The first time the leader of the B.C. New Democrats repudiated the party's socialist doctrine and promised to help business create wealth, my incredulous editor asked to hear my tape recording of the speech. Then he cleared space on the front page of the newspaper.
It was 1989 and then-party leader Mike Harcourt was speaking to 120 business power brokers at the Pan Pacific Hotel in Vancouver. There were bankers, industry chiefs from forestry and mining, and Howe Street investors.
"The creation of wealth is what we think we have to do," Mr. Harcourt said.
The business community sure liked what it heard. "It's a very good message - we buy it," said the head of the Business Council of British Columbia, Jim Matkin. Others said they were "very encouraged" and applauded Mr. Harcourt's "great moves."
This was a crowd that had been thoroughly spooked by the Dave Barrett NDP government in the 1970s. Now they were hearing the NDP promise to limit government spending and encourage the prosperity of the private sector. Little wonder the editor doubted my account.
On Friday, Carole James will try to recreate that mood when she meets with representatives of mining, forestry, business big and small. This time they'll be rubbing shoulders with aboriginal leaders, environmentalists and local government at a conference hosted by Ms. James. She's invited 500 "leading British Columbians" to help her craft a plan for the future of the B.C. economy.
Like Mr. Harcourt - who is one of the invited guests - Ms. James has sought to brand herself as a moderate. But she faces a tougher audience than Mr. Harcourt in 1989. Big business was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt then. The Social Credit government of Bill Vander Zalm was disintegrating and Mr. Harcourt, the former mayor of Vancouver, looked like a reasonable premier-in-waiting.
After the NDP government of the 1990s, there is a more skeptical view.
Darcy Rezac, managing director of the Vancouver Board of Trade, remembers the Harcourt speech: "Mike got it. He understood the necessary dynamics."
But the NDP government under Mr. Harcourt, and later Glen Clark, didn't deliver on those dynamics. "We had a very bad experience last time around," Mr. Rezac said. "It was quite clear [Mr. Harcourt]didn't have the complete control of the party." On Ms. James, Mr. Rezac is noncommittal. "We'll have to see what her party does," he said.
There are areas where business and the NDP can find common ground. One opening is to appeal to the business sectors that have been left behind in the shift to the harmonized sales tax. Ms. James could promise mitigation for restaurant meals, perhaps modelled on Ontario's exemption of the small stuff - a latte or a bite at a fast food joint.
Ms. James said she's not expecting to convert big business to her cause, but she'd settle for the benefit of the doubt.
"This isn't about convincing Darcy Rezac to support us in the next election," she said in an interview this week. "This is the next step in building a strong economic action plan for British Columbia. … There is a vacuum right now and the Official Opposition is looking at alternatives."
The New Democrats refused to say who is planning to attend their forum this week, but it will be instructive to see who comes sniffing around. The next election is three long years away, but given the current state of the B.C. Liberal government, it might be prudent to show a little civility to the folks who could be running the province next.
Even polite indifference would be a vast improvement over the response Ms. James got in the last election, when business leaders went beyond supporting Gordon Campbell's Liberals.
In the middle of the campaign, the CEOs of leading forestry companies stepped out from behind their industry associations and directly attacked her. "If the government was to change, heaven help us," said Jim Shepard, head of Canfor Corp. Duncan Davies, CEO of Interfor, chided Ms. James for failing to consult the industry: "If Carole had talked to any of us, we could have put her on the right track."
Ms. James, minutes after conceding she had lost the election, promised to take him up on the offer. In her election night postmortem, she concluded that her party failed to come up with a credible economic platform and promised to consult broadly to produce one for 2013.
While she insisted this week that Friday's conference has nothing to do with crafting an NDP election platform, there is no other reason for this meeting. She is not, after all, coming up with ideas to help the Liberal government stay in power.