We can never know what might have been. If Dave Barrett’s NDP government in British Columbia had done things differently, could they have been elected for a second term? Or was their brand of social democracy just too radical? That is the question posed in The Art of the Impossible: Dave Barrett and the NDP in Power, 1972–1975, a rollicking rollercoaster of a story about an episode in Canadian political history that will leave you hanging on to your hat.
Nearly half a century ago, in August 1972, Barrett’s NDP government shot like a comet across the sky before fizzing out in a devastating electoral defeat three years, three months and two days later. In its wake came 97 legislative initiatives that brought British Columbia into the modern world and so alarmed the establishment that they made sure it would be 16 years before another NDP government took power in the province.
The changes listed in this somewhat starry-eyed book by two long-time...
Beth Haddon, a former broadcast executive with CBC and TVOntario, is a contributing editor to the magazine. She was a Canadian University Service Overseas volunteer in Zambia.
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