Bill Vander Zalm
William Nicholas "Bill" Vander Zalm is a politician and entrepreneur in British Columbia, Canada. He was the 28th Premier of British Columbia from 1986 to 1991.
Early life
Vander Zalm was born Wilhelmus Nicholaas Theodore Marie van der Zalm and raised in Noordwijkerhout, Netherlands. He emigrated to Canada after World War II, settling in the Fraser Valley in 1947. After completing high school, he sold tulip bulbs and ultimately established himself in the nursery and gardening business.Early political career
Vander Zalm was elected an alderman of Surrey in 1965 and served as the city's mayor from 1969 to 1975. His tenure was marked by his crackdown on welfare "deadbeats".Vander Zalm was originally a supporter of both the Liberal Party of Canada and the BC Liberal Party. He sought election to the House of Commons of Canada in the 1968 federal election as a Liberal in Surrey. He lost by 5,000 votes. He was also a candidate at the 1972 provincial Liberal leadership convention, where he lost to David Anderson. He joined the BC Social Credit Party in 1974.
Social Credit MLA
He was first elected to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia in the 1975 election for the riding of Surrey. The Socreds won back power after a three-year hiatus.He served in the cabinet of Premier Bill Bennett as Minister of Human Resources from 1975 to 1978, where he continued his crusade against welfare fraud. After the swearing in ceremony, the media asked him to comment on what the public could expect on welfare. He replied, "If people are truly in need, they can expect and will be treated fairly and compassionately. If people are elderly we will treat them with respect and when in need reward them for their lifelong contributions. If people are handicapped they will be treated generously, hopefully even more so than in the past. But if someone is able to work and refuses to do so, they had best pick up a shovel or I'll give them a shovel." He became widely known overnight when the media reported his off-the-cuff remark with the headlines "Vander Zalm Says Give Them a Shovel."
On June 22, 1978, the Victoria Daily Times published a political cartoon by Bob Bierman that portrayed the Minister of Human Resources as a grinning sadist, deliberately snapping the wings off helpless flies. Vander Zalm launched legal action for libel, Vander Zalm v. Times Publishers. Justice Craig Munroe of the BC Supreme Court awarded Vander Zalm $3,500 in damages. The decision was overturned by the BC Court of Appeal in 1980, which was praised by journalists as a victory for free speech. The original cartoon was purchased by the National Archives of Canada for $350.
He also served as Minister of Municipal Affairs and Transit from 1978 to 1981 and as Minister of Education from 1981 to 1983.
Vander Zalm greatly overstepped his authority when, as Minister of Education, he personally intervened in a local matter in Smithers by publicly demanding the local school board to suspend without pay a school counsellor, Madeleine Sauve, over a Human Resources Ministry questionnaire that she distributed to students. Under public pressure, largely because of Vander Zalm's comments, Sauve lost her job. An inquiry commission into Sauve's firing found that she lost her job due to Vander Zalm's comments that "publicly tried, convicted and sentenced a teacher without the slightest hint of due process." Furthermore, the inquiry commission found that the counsellor was an "innocent victim" and strongly recommended the school district to find Madeleine Sauve another position in the district. After it was over, Vander Zalm said that if the same situation came up again, he would do exactly the same thing.
In 1984, he bought Fantasy Garden World, a theme park. The same year, he ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Vancouver for the candidate for the Non-Partisan Association. He lost to Mike Harcourt, who was later the provincial NDP leader during most of Vander Zalm's tenure as premier.
Premier
In 1986, Premier Bennett announced he was retiring. Vander Zalm attracted considerable attention as he considered whether he would run for the leadership of the Social Credit Party. He generated more press from the race than the other candidates did. At the party's convention in Whistler, British Columbia, he prevailed over 11 other candidates by winning on the fourth ballot.He was sworn in as premier just a month before the 1986 election. During the subsequent provincial election campaign, "Vandermania" swept BC, and the Socreds easily won another term over the opposition New Democratic Party. He and his wife, Lillian, attracted public adoration with their high-voltage smiles, positivity and charisma.
Vander Zalm promised a "fresh start" after the confrontational Bennett years. However, he and his government had no public plan for what they intended to do in the long term.
Once elected in his own right, Vander Zalm filled most of the cabinet slots with MLAs who had languished on the backbench under Bennett. Oddly, Vander Zalm decided to release the normally-secret list of cabinet appointments to two Vancouver Sun reporters hours before the official announcement was to be made.
The Social Credit Party had been a tenuous alliance between urban fiscal conservatives, federal Liberals, and Christian conservatives in the province's Bible Belt. Fiscal conservatives had dominated the party for over a decade. However, Vander Zalm was a member of the social conservative wing, which quickly took control of the party. His government once tried to cut public funding for abortions that were not medically necessary. The resulting uproar forced Vander Zalm to drop the program.
His government also had a confrontational relationship with labour unions. These trends led moderate Socreds began drifting to the provincial Liberals even as Vander Zalm seemingly cruised to victory in 1986. This trend that would come back to haunt the party later.
As well, he appointed David Poole, a close friend, to be his "Principal Secretary." Before resigning in 1989, Poole had allegedly become the second most powerful person in the province, despite never being elected. That naturally attracted the anger of numerous cabinet ministers, such as Grace McCarthy, an influential Socred MLA who resigned in protest from Vander Zalm's cabinet in 1988.
Vander Zalm became embroiled in a conflict of interest controversy over the sale of his Fantasy Gardens flower garden and theme park. The conflict of interest arose because the Taiwanese buyer, Tan Yu, was provided VIP treatment by members of the Vander Zalm Government prior to the sale. Vander Zalm claimed that control over the theme park was his wife's responsibility. Adding fuel to the fire, Faye Leung, a colourful Chinese-Canadian entrepreneur and the woman who brokered the deal, had thought that Vander Zalm was a "bad man" since the day she first met him and secretly recorded conversations she had with him. She was happily willing to speak to the media and provide copies of her audio tapes.
Vander Zalm resigned in disgrace in 1991 when a provincial conflict of interest report, by Ted Hughes, found that he had mixed private business with his public office in the sale of the gardens. He was charged with criminal breach of trust, but was found not guilty in BC Supreme Court in 1992. The judge ruled that Vander Zalm had acted a manner that was "foolish, ill-advised and in apparent or real conflict of interest or breach of ethics", but that the prosecution had not proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt. It was revealed that during the sale of Fantasy Gardens, Vander Zalm had accepted $20,000 payment in cash from Tan Yu, the buyer of Fantasy Gardens, to which Vander Zalm said he took "for innocent reasons." He never really explained why he had taken the money and did not take the stand in his breach of trust trial.
Vander Zalm was succeeded as premier by Deputy Premier Rita Johnston, who defeated McCarthy in the race to replace him as Socred leader. Unfortunately for the Socreds, Johnston had little time to recover from the damage caused by the scandal, as she faced a statutory general election in October. It did not help that Johnston had been a longtime political ally of Vander Zalm; she was unable to separate herself from her now-detested predecessor. The party was heavily defeated, with the NDP returning to government. A number of moderate Socred supporters deserted the party in favour of the Liberals, allowing them to vault from no seats in the legislature to Official Opposition. Combined with the antipathy toward Vander Zalm, Social Credit was knocked down to third place in the legislature with only seven seats, behind the NDP and Liberals.
As it turned out, those would be the last seats that the provincial Socreds would ever win. They were completely shut out of the legislature in 1996, never to return. The party now exists only nominally, having been briefly deregistered from 2013 to 2016 after years of running an ever-dwindling number of candidates.
After politics
1999 Delta South by-election
After many years out of the spotlight, Vander Zalm again took a stab at office by running in Delta South in a by-election in 1999 for the Reform Party of British Columbia. The by-election was notable for many reasons, including the incredibly-low support the governing NDP received and marking the absolute low point for the NDP's electoral support. NDP candidate Richard Tones received just 2.44% of the vote. Tones finished behind Green Party candidate, Rob LaBelle, the first Green candidate to finish ahead of the NDP in the province's history. Vander Zalm finished second, with 32.91% of the vote, to Liberal Val Roddick, who received 59.63%.Vander Zalm retired from politics and now lives in Ladner.
Successful campaign against HST
Vander Zalm returned to the political spotlight in 2009, alongside Bill Tieleman, as a recurring critic of the provincial government's conversion of the Provincial Sales Tax to the Harmonized Sales Tax. A series of populist rallies led to him becoming the official proponent, in accordance with the Recall and Initiative Act, of a petition seeking a referendum to cancel the HST. Vander Zalm established a website, FightHST, to promote the initiative. The provincial Liberal government countered Vander Zalm's campaign and devoted a section of their website to the positive aspects of the HST.For the petition to be certified, there was a requirement to secure the signatures of a minimum of 10% of all registered voters on the provincial voters list in each riding in the province, no later than June 30, 2010.
On June 30, 2010, Vander Zalm delivered 85 boxes containing 705,643 signatures from voters in every riding across the province. Those signatures represented some 45% of votes cast in the 2009 provincial election.
On August 11, 2010, Elections BC verified the official anti-HST petition submitted by the province's Fight HST campaign.
Vander Zalm said he was pleased with the result, but "very disappointed" to learn the province's chief electoral officer would not act on the petition until all court proceedings involving the tax were complete. The anti-HST campaign turned its attention to a recall campaign for Liberal MLAs. Vander Zalm told reporters. "We will recall every Liberal MLA in the province, if that's what it takes." However, the initial attempts at recalls were unsuccessful.
On August 20, 2010, Chief Justice Robert J. Bauman ruled that the petition was valid. Bauman said Elections BC was correct when it approved the petition on August 11.
On September 14, 2010, it was announced a referendum would be held September 24, 2011 on repealing the HST. Premier Gordon Campbell stated a simple majority of those eligible and casting ballots would be sufficient for the government to cancel the HST if the referendum went against the government.
Elections BC conducted the referendum via mail-in ballot. The 2011 British Columbia sales tax referendum was conducted throughout June and July 2011.
The Question on the ballot was: Are you in favour of extinguishing the HST and reinstating the PST in conjunction with the GST ? Yes or No
On August 26, 2011, Elections BC revealed the results of the referendum: 55% of 1.6 million voters in favour of abolishing the HST. The BC Liberals revealed a plan to re-instate the GST/PST system within 18 months, with a target date of March 31, 2013.
2012 defamation suit
In 2012, a BC Supreme Court judge and jury heard a defamation lawsuit lodged against Vander Zalm by retired conflict-of-interest commissioner Ted Hughes. The former judge and Officer of the Order of Canada alleged that he had been defamed in Vander Zalm's 2008 self-published autobiography, For The People. The book suggested that Hughes, then in an interim appointment, may have conducted an unfair inquiry of Vander Zalm in 1991 by the prospect of achieving a permanent employment.Vander Zalm defended the statements about Hughes, saying they had been fair comments, not facts, and that they had been made as a matter of public interest.
On Feb. 9, 2012, Vander Zalm was found guilty of defaming Hughes and was ordered to pay him $60,000 in damages. The amount could be higher once the court determines how much of Hughes's legal cost the former premier will have to pay.