No profit for you: BC NDP’s constitution raises red flags

The New Democratic Party of British Columbia, the province’s likely next government if you look at the polls, seems to eschew profit in favour of redistribution.

The preamble of the party’s constitution states the following:

The principles of democratic socialism can be defined briefly as follows: a) the production and distribution of goods and services shall be directed to meeting the social and individual needs of people and not for profit, b) the modification and control of the operations of monopolistic productive and distributive organizations through economic and social planning, towards these ends, and c) where necessary, the extension of the principle of social ownership.

Tom Fletcher, legislative reporter and columnist for Black Press, raised the issue in his column Imagining an NDP government where he stated that the party “. . .   still opposes all profit-making activity”.

Letters to the editor push back against the assertion.

“A more fair interpretation of the NDP constitution would be to say that “not all activity should be profit-making,” and that government’s chief concern should be “meeting the social and individual needs of people,” wrote Richard Koett.

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