Talk:W. A. C. Bennett

Two Rivers Policy/Columbia River Treaty

The W.A.C. Bennett Dam near Hudson's Hope, built under the Two River Policy, is named after him.

Er, I'm not sure that's the meaning of the Two Rivers Policy (or Two River Policy? I thought it was "Rivers" but I'm not sure), which was Bennett's hold-out (and successful) position in his stonewalling of Washington DC and Ottawa over the Columbia River Treaty. The "one river" policy as far as I understand it would have been the damming of the Columbia insuch a way that all of the Columbia and Kootenay River (and Kootenay Lake) valleys in BC would become one big reservoir; I think Trail, Nelson, and Castlegar would have been preserved but there'd be a big horseshoe-shaped lake stretching from there to the Big Bend, via Revelstoke on the one hand and via Montana on the other; a precursor to the NAWAPTA dream of turning the Rocky Mountain Trench (and most of the rest of BC's valleys) into one big reservoir, all the way to the Yukon. Unfortunately I can't check this quickly as I sold my copy of Paddy Sherman's Bennett a few months ago; it discussed his Columbia River Treaty politics in detail; I haven't read Mitchell's book, which is the source here (FWIU it's a bit sycophantic). It may be that the "Two Rivers" were the Columbia and the Peace, but I'm pretty sure the reference is rather to the Columbia and the Kootenay/Kootenai, i.e. keeping them as separate rivers, instead of effectively making the Kootenay disappear between the waters of a Columbia "mega-reservoir". The Peace project was a bonus that Bennett threw into the deal - and I'm not sure Peace River power is bound by the Columbia River Treaty; it was just built at the same time I think, and part of Bennett's "sell" in getting his way - as the lower levels in the Columbia basin meant also less power generated so he had a way to produce more - damming the Peace, which wasn't part of the original Columbia River proposal advanced by the States. AFAIK it wasn't part of the "downstream benefits" package the NDP signed away on back around 1999 or so (redlinked because it needs an article). Most Canadians today aren't aware that Bennett threatened to secede from Canada if the federal government gave way to the Americans on the deal, and implicitly WAC stood up to Washington DC as well in the same context (seceding from Canada to join the US wasn't "on" - BC remained very royalist and British-loyal in the late '50s)...all of this discussion is tangent off the core point: there should be a mention on this page of the Columbia River Treaty, which there isn't; odd to see the Two River(s) Policy, since it was only a position related to the treaty and not an actual document or agreement.Skookum1 19:19, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Two Rivers Policy & WAC Bennett's bio.

Isn't this a federal policy, not a provincial one? I seem to remember it being some kind of deal to divide power generation on the Columbia River between the US and Canada...

Are you all sure WAC tried to obtain the Progressive Conservative leadership in 1951? I too have a copy of Paddy Sherman's book but it is packed away and I can't get at it now.Chris. Fulker 14:37, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

The Photo.

This looks more like Princess Margaret! And perhaps it should be pointed out that Bennett is the one standing to her immediate right, not the one shaking hands. The woman with the dark glasses does look like May Bennett, though...Chris. Fulker 15:18, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

The BC Archives describes the Royal in question as the Queen. But they could be wrong. fishhead64 05:57, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

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BetacommandBot 11:48, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Photo

Are there really no photos of his face that we can use ? -- Beardo (talk) 21:09, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

It would be nice if we could find a fair use image. I haven't been successful. In a few years, fair use will be permissible. fishhead64 (talk) 22:53, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The 52-53 elections and other matters

It's very difficult to make non-POV edits to such a highly politicized personality and legacy as WAC's; avoiding POV leaves for a terse and rather flavourless and "empty" set of bland facts; and WAC was not bland in the slightest. But I hestitate to make any edits just because of NPOV, because it's very hard to say anythign without editorializing-by-way-of-explanation, or adding facts in logic cause-effect things that I can't immediatley page cite or article cite; most of what I might add in the following bit would be from Paddy Sherman, or over the years from Fotheringham's and various other columnists' writings and general memories/experiences of my own from the later times of his era, and of his son's regime - during which there was a lot of background on Socred politics that had a lot of items from the earlier times; but all also op-ed columss, not news coverage, and so inherently POV (though still quotable, if found). Anyway this bit could use some work/expansion:

Commencing with the 1952 provincial election, the province used an alternative vote system that had been designed to enable the Conservative and Liberal parties to keep the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation out of power. Unexpectedly, this enabled Social Credit to win the largest number of seats, arguably because of second-preference ballots from CCF voters.

"Should" read - Faced with the growth of leftist support in BC as aresult of the Great Depression and its troubles, and because of World War II, the mutually hostile Liberal and Conservative Parties united formally as t he Liberal-Conservative Coalition in advance of the 1941 election, winning power and retaining it until 1952, when discord between the two parties in the Coalition led to its dissolution, with the solution to keeping the CCF blocked from power being the creation of a preferential ballot system. The intent of the system was that Liberal and Tory voters would vote for each other's parties as second preference; instead because of grating hostility between the parties, many gave their second votes to Social Credit, which also found itself the recipient of the second-preference ballots of the bulk of the CCF electorate.

With only 19 seats out of a total of 48, Social Credit fell short of holding a majority. Bennett had succeeded in convincing an independent labour Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) to support the party, and so the Socreds were able to form a minority government.

["should" read]The result was a surprise tie between the newly-minted Social Credit, and the CCF, with each party holding seats seats out of a total of 48 and the CCF receiving the majority of the popular vote on both first and second counts. Controversially, the CCF were not called upon by the Lieutenant-Governor and Bennett was invited to form a government, successfully recruiting an independent labour member to the Social Credit fold for a total caucus of 19 seats. The Liberals had won six seats, and the Conservatives four. Labour MLA Tom Uphill won re-election in the coal-mining Fernie riding, and was persuaded by Bennett to support him instead of the CCF.....

-This gets a good deal more complicated when you read the Tom Uphill article, which I'll quote here:

With only 19 seats out of a total of 48, Social Credit fell short of holding a majority. Bennett had succeeded in convincing an independent labour Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) to support the party, and so the Socreds were able to form a minority government.

The party had no leader, however. In a vote of the newly elected caucus, Bennett defeated Philip Gaglardi for the position of party leader and premier-elect on July 15, 1952 by a margin of 10 to 9.

Bennett and his wife beside H.R.H. the Princess Margaret in Kelowna, BC on July 19, 1958 Bennett and his wife beside H.R.H. the Princess Margaret in Kelowna, BC on July 19, 1958

On August 1, he was sworn in as Premier of British Columbia, an office he held for twenty years until 1972. Bennett engineered the defeat of his minority government with a school funding proposal, and forced an election in 1953. Social Credit was re-elected with a clear majority. Alternative voting was not used in BC again.

"One of Bennett's first acts of government was to do away wit hthe elctoral system which had brought him to power; alternative voting was not used in BC again"

-Thought more could be added about the politics of teh 1952-53 government (all ten months of it, or whatevr it was), and also Uphill's attempt to force a change of govenrment by crossing hte floor "back to" the CCF (see his article) and likewise the L-G's refual to consider a CCF government (for non-Canadians, it helps to know that Lieutenats-Governor aren't supposed to be ..... well, POV, i.e .partisan; in BC they often are......).

That's all for now; these might seem like POV edits but they're largely from Paddy Sherman's Bennett! and are mainstream lore about these events; it's hard not to paint them in a POV light; WAC himself was very POV, and everythign he died was convetroversial.....Skookum1 (talk) 03:12, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

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