dave Barrett is Number Two. He’s the Leader of the B.C. New Democratic Party, which means he’s also Official Leader of the Opposition in the B.C. legislature dominated by the Social Credit Party.

Barrett tries harder. He has to. Fortunately for the citizens of B.C., Barrett’s efforts usually benefit them despite the fact that Barrett and his 11 fellow NDP MLAs are political underdogs in the 55-seat legislature.

TOUCHING BATTLES

Barrett’s efforts have been on behalf of many causes from park preservation to Medicare. But one of his most touching and typical battles was on behalf of a 22-year-old widow who.was being deprived of insurance compensation for the death of her husband in a car accident.

Mrs. Donna Taylor was 22 when her husband was involved in a traffic accident on Jan. 2, 1970, one day after B.C.’s no-fault car insurance legislation came into effect. Mrs Taylor’s husband died in hospital Sept. 27, 1970. His death came 269 days after the accident but his death was still due to the accident.

Mrs. Taylor could not collect any insurance

.. compensation because the government’s new car insurance laws stated that a person must die within 180 days of an accident to be eligible for insurance

| benefits. She appealed to the Attorney General but received no satisfaction. She didn’t get a penny of the

_. $10,000 she would normally be entitled to if her husband had died within 180 days of the accident.

Enter Dave Barrett, Official Leader of the Op- position. Barrett heard about Mrs. Taylor’s plight

| and brought it up in the legislature on March 4, 1971, after Mrs. Taylor had given up trying to reason with the Attorney-General’s Department.

Barrett asked the Attorney-General, Les Peterson, to instruct the insurance companies to pay Mrs. Taylor the money she deserved. Peterson refused.

INSURANCE COMPANIES

Barrett asked Peterson to at least write the in-

surance companies and ask for a compassionate

_ settlement. Peterson turned his back on Barrett and

began reading a book in the legislature. Barrett kept

_ demanding that Peterson write the letter. Peterson kept reading.

Sixty-seven times Barrett made the demand that the government take action on Mrs. Taylor’s behalf. Finally, at 1:10 a.m. on March 5, the Social Credit majority moved to eject Barrett from the legislature for one week. It was the first time in the Com- monwealth that an Opposition Leader was barred from the House.

Though Barrett’s battle resulted in his ejection, later events proved Barrett right. Only four months after he was ejected from the legislature, Barrett watched the government change the car insurance law by removing the 180-day clause. In the process, Mrs. Taylor received a portion of the $10,000 she deserved. It was just one more accomplishment by the party that has pioneered policies such as Medicare long before they are adopted by the government.

But who is Dave Barrett, the politician so willing + to fight on behalf of forgotten citizens?

BORN IN VANCOUVER

Barrett was born Oct. 2, 1930 in Vancouver. His father, a veteran of W.W. 1, started out on a fruit truck and built a very sucessful business in the East

_ End. Young Barrett learned the economic facts of _ life working in the business. And he learned social lessons while attending Britannia High School until

Barrett also learned endurance at Britannia.

eh not a natural athlete, he was obliged to play

e school’s rugby team and now, more than 20

later, he stills plays an annual game of rugby it team.

‘WITH YOUR VOTE

B.C.‘s NUMBER ONE

From Britannia Barrett went to Seattle University where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy in 1953. That qualified him for a job asa social worker and probation officer when he was only 23, but Barrett soon learned that the B.A. was meaningless. And he said so. Loudly. To his bosses. His job didn’t last long and he headed for the University of St. Louis for a Master of Social Work degree so he so he could become an authority in his field.

Meanwhile, Barrett had married Shirley Hack- man of West Vancouver in 1953 and the couple had two sons, Dan, born in 1954 and Joe, born in 1956.

Barrett returned to B.C. from St. Louis in May, 1957, to become personnel and staff training officer at Haney Correctional Institute. But the Masters degree again proved useless in making his job meaningful for humanity. With a young family to support most men choose job security instead of risking one’s employment for social improvement. Not Barrett.

HANEY JOB FUTILE

“The job at Haney Correctional Institue was absolutely futile,” says Barrett. ‘‘The institute sets out to train people in trades which take a minimum three years to acquire yet the maximum sentence is two years less a day and the average sentence was only nine months.”

“Except for barbers, there hasn’t been one certified tradesman come out of there yet.”

Barrett’s mouth opened again. And again. But there were no improvements in the social system. About then Barrett looked up the CCF party so he could get elected and started improving the system from within the legislature.

“T went around making speeches heavy in social content but void of political content. I told how the system chewed up its victims; how money was wasted.”

“Next thing I know I’m told by (then Attorney- General) Robert Bonner to quit speaking on the job. I told him I was speaking on my own time and there were no rules against that in the civil service.”

Typically, Barrett also needled Bonner with the fact that certain Social Credit MLAs who were originally civil servants had spoken out politically right up to their election but were allowed to retain their jobs.

Bonner fired the young family man in June, 1959. Barrett’s third child, Jane, was born in September 1960, about the same time the novice CCF candidate was elected to the legislature in the Dewdney riding. Since then, he has been re-elected in every provincial election though his riding is now Coquitlam following re-distribution in 1966.

A PROBATION OFFICER

Though his first interest was changing the province’s social services department, Barrett soon branched into other areas.

“1 had worked in child welfare, prisons and as a probation officer.” says Barrett. “‘I found that these institutions were doing more harm than good to people.”

I tried to change these institutions from within but time was wasting away while I and others were making speeches.”

Among the legislation that Barrett succeeded in pushing through the legislature are improvements in child welfare system and the preservation of Cypress Bowl as a public park. More recently, Barrett moved an amendment to the budget speech calling for a gauranteed minimum monthly income of $200 for senior citizens but the amendment was defeated by the Social Credit government.

Barrett also visited Washington State in January, 1972, for talks with Gov. Dan Evans and other legislators about preventing oil spills off the coast of B.C. When Barrett and the NDP caucus returned to Victoria with the news that Washington State was ready and willing to co-operate on oil spill controls, the Social Credit government refused to take action.

Only after an oil spill did occur a few months later did the present government finally do something about joint oil pollution control.

Barrett’s style was also shown when he visited Alberta this summer for talks with Alberta govern- ment officials on such things as environment protection, modernization of legislative procedures and tourist promotion. ‘‘We’re the Opposition that

gets things done. They’re the government that

throws sand in the gears,”’ says Barrett.

Barrett liked what he was learning about politics. “Politics is simple, clearcut. The access to power that is built into the British parliamentary system allows people to use that power to make social im- provements.”

‘“‘And that system is still open to us if we want to take control of our lives.”

Barrett used the system to save Cypress Bowl from real estate speculators, which he describes as his most satisfying moment in politics. “I fought six years for that park. I broke the story and I’m glad I never- gave up the fight in the legislature.”

FOR ALL PEOPLE

When Barrett became leader of the NDP, he made his position clear that the party was for all residents of B.C. Since then Barrett has taken firm control of the party that in the past has suffered from internal strife. Under Barrett the NDP is notable for its team efforts in both the caucus (MLAs) and membership. And Barrett has learned his political lessons without becoming stigmatized by any confining images.

“I’m loose,” he smiles. “I have no ideological hangups.”

Any hangups he was born with were lost in the lengthy list of jobs he has held since he was a young man. At various times he has shaken hides, worked in a newspaper mailing room, run papers in Seattle, cooked on Canadian National Railways, dug ditches, built roads in West Vancouver, refereed football and done agricultural work with Mexicans in Washington State — where he’s learned to prosper in the political jungle.

STAKING HIS FUTURE

Barrett is staking his political future on the belief that B.C. citizens will choose his brand of social democracy as the means of throwing out the elderly Bennett government and building a stronger, healthier province.

Meanwhile, Barrett and the 11 other NDP MLAs are fighting against the huge Social Credit majority in the legislature.

‘“‘We may be ounumbered, but we work harder,”’ says Barrett of his NDP MLAs.

They’re hoping the next election will provide the NDP ranks with a few more fighters like Barrett. A lot of people in B.C. like Mrs. Donna Taylor are hoping the same thing.