The BC NDP in the 1970s

Berger’s defeat paved the way for Dave Barrett, who was acclaimed BC NDP leader in 1970 at the party’s Chilliwack convention. Barrett was a brilliant campaigner, who spent the next two years repositioning the NDP. Instead of focusing on electing a government, Barrett distanced himself from unions, worked to inoculate the party from the ‘godless’ label, and campaigned for a stronger opposition that would be a check on the Social Credit government while standing up for ordinary people – ‘the little people’ he often called them.

The pace of reform was head-spinning in the next three years (see our Achievements page). The Barrett government embarked on an endless stream of reforms, saving agricultural land, introducing publicly-owned low-cost car insurance, creating a province-wide ambulance service, and many other innovations still in place today. But for the NDP Women’s Rights Committee there was disappointment that the party’s policy to establish a Ministry of Women’s Rights was not one of those reforms. And sections of the union movement, led by the BC Federation of Labour, were unsatisfied with continuing restrictions on secondary picketing that they felt inhibited the unions’ ability to organize and win strikes. 

In spite of the controversies around some of the NDP reforms, both internally and from the NDP’s opponents, Premier Barrett was convinced he could persuade voters to re-elect the NDP. Social Credit had reorganized and had a bland new leader, Bill Bennett, the son of the former Premier. Barrett saw an opening and called a snap election less than three and a half years into the mandate. The NDP message focused this time on the NDP leader: “BC has strong leadership. Let’s keep it that way.” The campaign ran on the NDP record, and promised more of the same. Social Credit meanwhile had a simple message, ‘unite against socialism’. When the votes were counted the NDP had 39.16% of the popular vote – just 0.43% less than in 1972 – but the party was reduced to 18 seats. With 49% of the vote the Socreds captured 35 seats. Dave Barrett narrowly lost his own seat in Coquitlam, and the NDP was back in opposition.

Why did the NDP seat count drop so precipitously when the share of the popular vote remained virtually unchanged between 1972 and 1975? The answer lies in how other parties split the non-NDP vote. In 1972, Social Credit won 31% of the vote, while the Liberal Party won 16% and the Conservatives won 12%. So, with 40% of the vote, in our electoral system where the candidate with the most votes wins, the NDP was able to elect 38 MLAs. Three years later, a revitalized Social Credit managed to unite the non-NDP vote and reduce the Liberals to just 7% (two Liberal MLAs had jumped to the Socreds) and the Conservatives to 4%. That allowed them to elect a government with a large majority. How the vote is divided has been a key factor in determining the outcome of BC elections.

While Barrett lost his seat in 1975, Bob Williams – one of two NDP MLAs for Vancouver East – offered to resign, allowing the former premier to win a by-election. In the late 70s, the party rebuilt and was ready to fight for a return to government in the 1979 election. It was a well-organized campaign led by Provincial Secretary Yvonne Cocke. Since 1961 unions had played an increasingly important role in supporting NDP campaigns. Unions were the organizations that local NDP campaigns turned to for meeting halls, printing support and of course volunteers. And once the Social Credit law banning union political donations had been repealed by the Barrett government, financial help was also offered. Unions like the International Woodworkers (IWA), Steelworkers (USWA), Canadian Union of Public Employees and many others went all-out to assist the NDP campaign. Still, even with union help, NDP campaign budgets were small in comparison to Social Credit campaigns financed by corporate donations. The partnership envisaged in 1961 was working well. It continues to be a mainstay in the NDP today, though changes in election financing legislation introduced by the John Horgan government now ban both union and corporate political contributions.

The message in 1979 was “Compare the records. You’re better off with the NDP”. Once again, the party fought on its 1972-75 successful reforms and this time the vote was the highest ever: 46%, a major breakthrough in levels of support. But it wasn’t quite enough to win. Bill Bennett and the Socreds ran on the usual anti-socialist rhetoric and a new gimmick. They combined provincial crown assets amassed by the NDP into the BC Resources Investment Corporation – BCRIC – and then gave every BC adult five free shares. Today those assets are no longer in public hands and the free shares are worthless. But the scheme was a dominant feature of the 1979 campaign: peoples’ capitalism vs socialism. And Social Credit just managed to pull it off with 48% of the vote, winning five more seats than the NDP.