In 1983, while teaching in the Tri-Cities, I also sat as Education Chair on NDP MLA Norm Levi’s Coquitlam-Maillardville riding executive.
Now, I’d known Norm dating back to his days as Minister of Human Resources in Dave Barrett’s groundbreaking NDP administration, when he was the government’s liaison to the grassroots Tillicum and Fed Up co-operative movement where I was the Executive Director, a co-operative movement which not only initiated the distribution of organic and natural foods across the province, but fundamentally changed the eating habits of British Columbians, and was instrumental, as well, in establishing the first worker-run co-operative: provincial recycling initiatives, child care centres, organic orchard, vegetable and poultry farming communities, bakeries, car repair, furniture building, housing construction, and an import wholesaler.
By the time Dave Barrett called a snap election on Monday, November 3rd, 1975, Norm and I had already lost touch with another, when earlier in the year I had accepted a teaching job in the Interior, Cathy, our young son Jude, and I travelling north, where we bought our first home, settling in.
On Thursday, December 11th 1975, when the Barrett government was defeated by the right-wing Bill Bennett Social Credit party — when, earlier, the Socreds had made a commitment to B.C.’s Liberal & Conservative parties to join them in a coalition, offering their elected MLAs Cabinet positions in government — although Norm was re-elected as the Coquitlam-Maillardville NDP MLA, he was no longer in government, and could do little to promote the co-operative movement, as he’d happily done since 1972.
By the time 1983 rolled around, I had completed work on my Masters degree at Simon Fraser University, was sitting on the Coquitlam BCTF Executive, and was working as an English and Drama teacher in School District 43. And, of course, when Norm and I renewed our friendship, he asked me to sit on his constitutency executive as Education Chair.
All was well with the world when Premier Bill Bennett called a provincial election on Thursday, April 7th, 1983. Norm was a popular sitting MLA, as he had been since first being elected in 1968. The Socreds were running a low profile, virtually unknown car dealer by the name of John Parks.
Norm Levi, respected member of the British Columbia Legislature, 1968 thru 1983
The constituency and the provincial NDP immediately went into campaign mode, signing up more than 500 volunteers in Norm’s riding alone.
Money poured in, we had a first-rate, experienced campaign manager in Dawn Black, who would go on to run successfully as an NDP New Westminster federal candidate. Phone banks were set up, the campaign office was bustling, leaflets were printed and distributed by 400 volunteers, and burmashaves throughout the constituency became a fixture on the landscape through E-Day, some two months later, Thursday, May 5th, 1983.
My job on E-Day was to pick up voters for transport to their polling station, the operation efficient and finely-honed, the office buzzing with activity. Throughout the day, I delivered and returned home almost two dozen voters, who were thrilled to re-elect their beloved MLA, Norman Levi.
My final pickup of the day was an 86-year-old woman who lived in the Burquitlam area, with me arriving at her home shortly after 7pm. I went to knock on the door, helped her down the steps of her home and into my car, and off the two of us went to her polling station, gabbing to beat the band, both of us excited about election day and the opportunity to socialize and get to know new people. During our relatively short drive to the polling station, when I drove at a snail’s pace at my rider’s insistence, she gave me some shocking news: she told me that she’d thought about the matter, and as much as she liked and had voted for Norm Levi in the past, just that afternoon she had decided to cast her ballot for that “nice boy, John Parks.”
So, here I was with a Socred voter in my car, transporting her to the polling station so that she could cast her vote for Norm’s opposition. I talked with her about all of Norm’s fine traits, all that he had accomplished over the years, and how Norm was a much better choice for Coquitlam-Maillardville than that John Parks fella — but she was having none of, saying to me, “Are you telling me that I can’t vote for John Parks?”
No, I told her, you can vote for whoever you choose, but I know Norm Levi well, and know that he’ll make a better representative for Coquitlam-Maillardville residents than John Parks, who didn’t even live in the riding.
“Well, get moving,” she said to me, “time’s a wasting, and I want to cast my ballot for John Parks, and that’s all there is to it!”
Now, if I had my wits about me, and was more mature than I was at age 32, I would have taken her home rather than to the polling station, telling her that my job was to take NDP voters to the polls, not Socred voters, that she’d have to make her own way to the polls. But that’s not what I did.
Instead, I drove her to the polling station, and helped her into the polling station for her to cast her ballot. I waited through the time it took for her to vote, and drove her back home, with her full of smiles, and me with a frown on my face — then I headed to the polling station where I’d been assigned to work as a vote count, ballot box scrutineer.
When the final vote count was announced at 10:45pm that cool May 5th evening, Bill Bennett had scored a smashing victory, winning 35 seats to the NDP’s 22 seats, with just shy of 50% of the popular vote, to 44.94% for Dave Barrett’s third time defeated British Columbia New Democratic Party.
How did Norm Levi do in the 1983 British Columbia provincial election, running for re-election in his beloved Coquitlam-Maillardville riding?
John Michael Parks became the new Member of the Legislature for Coquitlam-Maillardville, where he went on to become Speaker of the House in Victoria. And what was Mr. Park’s margin of victory over Norm Levi?
One vote.
John Michael Parks won the riding by the single vote of the 86-year-old woman I had transported to her polling station earlier that evening. One vote had defeated Norm Levi, the incumbent, long-serving and well-respected Member of the Legislature for the provincial Coquitlam-Maillardville riding.
One vote.
So don’t go telling me that every vote doesn’t count — because, as may be seen in the “story” above, every ballot cast & every recorded vote counts.
Take it from someone who knows, much to my everlasting, persistent regret, heartfelt consternation, and ever sorrowful chagrin.
