The issues were strong, but the party failed to do better than the CCF had done before it. Bob Strachan served as NDP leader in the 1963 and 1966 elections, but Social Credit was returned with strong majorities. That led to a challenge of his leadership by young labour lawyer and Vancouver-Burrard MLA Tom Berger, in 1967. Strachan was re-elected leader, but decided to step down two years later. In 1969, at the party’s leadership convention, Tom Berger won narrowly on the second ballot over Coquitlam MLA Dave Barrett. It was, frankly, a bitterly fought contest between the supporters of Berger, who favoured a more modern image of a party ready to govern, and the supporters of Barrett, who championed the fire-in-your belly passion of the CCF. Berger won the leadership, but there was no honeymoon.
Change in the air
