Accomplishments: 1972 - 1975

Herewith, taken largely from The Art of the Impossible, the account of the Barrett government by Geoff Meggs and Rod Mickelburgh, is a list of just some of the Barrett government’s accomplishments. Amazing.

And then there was also:

• Hansard.
• Daily question period in the legislature.
• Greatly increased funding for opposition parties.
• Chair of the Public Accounts Committee given to a member of the opposition.
• Restoration and sprucing up of the crumbling legislative building.
• Provincial sheriffs service.
• Neighbourhood pubs.
• Lifting of arbitrary ceiling on teacher wage increases.
• Ending a ban on beer and liquor and advertising.
• Buying two pulp mills, two sawmills and Panko Poultry to save them from going out of business and protect jobs. Except for the chicken plant, all subsequently made money.
• Full collective bargaining rights, including the right to strike, for government employees.
• A powerful new Labour Relations Board, with unprecedented jurisdiction over labour matters. It was an outstanding success.
• First-of-a-kind legislation dealing with strikes in essential services, directing the LRB to determine which services should be maintained during strikes by fire, police and/or health care workers. This allowed employees in these critical areas to strike, but with restrictions.
• Establishing the Islands Trust to protect the Gulf Islands against uncontrolled development.
• A government funded art bank to purchase BC art.
• The BC Energy Commission to regulate private utilities and monitor oil and gas prices.
• The BC Petroleum Corp., cutting the government in on profit from export sales of natural gas, dubbed “thirty-second socialism” by Attorney General Alex Macdonald.
• Elected community resources boards.
• BC Cancer Control Agency.
• Dramatic expansion of community colleges
• Restoration of the right to sue the Crown.
• BC’s first ministry of housing, charged with encouraging affordable and co-op housing through the government-purchased Dunhill Development.
• Refurbishing of the Royal Hudson steam locomotive for rail trips between West Vancouver and Squamish.
• Amalgamation of both Kelowna and Kamloops.
• Purchase of the Princess Marguerite, to keep the beloved Victoria-Seattle ferry in operation.
• Purchase of Victoria’s inner harbor waterfront.
• BC’s first Indigenous school board, run by the Nisga’a Tribal Council.
• Greatly expanded daycare facilities and increased subsidies.
• Farm Income Assurance Act.
• Mandatory kindergarten.
• Reduced teacher-student ratios.
• End of province-wide exams for Grade 12 students.
• Annual federal grant of $700,000 for French immersion restored to the school system.
• Purchase of 1.1 million BC Tel shares, in an unsuccessful attempt to secure a seat on the board. Later resold for a good profit.
• Ban on non-union grapes at all government-owned institutions.
• Union wages mandated for all publicly-funded construction projects.
• Independent boards of review to decide Workers’ Compensation Board appeals, previously left to the WCB, itself.
• Improved WCB pensions.
• New, government-owned manufacturing plant in Squamish to build BC Rail boxcars.
• Killing proposed Third Crossing between the North Shore and Vancouver and using the savings for expanding public transit.
• The Seabus (built by the NDP, began operation under Social Credit).
• Cancellation of proposed downtown Vancouver government office tower, resulting in Arthur Erickson-designed Robson Square.
• An independent board of governors at BC Institute of Technology.
• A police commission to set policing standards in the province.
• Legislation requiring elected and appointed officials to disclose their financial holdings.
• Increased funding for the arts.
• The BC lottery.
• Financial aid to enable the City of Vancouver to purchase the historic Orpheum Theatre.
• Creation of a large provincial park to stall plans by Seattle City Light to flood much of BC’s Skagit Valley by raising the High Ross Dam.
• BC Day.
• Closure of residential Willingdon School for troubled girls and Brannan Lake Industrial Centre for boys, which Barrett considered, amid so much else, his proudest achievements.
• BC Ferries ship-building.
• Large increases to legal aid.
• The province’s first consumer services ministry, and Canada’s strongest consumer protection.
• Significant financial assistance for an Indigenous fisheries co-op in northwest BC.
• Legislation allowing BC to establish its own bank.
• Quashing a proposed bulk-loading coal port for Squamish.
• Removal of succession duties from farms that pass from parents to their children.
• Allowing civil service pension funds to invest in stocks..
• Provisions for handing public complaints against police.
• Boosting mineral royalties and increasing the governments take from windfall profits resulting from a spike in world metal prices.
• Burns Lake Development Corporation, giving district Indigenous groups a share in the local forest industry.
• Provincial Status of Women Office.
• Hiking corporate taxes from 10 to 12 percent.
• Higher renters’ grants.
• Ramping up royalties on coal from 25 cents to $1.50 a ton.
• Removal of the sales tax on books.
• Amassing $38.8 million in profits from Crown corporations.
• Timber Products Stabilization Act, enabling government to regulate the price of wood chips sold by sawmills to pulp mills.
• Banning the export of raw logs.
• Assistance for BC industries with a $100-million fund administered by the BC Development Corporation.
• Community health centres.
• An air ambulance service.
• Establishment of Whistler as a resort municipality, the first of its kind in Canada, along with a land freeze and development study.
• Investment in Kelowna’s Sun Valley Foods.
• Municipal assessment reform.
• Abolishing extra billing by doctors.
• Sexual Sterilization Act repealed
  
• Acquisition of Shaughnessy Veterans’ Hospital, later to become BC Children’s Hospital.
• Funding of women’s shelters, rape relief centres and women’s health collectives.
• Revamping the province’s family court system.