28 Facts About Dave Barrett

1.

David Barrett was a politician and social worker in British Columbia, Canada.

2.

Dave Barrett was the 26th premier of British Columbia from 1972 to 1975.

3.

Dave Barrett was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, the son of Rose and Samuel Dave Barrett, a peddler.

4.

Dave Barrett's mother was from Odessa, and his paternal grandparents were immigrants from Russia.

5.

Dave Barrett described his father as a Fabian socialist and his mother as a Communist who voted CCF.

6.

Dave Barrett graduated from Seattle University with a degree in philosophy.

7.

Dave Barrett returned to Vancouver in 1953 after graduating and married Shirley Hackman.

8.

The couple then moved to St Louis, Missouri, where Dave Barrett attended St Louis University and earned a master's degree in social work.

9.

Dave Barrett was asked to run for the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation after giving a party member a tour of the facility.

10.

Dave Barrett was first elected to British Columbia's legislature in the 1960 election as a Co-operative Commonwealth Federation member for the electoral district of Dewdney.

11.

Dave Barrett had been fired from his job by the provincial government in 1959 after it became known that he was running for a CCF nomination and had to fight for reinstatement as at the time civil servants were barred from running for office.

12.

Dave Barrett became known for his public speaking ability and held his seat through four elections.

13.

Dave Barrett ran for the provincial leadership of the NDP, but lost to Tom Berger.

14.

Dave Barrett resigned, and there was a quick campaign to draft Barrett as party leader.

15.

Dave Barrett's government introduced a mineral royalties tax, which inflamed the mining industry and helped mobilize it into organizing to defeat the NDP electorally.

16.

Dave Barrett called a snap election in 1975, and was defeated by the Social Credit Party, then led by Bill Bennett, son of the man Dave Barrett had defeated in the previous election.

17.

Bennett's campaign focused on attacking the Dave Barrett government's handling of provincial finances.

18.

Dave Barrett was personally defeated in the Coquitlam seat he had held since its creation in a 1965 redistribution, losing to Socred challenger George Herman Kerster by only 18 votes.

19.

Dave Barrett remained an MLA for that riding until 1984, continuing to lead the NDP against Bennett's Socreds in the 1979 and 1983 elections.

20.

On October 6,1983, Dave Barrett was forcibly removed from the Legislative Assembly chamber by the Serjeant-at-Arms, during a raucous debate on the Social Credit government's austerity program, for failing to abide by the Speaker's ruling and was banned from the legislature for several months.

21.

Dave Barrett ran for the leadership of the federal New Democratic Party in 1989, losing narrowly on the fourth ballot to Audrey McLaughlin at the party's leadership convention.

22.

Dave Barrett later referred to the party's support for the Accord as a mistake.

23.

Dave Barrett lost his seat in the 1993 federal election to Reform Party candidate Keith Martin.

24.

From 1998 to 2000, Dave Barrett chaired two inquiries into the Leaky condo crisis in BC entitled The Commission of Inquiry into the Quality of Condominium Construction in British Columbia.

25.

The first of what became known as the "Dave Barrett Commissions" was to investigate the cause of the crisis and make recommendations to prevent reoccurrence.

26.

Dave Barrett retired from active politics and, for health reasons beginning in 2010, from public life altogether.

27.

In 2000, Dave Barrett was appointed to American Income Life Insurance Company's Labour Advisory Board as an Honorary Member.

28.

In 2014, it was announced that Dave Barrett had Alzheimer's disease and was living in a care facility in Victoria, British Columbia.