A REPORT FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA

...When Crown Zellerbach Co...

...The giveaway game is over in British Columbia...

...He added that he had fired one cabinet minister for not being candid with him...

...What's more, says Barrett, "The free enterprisers have convinced us...

...It was straight free-enterprise ripoff, no complications...

...Railway, traveling in a caboose and working with a tie gang...

...They're against handouts and so are we...

...The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, which began operations in March 1974, is now the largest insurance company in Canada...

...consumers, but it also invests the company's capital in other government corporations, in new private-public investment ventures, and in other government securities...

...He works with the left-wingers in the party but at the same time is very pragmatic...

...Another source is foreign trade through the port of Vancouver...

...The newest is British Columbia, where the NDP in 1972 won a stunning victory with 38 of the 55 seats in the provincial legislature, though amassing only 39 percent of the popular vote...

...Establishing a government insurance company not only enabled the government to lower the rates to B.C...

...290 NOTEBOOK...

...In a left-handed way, the United States can claim credit for creating British Columbia's socialist premier, David Barrett...

...He became a "confirmed democratic socialist...

...Under its income plan, implemented by Human Resources Minister Norman Levi, every person over 60 is guaranteed an income of $222 a month, couples $444...

...Its Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources Robert Williams has stated: "We don't intend just to get into the game of state capitalism...

...The government has instituted a program of guaranteed employment in community-oriented jobs such as health clinics, day-care centers, and food co-ops, and has increased grants to nonprofit daycare centers while providing financial assistance to parents for child care...

...Perhaps those high wages are related to the fact that the trade union movement in British Columbia has always been more militant and radical than in the rest of Canada...

...Nevertheless, the company issued a release praising the government for its "fairness...

...While perturbing business, Dave Barrett, according to the New York Times, has "endeared himself to professionals, the middle classes and the poor...

...That was in 1959...

...Since he had to earn money for his education, he went to work in a pea cannery...

...He has urged the Canadian government, thus far unsuccessfully, to nationalize oil and gas...

...It was my first taste of avarice and discrimination," he says...

...When Barrett said these things publicly, the attorney-general told him to shut up, that civil servants should be seen and not heard...

...federal court ordered El Paso to divest itself of its Westcoast shares...

...In the campaign Barrett stressed that "We're democratic socialists in a world sense, and we feel a relationship with people like Willy Brandt in Germany and Olaf Palme in Sweden...

...And Barrett adds that he is studying changing work relationships in other parts of the world—West Germany's co-determination, where workers and owners share control of management...

...It was my Dante's Inferno...

...And now, under NDP rule, civil servants, long barred from unionizing and salary negotiating, have been given a free rein and free speech...

...Israel and its kibbutz approach...

...This is a power not held by any province...

...To make the government more responsive to the needs of the people, it is Barrett's desire to have cabinet ministers and senior officials in many departments spend some time each year working in the field...

...The business establishment of downtown Vancouver, all of the province's newspapers, radio, and TV, and all of the other political parties inveigh ceaselessly against socialism...

...Barrett insists that natural resources "belong to the people" and were not "put in the earth by God for Standard Oil, Exxon, or any others...

...I pushed huge tubs of peas into pressure cookers...

...The NDP government has instituted the first free "pharmacare" (free prescription drugs) anywhere in North America for retired persons over 65, improved hospital care (it costs $1.50 to have a baby in a British Columbia hospital), provided welfare benefits of up to $380 a month for a family of four...

...To prove his good faith, Barrett gave the post of chief legislative and financial watchdog to the Opposition...

...Surprisingly, in view of the opposition of doctors in the United States to anything smacking of "socialized medicine," physicians in British Columbia, who have been part of a governmental health plan for 20 years and fought bitterly with Barrett's free enterprise predecessor, W. A. C. Bennett, "now delight in consultation and mutual trust of the new government...

...Teachers, who worked hard to defeat Bennett, have won more school-financing and are bringing progressive change to the system...

...A year later, he was elected to the provincial legislature...

...Big business gets no more grants, tax write-offs, concessions, or anything else...

...In that way," says Barrett, "the young people learn from the experiences of our old-timers while they bring their enthusiasm to our older members...

...Fortunately for the New Democratic party, British Columbia is a rich province...

...Crown Zellerbach had asked for $10 million, but Barrett reduced the price to $1 million...

...He pledged to "take control of the land from the American mineral interests and the fast-buck real estate developers and give it back to the people...

...That was in the early 'SOs...

...All we were doing was teaching people how to live in the jail, instead of how to live when they got out...

...And so we point to all the international and other complications involved to explain why socialists in power—in Britain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Australia or Israel—have not yet created a complete socialist society...

...British Columbia has the highest minimum wage in the world, $2.50 an hour...

...These are nonrenewable resources," he says...

...The commission also has power to buy land to lease back to family farmers and to purchase land for residential construction...

...Barrett set up a $25 million corporation with authority to buy equity in any firm...

...Barrett points out that Westcoast is, in effect, being repatriated with U.S...

...Not by a long shot...

...It created a government auto insurance industry, entered the property, casualty, and marine insurance fields and opened the door for a move into life insurance...

...No-fault insurance is now issued with the driver's license...

...During the debate is was revealed that a large segment of these "farmers" were, in fact, real estate men...

...Yet, to Barrett and his party, "socialism is all about priorities," and he adds, "I firmly believe that the people can have power, and that it can be achieved democratically...

...Barrett believes that "the major problem with poor people is they don't have enough money...

...This multiplier effect gives the government added leverage in influencing economic affairs in the province...

...The province has some of the world's richest timber stands, as well as copper, zinc, lead, oil, highly productive fisheries, and scenic mountains, valleys, and fjords that are becoming a lucrative tourist attraction...

...Barrett himself has spent time living and working with commercial fishermen sailing out of the tiny village of Port Renfrew, and just recently on the B.C...

...It has a strong grassroots organization and is remarkably democratic...

...They can catch us," he said with a smile, "all they want...

...Wages average 7 percent higher than in the rest of Canada...

...voters were proud traditionalists, and so was he...

...A five-person commission has power to zone areas for agriculture, greenbelts, parks and other public uses without compensating owners for lost profits that might have been realized by sale for speculation or development...

...Our northern neighbor, Canada, now has three provinces with avowedly socialist New Democratic Party governments, in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and British Columbia...

...The NDP government has set up a seven-person commission empowered to deal with aspects of the energy crisis—it can license gas stations and other businesses in the energy field, it can fix wholesale and retail gas prices and it can prohibit the use of trading stamps and marked-down merchandise as customer lures...

...and Sweden with its team approaches to mass-production assembly lines...

...dollars—the government boosted the price of its natural gas 81 percent last November...

...THE NDP GOVERNMENT KNOWS that it faces tremendous obstacles...

...If British Columbia's NDP government succeeds in introducing more democratic work arrangements into Crown corporations (instead of government NOTEBOOK 289 ownership aping private management) it will be of great importance—a step forward in the progress of democratic socialism...

...The province has paid $25.5 million for El Paso Natural Gas Co.'s 13.5 percent interest in Westcoast Transmission Co...

...The Mexicans slept in the fields while the whites were in the barracks...

...When the labor movement and the CCF joined in 1962 to create the New Democratic party, it broadened its appeal considerably...

...But if we can't get "socialism in one country," what then are the prospects for "socialism in one province...

...They have moved in that direction and have also adopted welfare measures far beyond what we have in the United States...

...He refused and was fired...

...The wage was $1.16 an hour and we got no overtime until after 56 hours...

...When left-wingers remonstrated, he reminded them that many B.C...

...So the NDP must rely on the party organization to spread its message...

...Later, in 1957, Barrett became supervisor of social training at British Columbia's Haney Cor ectional Institute...

...One is a former professional football-player from the United States, and the other is a feminist leader...

...The NDP has a vision of a society where the basic necessities of living need not be struggled for but are considered to be human rights, and where individuals are able to participate actively in the institutions of government and work...

...Has the NDP government made British Columbia socialist...

...Before the 1972 victory, Barrett and Norman Levi (who was to become the Minister of Human Resources in the NDP cabinet) barnstormed for three years, speaking at every hamlet where fishermen, farmers, and cowboys appeared...

...Although British Columbia has very few blacks, two are NDP members of the legislature...

...Pensioners and welfare recipients have had their incomes increased to the maximum allowed under Canada's federal-provincial cost-sharing system...

...decided to close its newsprint mills at Ocean Falls, the NDP government bought the 288 NOTEBOOK entire town "and all it contains" in order to "save a community of 500 people from extinction...

...Perhaps the NDP's most controversial bill to date has been its land act, which froze the sale of agricultural land in British Columbia...

...The NDP is pushing hard to ensure that British Columbia's vast natural resources will no longer flow ceaselessly out of the province, and that they will serve the cause of economic democracy...

...In 1973, the government threatened to take over Westcoast, the province's principal gas pipeliner, but later changed its mind and purchased the 13.5 percent share when a U.S...

...Since the huge province contains only a small area of fertile earth, the NDP is determined to preserve it for food production...

...The experience marked him...

...The NDP government has capitalized on that wealth to start returning some of it to the people...

...The insurance industry has "been telling us for years how much money they were losing," Barrett says with a grin, "so we thought we'd do them a favor...

...The NDP's victory rested on a solid basis of 40 years of education by the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, an amalgam of socialist, farmer, and labor splinter parties throughout Canada...

...I don't know why there is such a big hangup on them when most renewable resources, like hydroelectric power, already are publicly owned, here and in the United States...

...The same applies to disabled people...

...The stores near the cannery sold 40c items for 70c "because we were marginal itinerant workers, and were there to be used...

...When in London for talks with British investors and tea with Queen Elizabeth, he made sure that reports of his meeting with the Queen went back to B.C...

...After graduating from high school in Vancouver, Barrett attended Seattle University...

...Barrett adds that Americans who have moved to the province, both retirees and those opposed to the draft, have been a good influence politically...

...Real estate speculators fought the bill vigorously and mounted a demonstration by 3,000 so-called farmers on the steps of the legislature...

...The NDP has 15,000 dues-paying members in the province, and young people are integrated into all party branches...

...287 The highest compliment he has been paid, Barrett told me, was when Newsweek quipped: "The style may be Archie Bunker, but the substance is Norman Thomas—and the combination has revolutionized British Columbia...

...When I asked Dave Barrett about the dangers of corruption a la Watergate, he stressed that the NDP government is not run behind closed doors...

...of Vancouver...

...It was a brand-new $5 million jail," he says, "and useless...

...Its gross national product in 1972 was estimated at $12 billion, a gain of 11.5 percent from 1971...

...WHAT'S THE NATURE of that "revolution...

...We will have worker and community representatives on the boards of Crown corporations, and will also give workers some equity participation...

...We're going to deal with that first and get to the Freudian analysis later...