WI: Dave Barrett wins the 1989 NDP Leadership Race

In OTL, the 1989 NDP leadership race was won by Audrey McLaughlin over Dave Barrett, the former NDP Premier of British Columbia. And as Wikipedia puts it;

"During the campaign, Barrett argued that the party should be concerned with Western alienation, rather than focusing its attention on Quebec. The Quebec leadership of the NDP strongly opposed Barrett's candidacy, and future Quebec MP Phil Edmonston threatened to resign from the party if Barrett became leader.[9]"

"
Some have felt that Barrett would have made a more effective leader than McLaughlin, since the NDP had long been the voice of western discontent, but the party had never had much of a presence in Quebec. In 1989, the New Democratic Party of Quebec adopted a sovereigntist platform and severed its ties with the federal NDP. Although Edmonston would win the NDP its first seat in Quebec through a by-election, he was a Quebec nationalist who clashed with the party over its position on Canadian federalism and against decentralization and devolving powers to Quebec. Barrett's warnings about Western alienation would prove prophetic in the 1993 federal election, as the Reform Party replaced the NDP as the protest voice west of Ontario."

So what if Barrett had won?
 
I'm not sure Barrett could have stolen all that much thunder from Reform. Yes, there are overlaps between left-wing populism and right-wing populism, but, on the issues that really mattered to the western alienationists, you weren't gonna see most of them going over to the NDP. People who were outraged about the NEP and gay rights were going to go over to the party that wanted to make those policies even stronger?

Barrett might have been able to make a bit of hay with things like the CF-18 contract, which was essentially non-ideological. But on most of the other items on the alientationist' outrage list, the NDP would have very little to offer.

Not that Barrett wasn't a great guy otherwise. And I'll also observe that New Democrats who think that they will one day win permanent or even semi-permanent hegemony in Quebec because "that province is SO naturally social democratic" are even more delusional than the ones who think Dave Barrett could have ridden Preston Manning's horse into Stornaway.
 
I'm not sure Barrett could have stolen all that much thunder from Reform. Yes, there are overlaps between left-wing populism and right-wing populism, but, on the issues that really mattered to the western alienationists, you weren't gonna see most of them going over to the NDP. People who were outraged about the NEP and gay rights were going to go over to the party that wanted to make those policies even stronger?

Barrett might have been able to make a bit of hay with things like the CF-18 contract, which was essentially non-ideological. But on most of the other items on the alientationist' outrage list, the NDP would have very little to offer.

Not that Barrett wasn't a great guy otherwise. And I'll also observe that New Democrats who think that they will one day win permanent or even semi-permanent hegemony in Quebec because "that province is SO naturally social democratic" are even more delusional than the ones who think Dave Barrett could have ridden Preston Manning's horse into Stornaway.
The NDP did do well in the west in 1988, and this is Canada we are talking about, so in my mind, anything's possible.

Plus politics is not always logical. You saw people vote UKIP in 2015, then vote Labour in 2017, even though policy wise the 2 had little in common.
 
Plus politics is not always logical. You saw people vote UKIP in 2015, then vote Labour in 2017, even though policy wise the 2 had little in common.
r e d k i p

On a serious note, I think that Barrett should be able to improve on OTL’s result (not hard at all), and slightly slow down Reform’s rise.
 
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