Contains a memo from Lin Rubin, Director of Administration to the regional representatives of the committee (May 17, 1988), and a copy of the "Proposed Guidelines for the Regional Conferences."

Contains correspondence, flyers, public communications, notes, and other materials related to the 2002 BC Aboriginal Treaty Referendum, initiated by the BC Liberals under the leadership of Gordon Campbell, and strongly opposed by the NDP, who supported calls by various Aboriginal groups to boycott the referendum ballot.

Includes correspondence and memos, notes, planning and strategy documents, copies of court documents from the Dixon petition to the Supreme Court (Reasons for Judgement of the Honourable Chief Justice McLachlin), and other related documents.

Contains meeting minutes, receipts, correspondence, budgetary information, and other related materials.

Contains meeting minutes, correspondence, receipts, budgetary documents, and other related materials.

Files in this series reflect the functions and activities of the Director of Organization of the BC NDP. Based at the provincial office, a 1989 document entitled "Provincial Office Staffing (file 449-14, in the "Women's Rights Committee (WRC) records") describes the Director of Organization's activities as including acting as a liaison with labour union representatives, constituency profile coordination and development, voter registration drive coordinaton, by-election recruitment and monitoring, computer services coordination, pre-election organizational planning, workshop development, and attending the Strategy and Elections Planning Committee (SEPC), in addition to overseeing and liaising with several projects and representatives. The Director of Organization was, at various times, members of other committees, such as the Federal Finance Committee and the Computer Committee.

Files in this series have been created by several Directors of Organization, including John Pollard, Ron Stipp (ca. 1992), Russ Neally (ca. 2000), and Heather Fraser (ca. 2004). They include topics such as by-election organizing, conventions, Party membership, budgeting and financial matters, electoral redistribution, and more. Items include correspondence, memos, meeting minutes and agenda, handwritten notes, surveys and poll results, clippings,

Records in this series represent the functions and activities of the Director of Administration for the British Columbia New Democratic Party.

File 449-14, in the "Women's Rights Committee (WRC) records" series of this fonds, includes a document entitled "Provincial Office Staffing," that defines the Director of Administration's duties as pertaining to "Election finances, tax receipts and paper flow, Party finances, cash flow, accounting, budgeting, back-up to Provincial Secretary," as well as implying supervision of specific staff and projects. The Director of Administration would often join the Provincial Secretary as a member of the B.C. Council of Federal Ridings, and would manage records related to the Federal NDP, local constituency associations, clubs, and holding societies. The Director would also manage much of the correspondence sent to the Provincial Office.

The majority of records in this series have been created by two Directors; Lin Rubin, and Sherry Hyde, who took over the Director position ca. 1991. Records in this series include correspondence, memos, budget and finance documents, meeting agenda and minutes, notes, speech transcripts, clippings, and other related materials.

For many years, British Columbia made use of two or three-member ridings in its electoral representations; these distributions did not keep pace with the rapid population growth of some areas however, and consequently many areas were soon found to be grossly under-represented. In 1985, John Dixon of the BC Civil Liberties Union petitioned the British Columbia Supreme Court to apply the Charter of Rights to the Constitution Act, and review the current allocation of seats. The case took over three years, resulted in three decisions (most notably, the conclusion that the disparity of voters to members in some regions was in fact unconstitutional), and prompted a variety of efforts to redistribute the electoral boundaries, including the Fisher Commission of Inquiry.

In the campaign leading up to the 1986 General Election, the Social Credit candidates committed their government, if re-elected, to eliminating the 17 dual-member electoral districts. After winning the election, in April of 1987 the Vander Zalm government appointed Judge Thomas Fisher to head a Royal Commission on the issue of electoral boundary redistribution. While Fisher’s initial mandate was limited, the contiguous nature of all the boundaries made redistribution within the initial terms both ambiguous and challenging, and by September 1987, his terms of reference were expanded so that his recommendations might consider all the electoral districts. Fisher’s solution was to propose increasing the number of electoral districts (thereby increasing the seats in the Legislature as well) from 69 to 75, due to population increases in the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island, and the need for proportional representation within an acceptable margin. As a party, the NDP supported Fisher’s recommendations, and made several submissions to the Commission throughout its review. Ultimately, the Legislative Assembly eventually adopted Fisher’s recommendations to increase the number of electoral districts, in the Electoral Districts Act, SBC 1990, c. 39, Schedule 2, as well as Fisher’s recommendation for new legislation, as enacted in the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act, SBC 1989, c. 65.

The files in this series document the NDP’s participation in this Commission, and its internal strategizing and research. These records appear to have been created by both the Provincial Secretary, and the Chair of the Redistribution Committee, Jeff Hoskins. File 392-16 appears to have been created by Blair Marshall, Redistribution Organizer. The subseries includes correspondence, memos, notes, drafts, reports, research materials, statistics, public communications, and other related materials.

Records in this series reflect the activities of the Provincial Secretary, Party president, and other members in response to formal complaints submitted to the Party.

While informal complaints submitted by Party members are regularly received and replied to by the Provincial Secretary or by another relevant Party member, the NDP additionally has a formal complaints process in place, as outlined in the Party Constitution. Article 16.02 of the "Constitution of the New Democratic Party of British Columbia" (as amended, June 1999) states that a complaint "may be lodged with the Provincial President by any member or constituted body of the Party alleging a violation of the constitution or a statement or action resulting in severe and evident injustice to a member or constituted body of the Party." Complaints were to be submitted in writing with any pertinent evidence included, details of the events that gave rise to the complaint, and the remedy sought (article 16.04). Should the President be unable to resolve the matter equitably, a special panel could be appointed to mediate the dispute, and/or it could be referred to the Provincial Executive for consideration within 30 days (16.05). It was also "a breach of the principles and policies of the New Democratic Party for any member to seek redress for any complaint against another member or body of the Party through public notice or solicitation," (16.08), an act that items in this series suggest happened occasionally, leading to further complaints and mediation.

Complaints contained in this series are varied in the nature of the issue and in the amount of documentation accorded to each, but several cases revolve around allegations of irregular member sign-up practices during nomination periods, or other nomination irregularities. Items in this series include correspondence (predominant), notes, membership cards, memos and public communications, some clippings, and other related materials.

Records in this series relate to several Recall campaigns initiated under the Recall Initiative Act, against NDP party members and other elected officials ca. 1996-2000.

The Recall and Initiative Act was first introduced by the Attorney General to the Legislative Assembly as Bill 36, in June of 1994, received Royal Assent on July 8 1994, and was brought into force by Order in Council on February 24, 1995. It was amended September 1, 1995 as a result of changes to the Election Act, and consolidated in the 1996 Revised Statutes of British Columbia as RSBC 1996 Chapter 398. As of 2011, British Columbia is the only province with Recall legislation in place. Almost immediately following the act’s adoption, the NDP found Recall campaigns initiated against several of its MLA’s, most notably in Skeena, Comox Valley, and Prince George North.

The Recall and Initiative Act is administered by the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO). According to Elections BC, Recall is, “is a process that allows registered voters to petition for the removal of a Member of the Legislative Assembly between elections. Any registered voter can apply to have a petition issued for the recall of their MLA. …A Member cannot be recalled during the first 18 months after their election.” Within 60 days of successfully filing a recall petition, Recall proponents must collect signatures in support of the recall from at least 40% of the registered voters in an MLA’s riding for the motion to succeed. No specific rules or limitations govern the reasons for initiating recall. As of 2011, the CEO has overseen 24 recall campaigns, of which 23 have been unsuccessful, and in the final case, Liberal MLA Paul Reitsma resigned before the results could be tallied.

Following the 1996 Provincial election, recall campaigns were initiated in Prince George North (MLA Paul Ramsey, proponent Pertti Harkonen) and Skeena (MLA Helmut Giesbrecht, proponent G. Lorne Sexton), days after the 18 month suspension following election expired. Shortly after, another major campaign began in Comox Valley (MLA Evelyn Gillespie, proponent Robert Saint Amour). Several of these MLA’s further experienced secondary recall campaigns, but the majority of these were never submitted to the CEO within the required 60 days. A third recall campaign was initiated against Paul Ramsey (proponent former Liberal MLA Bob Viergever), but was also never submitted. In several ridings, supporters of the elected MLA’s formed anti-recall groups and campaigns, such as the Citizens for Local Democracy in Prince George North, the Skeena Taxpayer’s Association, and the Comox Valley Citizens Concerned About Fairness. A dispute between Prince George North recall proponent Pertti Harkonen and CEO Robert Patterson regarding which of the voters' lists provided by the CEO to the recall campaign should be used as the basis for determining the success or failure of the campaigns led to a judicial review, Harkonen v. Patterson. Other attempts to begin campaigns, including a “Recall Glen Clark” campaign, and a "Total Recall" campaign (in which proponents sought to recall all elected NDP officials), are also covered by the series. In 1998, following allegations of fraud, confusion around the act, and overspending on the part of MLA’s, forensic accountant Ronald Parks, of Lindquist Avey Macdonald Baskerville, was engaged by CEO Robert Patterson to investigate and report back (known as the Parks Report, 1999). In 1998, following a December 1997 interview with Paul Ramsey for the Vancouver Province (reporter Donald Hauka), Ramsey launched a libel suit against Hauka, Ben Meisner of CKPG Radio in Prince George, and Pacific Press for misinterpreting a statement he made, and repeating this misinterpretation with defamatory statements (Ramsey v. Pacific Press). The case was eventually settled out of court.

Records in this series include financial documents, correspondence, media clippings, public communications, copies of legislation and court documents, and other records related to recall initiatives in British Columbia.

Contains Viewpoints Research Ltd. opinion poll results.

Includes legal and general correspondence, media clippings, and other documents related to the third recall attempt against NDP MLA Paul Ramsey, initiated by Bob Viergever.

Contains photocopies of excerpts from legal dictionaries, and research into legal precedents surrounding defamation.

Includes media clippings, correspondence, strategy documents, drafts, public communications, and other related documents.

Contains media clippings, electoral district information and election results, memoranda, notes, and other related documents.

Contains correspondence between Brian Gardiner, BC NDP Provincial Secretary, and Bruce Ralston, BC NDP President, as well as related document.

Contains 3 alternate transcripts for a radio campaign message from Bob Skelly, for CKWX Radio.