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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Rather than being an outdated politician whose hour passed a long time ago, Dave Barrett at the moment is probably much more in tune with the current mood across Canada, at least so far as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.

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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.

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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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