® strictly personal ¢

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A COUPLE of months ago in this space I urged Dave Bar-
rett to run for the NDP national! leadership.

My point then was that a unil-
ingual Westerner running on an
ecology ticket would have a fot
more support than most of the
pundits expect, not just in the west
but in darkest Eastern Canada too,
where environmental issues have
suddenly jumped to the forefront
of public debate — following a
trend established in B.C. nearly 20
years ago.

Rather than being an outdated
politician whose hour passed a
long time ago, Dave Barrett at the
moment is probably much more in
tune with the current mood across
Canada, at least so far as the en-
vironment is concerned, than any
other major political figure.

With the formal announcement
that he is in the race to lead the
NDP, and moreover that he wants
to do it to help Canada lead a
global war against pollution, Bar-
rett has done exactly what I hoped
he would.

I was afraid he wouldn’t have
the fire left in his belly to go for it,
but the guy’s still great.

During his brief reign as
premier, | found him to be excep-
tionaily intelligent, and, more to
the point, perfectly aware of the
kind of environmental holocaust
that looms ahead.

If anything, Mr. Barrett’s per-
sonal sense of despair about the

_ bleak future we all face was
deeper than my own.

What you don’t see can cost

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He granted me a unique inter-
view shortly after being elected.
During our discussion, he revealed
a considerable knowledge about
the coming Dark Age, as futurists
were referring to it then.

This was back before the terms
acid rain, greenhouse effect or
ozone hole had becn coined — be-
fore anybody except a few scien-
tists and ‘‘radical’’ eco-freaks real-
ized that the state of the biosphere
was as bad as it is.

ass

coastal water, instituted a land
freeze that saved the Lower
Mainland from being totally gob-
bled up by developers, and would
have done more, I’m sure, if the
voters hadn’t turfed him out so
quickly.

His environmental beliefs are
sincere, long-standing, and credi-
ble. Of all the politicians in
Canada, he is the one who has the
best environmental track record,
especially in view of the short
period of time he had in which to
make his moves.

At the time he was premier,

I, is obvious that when the crunch comes labor is
more concerned about jobs than environment. The types
of people who rise to the top in the labor organizations
are those who can deliver on the job front. Period.’’

I mention this just in case any-
body tries to suggest that Barrett is
jumping on the environmental
bandwagon late, as so many of his
political counterparts have done in
the last year or so — Brian
Mulroney, Maggie Thatcher and
George Bush and The Zalm being
perfect examples.

Back before the term
neoconservative was even invented,
Barrett was the man who banned
the capture of live whales off the
West Coast, slapped a moratorium
on oil exploration in our pristine

_.

however, Barrett told me that he
didn’t think that the NDP was the
party for hardcore environmen-
talists. Although he didn’: come
out and Say it, the implication was
that a party that depends on
unions for its base of support can’t
be pure Green.

The attacks that Ontario NDP
leader Bob Rae has had to withs-
tand since he literally weni out on
a limb by being arrested protesting
logging in the Temagami
wilderness illustrates the point.

No sooner had Rae clambered

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out of the paddy wagon than loge-
ing union officials were jumping
all over him, demanding his resig-
nation,

Since Rue is the favored can-
didate of the eastern labor bosses,
who prefer him over Barrett, ap-
parently, because he is bilingual, it
might be worthwhile for Barrett
and Rae to sit down and talk abeut
the problems that an environmen-
tal stance poses for an NDP lead-
er.

It is obvious that when the
crunch comes labor is more con-
cerned about jobs than environ-
ment. The types cf people who rise
to the top in the labor organiza-
tions are those who can deliver on
the job front. Period.

Ecology may be the motherhood
to them, but when the time comes
to make a hard choice, their own
jobs depend on keeping the
membership happy. We need look
no further than Jack Munro io see
the classic example.

Where was he when B.C.’s
forests were being plundered? Out
there maxing sure his boys had
jobs knocking down trees, and
hang the treehuggers. The likes of
Munro aren't going to save our
forests any more than the execu-
tives at B.C. Forest Products.

And that poses a serious prob-
lem for anybody like Dave Barrett.

There may be an irreconciiable
dilemma here.

Can the leader of a party tradi-
tionally devoted to keeping its
union members employed seriously
hope to adopt a preservationist,
conservationist philosophy? As the
battlelines form, we see loggers,
for instance, on one side, and
eco-freaks on the other.

How would Barrett bridge a gap
as wide as this?

[’'m not saying that he doesn’t
have the flexibility or intelligence
to pull it off. I’m just saying that
the challenge is formidable.

On the other hand, Dave Barrett
is a fairly formidable fellow
himself @

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