New Democratic Party of British Columbia

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The New Democratic Party of British Columbia is a democratic socialist political party in British Columbia, Canada. It is the provincial arm of the New Democratic Party of Canada.

Unlike other parties in Canada, where provincial and federal politics are strictly separated and members of one are not necessarily members of the other, NDP members are members of both the federal party and the provincial party. However, a significant number of left-leaning federal Liberals are members of the provincial NDP.

1 Formation and early years
2 The 1950s and 1960s
3 NDP reformism in the mid-1970s
4 The party in the 1990s
5 Recent developments
6 Leaders
7 Election results
8 See also
9 External links

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Formation and early years

The party was formed in 1933 as the British Columbia section of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) by a coalition of the Socialist Party of Canada (BC), the League for Social Reconstruction, and affiliated organizations. In August 1933, the latter two organizations merged to become the Associated CCF Clubs. A further merger with the SPC (BC) took place in 1935. In 1960, the name was changed nationally to the New Party, then in 1961 to New Democratic Party.

This two party system was challenged with the rise of the CCF in western Canada in the 1940s, and its successor the New Democratic Party (NDP). The CCF first took power in Saskatchewan under Premier Tommy Douglas, and made major inroads in British Columbia. In order to block the rise of the socialist CCF, the Liberal and Conservative parties formed a coalition government after the 1941 provincial election when neither party had enough seats to form a majority government on its own. Tensions arose in the coalition due to the dominance of Liberals, and the coalition finally collapsed in 1951 when the Conservatives refounded themselves as an independent party.

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The 1950s and 1960s

In order to prevent the British Columbia CCF from winning in a three party competition, the government introduced the Alternative Vote with the expectation that Conservative voters would list the Liberals as their second choice and vice versa. Unexpectedly, the BC Social Credit League, under its new leader W.A.C. Bennett, was able to exploit this system, and emerged as the largest party, one more than Harold Winch's CCF, and form a minority government after the ballots were counted in the 1952 election. With the CCF having only one seat less than Social Credit, and both the Liberals and Tories having only a handful of seats, it was Social Credit that emerged as the new party of choice for business and voters who wanted to keep the CCF out of power. Following the 1952 election, the CCF tried to argue that with Tom Uphill, Labour Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) from the Kootenays, they had as many seats as Social Credit but much more parliamentary experience and therefore should be given the first opportunity to form a government. But Bennett had foreseen this argument and had managed to get Uphill's support for Social Credit to take power. When Social Credit lost a motion of no confidence in the legislature in March 1953, Winch argued again that the CCF, now with Uphill's support, should be allowed to try to form a government instead of the house being dissolved for an early election. The Liberals, however, refused to support the CCF's bid to form a government and new elections were called. In the 1953 election, Bennett won a majority government, and both the Liberal and the Conservative parties were reduced to fringe parties.

The Socreds' electoral coalition was able to keep the CCF and the NDP out of power until the 1970s, when the Bennett government was defeated.

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NDP reformism in the mid-1970s

The NDP first won election in 1972 under Dave Barrett, who served as Premier for three years. The NDP passed a great deal of legislation in a very short period of time - virtually a revolution in BC provincial goverance. Among lasting changes were the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, the Agricultural Land Reserve, and such additions such as Hansard and Question Period to the legislature. The NDP drove the small BC Liberal caucus to abandon their leader David Anderson for the Social Credit Party, as did one of the two Tories elected in 1972. The NDP introduced capital taxes, slashed funding to universities, but suffered the most for bringing clarity to the accounting Social Credit had used, and showed that BC was significantly in debt.

In 1975 when Social Credit, under W.A.C's son Bill Bennett, won a snap election called by Barrett. The Barrett government had initiated a number of reforms in the areas of labour relations, the public service and social programs, most of which endured through to the restraint budget of 1983.

The NDP peaked in popular support in the 1979 election with 46% of the vote. (Since then its support has hovered around or slightly above 40% with the exception of a disastrous showing in 2001). It took the complete meltdown of the Social Credit Party for the NDP next to take power in 1991 election under Mike Harcourt. The NDP governed the province for the next ten years with a succession of leaders at the helm.

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The party in the 1990s

Today, the main opponents of the BC NDP are the governing Liberal Party and the Green Party of British Columbia. The BC Green Party challenges the NDP especially for the votes of ecologists and environmentally concerned citizens, but lies mainly to the right of the NDP. Although no Green Party candidate has ever been elected to the provincial legislature, the Greens campaign on issues that also appeal to prospective NDP voters, and are generally perceived to "steal" votes from the NDP, occasionally allowing the victory of a third candidate in the first-past-the-post system.

Despite serving as the government throughout the 1990s, the NDP was plagued by a series of leadership scandals that forced the resignations of premiers Harcourt in 1996 and Glen Clark in 1999. One of the many blunders the NDP government embarked on was the construction of the PacifiCats, which would later become part of the FastCat Fiasco. The "fudge-it budget" scandal, where it was revealed the government had been able to proclaim a "balanced" budget only by shifting massive debt onto Crown Corporations. In the May, 2001 election, the New Democrats only won two seats of the 79 in the Legislative Assembly despite have polled 21% of the electorate, and were therefore reduced below official party status. Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell refused to grant this status to the NDP. Taken together, the support for these parties is significant, giving rise to calls for electoral reform in the province of BC.

The NDP also faced a number of internal party divisions in the 1990s. These were largely due to the leadership of Glen Clark, whereas people who supported him such as Moe Sihota fought with those such as Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh who was blamed by Clark loyalists for bringing him down. Like many parties, it has also faced various power struggles between opposing moderate, centre-left, and more left-wing elements. These differences have become less important since the party lost power in 2001.

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Recent developments

Carole James was elected leader of the NDP in 2003. NDP candidate Jagrup Brar won a by-election in the riding of Surrey-Panorama Ridge in October 2004, bringing the party's seat total to 3. [1]

In the provincial election of May 2005, the NDP regained party status and currently hold 33 of 79 seats.

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Leaders

Robert Connell (1933–1937)
Harold Winch (1938–1953)
Robert Strachan (1953 – April 12, 1969)
Thomas Berger (April 12, 1969 – late 1969)
Dave Barrett (late 1969 – May 20, 1984)
Bob Skelly (May 20, 1984 – April 12, 1987)
Michael Harcourt (April 12, 1987 – February 18, 1996)
Glen Clark (February 18, 1996 – 1999)
Dan Miller (1999 – February 20, 2000) acting
Ujjal Dosanjh (February 20, 2000 – June 16 2001)
Joy MacPhail (June 16 2001 – November 23, 2003) interim
Carole James (since November 23, 2003)

For further information, see British Columbia New Democratic Party Leadership Conventions.

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Election results

Election	Party leader	# of candidates	Seats			Popular vote			Final round
Election	Party leader	# of candidates	Previous	After	% Change	#	%	Change	(1952-53 only)
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
1933	Robert Connell	46	n.a.	7	n.a.	120,185	31.53%	n.a.
1937	Robert Connell	46	7	7	-	119,400	28.57%	-2.96%
1941	Harold Winch	45	7	14	+100%	151,440	33.36%	+4.79%
1945	Harold Winch	48	14	10	-28.6%	175,960	37.62%	+4.26%
1949	Harold Winch	48	10	7	-30.0%	245,284	35.10%	-2.52%	Votes	%
1952	Harold Winch	48	7	18	+157.1%	236,562	30.78%	-4.32%	231,756	34.3%
1953	Robert Strachan	47	18	14	-22.2%	224,513	30.85%	+0.07%	194,414	29.48%
1956	Robert Strachan	51	14	10	-28.6%	231,511	28.32%	-2.53%
1960	Robert Strachan	52	10	16	+60.0%	326,094	32.73%	+4.41%
New Democratic Party
1963	Robert Strachan	52	16	14	-12.5%	269,004	27.80%	-4.93%
1966	Robert Strachan	55	14	16	+14.3%	252,753	33.62%	+5.82%
1969	Thomas Berger	55	16	12	-25.0%	331,813	33.92%	+0.30%
1972	David Barrett	55	12	38	+217%	448,260	39.59%	+5.67%
1975	David Barrett	55	38	18	-52.6%	505,396	39.16%	-0.43%
1979	David Barrett	57	18	26	44.4%	646,188	45.99%	+6.83%
1983	David Barrett	57	26	22	-15.4%	741,354	44.94%	-1.05%
1986	Robert Skelly	69	22	22	-	824,544	42.60%	-2.34%
1991	Michael Harcourt	75	22	51	+131.8%	595,391	40.71%	-1.89%
1996	Glen Clark	75	51	39	-23.53%	624,395	39.45%	-1.26%
2001	Ujjal Dosanjh	79	39	2	-94.9%	343,156	21.56%	-17.89%
2005	Carole James	79	2	33	+1,550%	694,978	41.43%	+19.87%