With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/394777
Bennett spent summers with his father, hunting and fi shing at the family cabin in Northern Ontario. When he went looking for work in his late teens, his grandfather hooked him up with a friend who had a fl y-in fi shing lodge near Red Lake, Ontario—an experience that shaped his life. 46 BCBusiness November 2014 courtesy biLL beNNett ack in the fall of 2010, few would have guessed that Bennett would today be a popu- lar MLA (re-elected three times, last year with 63 per cent of the vote) and ascendant player in the Clark administration, basking in the afterglow of an unexpected Liberal victory in 2013. Back then, a lifetime in the political wilderness seemed a far likelier scenario. Bennett, like many of his caucus col- leagues, had concluded shortly after the 2009 election that their leader, Gordon Campbell, had lost the plot. The surprise introduction of the HST caused no end of grief for government members. Campbell had grown increas- ingly erratic and bullying at cabinet meetings, and he reorga- nized the energy and mines ministry without even talking to his minister. At fi rst Bennett vented his concern to the premier in per- son. When that fell on deaf ears, he discussed the matter with people he trusted. "I talked to [former education min- ister] George Abbott," he recounts over breakfast at St. Eugene. "I said, 'George, I think he's taking us down. I see signs of a guy who's really tired and at the end of his tether. I think he's desperate.'" Ultimately, Bennett decided to make what he calls "a surgical strike." He went to Jonathan Fowlie of the Vancouver Sun to discuss his disenchantment with Campbell, suggesting that the premier should step down. "We need to think about doing things diff erently," he told Fowlie in a front-page story in October 2010. "We are not well thought of by the general public. Wouldn't that suggest to you that perhaps it might be time to try a diff erent approach?" Nine days later, Campbell retired. "Lots of people do not want Bill Ben- nett to take credit for this," Bennett con- tinues. "All I can tell you is that on the day he announced his retirement, everybody who was there—every prominent cabi- net minister—got up and hugged him. Many of them had tears in their eyes. At the next cabinet meeting, a month later, when I got kicked out, there was nobody who'd wanted him to go or would say to him that he should go." It irks Bennett to this day that he took the fall. "There was this group—10 or 11 of us, including at least one minister—they all encouraged me to do what I did. When the time came, there wasn't one person who ever acknowledged publicly that they wanted him to leave. Not one ever stood up and said, 'I supported what Bill Ben- nett did. I actually encouraged him to do it.'" It wasn't the fi rst time Bennett had run into trouble as a cabinet minister. In 2007, he'd resigned as minister of mines after sending a harsh email to a constituent—Maarten Hart, then presi- dent of the Fernie Rod and Gun Club— B ack in the fall of 2010, few would have guessed that Bennett would today be a popu- (re-elected three times, last year with 63 per cent of the vote) and ascendant player in the Clark administration, basking in the afterglow of an unexpected Liberal victory in 2013. Back then, a lifetime in the political Bennett, like many of his caucus col- leagues, had concluded shortly after the 2009 election that their leader, Gordon Campbell, had lost the caused no end of grief for government members. Campbell had grown increas- ingly erratic and bullying at cabinet meetings, and he reorga- nized the energy and mines ministry without even talking to At fi rst Bennett vented his concern to the premier in per- son. When that fell on deaf ears, he discussed the matter with people he trusted. "I talked to [former education min-