Leslie Young

As promised, here is the little radio piece I put together about the convention. It contains a bit of Jim Sinclair’s speech and part of an interview with MLA Gregor Robertson. If it’s a little rough, it’s because it’s my first.

NDP convention radio piece

This afternoon I attended the British Columbia NDP convention in Vancouver for an assignment. The big story of the day was the resolution to increase female representation in the party by making sure that a certain percentage of candidates in the next election are women. The resolution itself is a little more complex, but that’s its essential part. I thought it an interesting move for a political party - to basically integrate an affirmative action policy. This is done informally on every level of government, I suspect, but to make it official policy is a big step.

The resolution was passed with a significant majority. I’m sure if you look it up tomorrow morning, exact numbers will be all over the papers. Frankly, I don’t know how people managed to count. We all popped up from our little media corner to see, but all I could get was a rough estimate of 4/5 or so of the candidates. Then again, I’m pretty short. The next election should be worth watching to see how successfully this policy gets carried out.

The NDP also voted and approved their environmental policy package, which was roundly endorsed by visiting speaker Thomas Homer Dixon . This could have a significant impact in the years to come as well, though it is probably less interesting from a purely political standpoint.

I managed to grab some fun audio, including an interview with MLA Gregor Robertson, which I might post up here once it’s all downloaded and packaged. I’ll probably post the story I do anyway - assuming it gets a good mark.

EDIT: Here’s the link to my post with that bit of audio.