Geoff Russ: To rule like W.A.C. Bennett

Autonomy for British Columbia, and great power and authority in the premier’s office: this is what it means to rule like Bennett.

(W.A.C. Bennett speaking to a crowd in the Peace River, 1958. Photo from the B.C. Archives.)

W.A.C. Bennett is often upheld as the gold standard of governance and political leadership in British Columbia, and with good reason. Few, if any, have matched his record and impact, right down to the electricity that powers the lights in your home.

To rule like Bennett is to use the premier’s office as a true instrument of power and to use it generously and with enthusiasm.

Fundamentally, B.C. is still a frontier of sorts. It is deeply rich in natural resources, but geographically disparate and difficult to traverse. The province is always at risk of interference from outsiders, whether from Ottawa, Alberta, or abroad, to say nothing of its home-grown bureaucrats and administrators.

B.C. is best governed when the premier makes full use of the authority granted to the office to impose order and continue to open up the province so that industry and entrepreneurs can thrive. The idea of “free enterprise” has always been strong in B.C., but it has always been backed up by the security and order provided by the provincial government and its predecessors. As the incumbent in Victoria exemplifies, the worst premiers are desk clerks for the NGO complex, the bureaucracy, and activist networks.

The Socred regime

Bennett came to power in 1952 after the first Liberal-Conservative coalition collapsed and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) seemed poised to seize power. The province’s Social Credit Party, which had never elected an MLA in B.C., became Bennett’s vehicle.

Having started as a Conservative, Bennett joined Social Credit, or the “Socreds”, in 1951. It was a choice he described as potentially “walking into oblivion”, but the risk paid off in spades for both the Bennett and the province.

The base of Bennett’s Socreds became a “ragtag” army of small businessmen, teachers, preachers, garage operators, and housewives. Bennett transformed the party into a nearly unbeatable vessel of the political right and the non-left in B.C., winning a plurality of seats in the 1952 provincial election amid disillusionment with the Liberal-Conservative coalition. He would not leave office until 1972.

With inexperienced MLAs and a relatively loose platform, Bennett used the business community’s fears of CCF socialism and his own legislative prowess to rule the Socreds with an iron fist. According to one account, “there was no question who was the boss”.

In retrospect, Bennett has been described as a “strongman”, but this is no insult in the democratic tradition of the Canadian provinces. Indeed, some of the most reputable and impactful premiers in Canadian history were democratic strongmen who could dominate elections and their caucus, bend cabinet to their will, and stare down Ottawa. This long list includes Quebec’s Maurice Duplessis, Ontario’s Mike Harris, and Bennett himself in B.C. Surely, all three had their own unique temperaments and challenges, but none would stoop to treating their provinces as branches of Ottawa.

One biographer called Bennett “something very close to a head of state in his own right — a kind of provincial warlord” and “the single most powerful figure in his provincial bailiwick”. This did not make him a dictator, but Bennett was certainly a boss, and one who made B.C. into a mighty, autonomous piece of the Canadian federation.

In addition to winning elections, Bennett worked hard to ensure that the Socreds were attached to, and embedded within, business, natural resource firms, governing boards across multiple sectors, Crown corporations, and the civil service. Within a decade, the Socreds had become a ruthless, finely oiled political machine that appeared invincible, and “one great movement under an all-powerful leader”.

Toryism and development on the frontier

Bennett was a sort of frontier Tory who energetically built roads, railways, ferries, and massive hydroelectric dams to make possible enterprise, settlement, and order in the vast wilderness of the province. His actions followed the B.C. tradition of governance that, by necessity, forced the Crown to cut through the mountains and canyons of the rugged province to ensure it had any semblance of unity.

Even during the colonial and Confederation eras, the history of B.C. is marked by the efforts of the Royal Engineers to build crude roads connecting the coast and the hinterland. The promise that brought B.C. into Confederation in 1871 was the pledge to blast a railway across the Rocky Mountains and right through to the Pacific coast.

B.C. also had a noticeably violent past, with pre-modern clashes between gold seekers, settlers, and First Nations groups often settled with public executions. The libertarian tradition in B.C. is not as strong as some might imagine, with Crown authority being critical to the province’s commercial and entrepreneurial successes.

For W.A.C. Bennett, the creation of B.C. Ferries, the building of the great hydro dams on the Peace River, and the construction of vast highway and pipeline networks served dual, connected purposes. One was to make it easier for enterprise and industry to thrive, while the second was to use that economic power to strengthen B.C.’s autonomy and shrink Ottawa’s power. For example, when Bennett ordered the building of new rail networks in the north, it was to ward off outside interests who might have built them instead.

Bennett’s vast infrastructure programme was always intended to ensure the arteries of the province were controlled by the provincial government, which he ruled like a Caesar from the premier’s office. Remarkably, Bennett was able to do it while balancing twenty consecutive budgets. All his grand projects were built on a pay-as-you-go basis, which resulted in low debt.

When Bennett left office in 1972, the province had large fiscal reserves and sound investments and was unencumbered by direct provincial borrowing or debt. Rather than only judging whether a government should “spend less” or “spend more”, the next conservative premier of B.C. should think about whether his or her spending grows or shrinks the autonomy and power of the province.

Bennett’s vision was development, fiscal responsibility, and the concentration of power in his office at the expense of Ottawa and others. Those who profess their admiration for Bennett, particularly those running for the leadership of the B.C. Conservative Party, should understand the need to use their authority to the fullest.

Reviving the autonomy and power of the premier

Since forming government in 2017, the NDP have doubled the size of the public service. Almost 600,000 people work for the provincial government, at a cost of $53 billion. These are not only largely unnecessary white-collar welfare hires, but an army of more than half a million unionised voters, most of whom are loyal to their NDP paymasters.

When and if the NDP government is defeated, firing and replacing vast numbers of these employees will be essential to eliminating the NDP’s residual presence.

Staffing the boards and leadership of institutions and public departments with a mix of party loyalists and trusted, competent professionals would be the next step. That course of action may seem somewhat Byzantine, but the practice of politically dominating institutions is how the Liberal Party of Canada became the country’s “natural governing party”. The B.C. NDP government itself has stuffed the boards of B.C. Ferries, the Royal B.C. Museum with party loyalists, along with PavCo, which manages B.C. Place and the Vancouver Convention Centre. As the saying goes, it is what it is.

While W.A.C. Bennett died in 1979, before the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was introduced, it is easy to imagine him gleefully using the notwithstanding clause, section 33, to effectively nullify activist courts intruding upon the legislative sovereignty of B.C. If one considers Canada’s increasingly centralist, left-wing legal culture to be a threat to provincial autonomy, premiers in B.C. and elsewhere seeking to fight back have few options except for section 33.

In 1950, just two years before Bennett became premier, the B.C. Provincial Police were disbanded, and the lion’s share of police-paramilitary capabilities in the province were handed over to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

Without impugning the largely honourable record of the RCMP, it is an armed branch of the federal government. A province that seeks autonomy should arm, train, and pay those who enforce the law and carry firearms while doing so. A revived provincial police force could make arrangements with Ottawa to finally implement permanent, thorough inspections at the Port of Vancouver, which is a relatively unguarded gateway for drugs and other contraband entering Canada.

Furthermore, many First Nations in B.C. have criticised the RCMP for failing to enforce bylaws on their reserves, something a provincial police force could readily handle. Moreover, anti-pipeline activists have plagued the expansion of oil and natural gas projects in B.C., including attacking workers at night with hatchets. The lack of large-scale investigations or any sort of heavy-handed deterrence is an indictment of the RCMP’s inability to properly police the B.C. wilderness.

Federal power, whether it be in government, the judiciary, or the police, is holding back B.C. The more that B.C. can enforce the law itself, reject activist courts, and continue to develop its economy unimpeded, the stronger the province will be, and the stronger Canada will be. There is no real separatist movement in B.C., and the province has far more power within Confederation, so long as it increases its autonomy and leverage over Ottawa as the country’s Pacific Gateway. A politically and economically stronger B.C. can squeeze the federal government for more concessions, especially if it coordinates such efforts with the neighbouring provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Ending the NDP insurgency

Autonomy for B.C., power and authority in the premier’s office: this is what it means to rule like Bennett. Bennett governed in a very different time with a dissimilar set of circumstances from those in B.C. today. However, his appetite for using authority and power well, and for entrenching his party in the levers and infrastructure of the province while weeding out any vestiges of NDP influence, remains instructive.

Let it not be forgotten that the NDP have a terrible legacy in B.C. There is a good reason why their governments end with landslide defeats and a sour taste in the mouths of voters. One of the most recurring democratic mandates in the history of B.C. elections is permission to get rid of the NDP. They are not B.C.’s natural governing party for a reason, and every NDP government is a destructive insurgency against the legacy of the Socreds.

In fact, almost every NDP electoral victory in B.C. history has been caused not by their overwhelming popularity, but by vote-splitting in the Socred regime and its successors on the right.

Since 2017, the NDP have misgoverned, if not abused, the province. This impulse became especially apparent after David Eby, a transplanted activist from Ontario, became premier. His attempts to secretly give up power over Crown land and his refusal to repeal DRIPA, which has resulted in co-governance by First Nations authorities who are unaccountable to the wider public, are destroying B.C.’s ability to govern itself from within.

Repealing DRIPA, cutting a few taxes, and leaving all else alone will only legitimise the changes made to B.C. by the NDP.

When and if the NDP fall, the next conservative premier cannot afford to let the legacy of Eby and his government continue to exist in the bureaucracy and public service. Every NDP government in B.C. is nothing less than an attempt at regime change, and crushing it will require a very firm campaign, first democratically at the ballot box, and then at the head of the province.

The best way to accomplish that is to rule like Bennett.

Geoff Russ is the Editor-at-Large of Without Diminishment. He is a contributor to a number of publications, including the National Post, Modern Age, and The Australian Financial Review.