May 15, 2000
Planta resigns from NDP - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER -- Any who have read this column for a while now, may know that I am a member of the NDP. I took up a membership in the fall of last year, riding the waves of an interesting leadership campaign.
My parents are long-time NDP supporters, they vote NDP federally and provincially, voting COPE locally in this town. I took the membership up realising that there should be a level of compassion in the governance of the people, meaning that there be a social consciousness in the act of governing. I still believe that and I think on paper, in the party’s policy, the New Democratic Party is that party. Alas, Provincially it’s another story.
The system of government in this province, which is inherited from the federal model, which in turn, was inherited from the British Parliamentary system, (a terribly outdated and tiring process) let the fate of Dan Miller’s successor be decided by NDP delegates to that convention of last February. Now, as some of my colleagues have noted, those that were at that convention, it is an unfair way to choose the new Premier as only a few British Columbians get to vote at all. Now I won’t go that far in saying it was “unfair” or “undemocratic” (that’s another column,) but in signing up for the membership, my meager voice was part of the damned process in electing the new leader, rather than finding myself behind my computer bitching aimlessly.
I like Premier Dosanjh as a person. He’s very nice and somewhat open (at least as open as politicians get these days) and I happen to like him as a politician. He’s from the same extraction of former Premier Mike Harcourt, determined but not a rabble-rouser like Clark or Barrett. He’s performed rather well, but in all actuality he hasn’t performed all that much. (It’s sort of like a lame duck Premiership.) It’s clearly evident that British Columbians need to go to the polls and decide if this is what they want. (Which they won’t of course.)
By the end of tomorrow (the 16th) I will have sent the enclosed letter to the New Democratic Party. I am resigning from the party and requesting that my membership be terminated. I will probably vote NDP in my riding come the next election, because I think Dosanjh is a good MLA, but generally the party stinks. The party has lost its sense of direction and those values of governing with a conscience have gone to hell under the leadership of Clark, Miller and now, Dosanjh. There is no regard for what is considered right and just and the only alternative, the minimum, that Premier Dosanjh can do is call an election.
Herewith, is the letter I have sent to the NDP, stating my intentions to resign my membership...
May 16, 2000
Rob Hutchinson Membership Secretary BC NDP 3110 Boundary Road, Burnaby, BC V5M 4A2
Dear Mr. Hutchinson,
I am writing to you today to ask you to remove my membership from the BC New Democratic Party and the federal NDP.
I come from parents that have fully supported this party for years now, and I have come to somewhat support the BC NDP. I took on this membership last fall to support the development and transition the party was undergoing at that time. I, too, had great hopes that the leadership contest would dramatically change the politics in this province.
I ask that you remove my name from the party, because I am not fully comfortable in being a member of this party at this time. The NDP’s record of the government is rather disappointing, and although I will not assume a membership of another BC political party, I can’t fully in good consciousness keep my membership to this party. I will continue to support the NDP in my riding of Vancouver-Kensington, but I cannot do that as well as keep my NDP membership. I ask that you accept my resignation from the party, by forwarding me correspondence confirming that that has occurred, as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
(originally signed by Joseph Planta)
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