Vaughn Palmer: Bob Williams was an independent man, at a time in politics when it wasn’t always easy to do so

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VICTORIA — As the New Democrats of BC enter another chapter of their history, comes a memoir from a politician, planner and survivor of much of that history.

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Bob Williams, 89, was born around the same time as the CCF, the left-wing party that became today’s NDP.

He was the most powerful cabinet minister in BC’s first NDP government in the 1970s.

He has also served as a City Planner (Delta), City Councilman (Vancouver), Crown Corporation Supervisor (ICBC), Credit Union Board Member (Vancity Savings), and Business Entrepreneur. private (the Railway Club).

Along the way, Williams left fingerprints on farmland reservation, Robson Square, Whistler, Surrey Central, BC Housing, Sea Bus and… well, one could write a book and finally did.

Using Power Well: Bob Williams and the Making of British Columbia was published last month by Gibsons-based Nightwood Editions.

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The title is slightly reminiscent of David Mitchell’s classic WAC Bennett and the Rise of British Columbia.

Bennett had two decades in government as prime minister, Williams just under four years as minister.

But both envisioned an activist role for the government, albeit from different sides of the left/right political divide.

Williams was one of the most polarizing figures in BC politics from the 1960s to the 1990s.

Just ask his editorial assistants on the memoir, Ben Isitt, a Victorian city councillor, and Thomas Bevan, a university-trained urban planner like Williams himself.

“His penchant for being a straight shooter, as he describes him, who really tells it like it is, no nonsense, has probably made him more enemies than friends,” they acknowledge in their introduction.

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Williams’ authoritarian management style would not have lasted long in today’s sheltered workplaces either.

Just ask the man himself: “It has been said that I did not put up with fools with pleasure, and I did not.”

His public policy vision was based on the writings of Henry George, the radical American economist who influenced the progressive movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

George argued that the economic value of land and resources should be treated as the common property of society and subject to a single tax to achieve a more productive and just society.

Williams’s devotion to “one tax, George” branded him a communist in some quarters.

He defines himself as a “socialist who believes in free enterprise.”

The book delights in recounting how he briefed post-communist-era Russian mayors on how to establish a private land ownership registry in the BC appraisal model.

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Entire sections of the book are devoted to discussions of the development of BC’s land and resources, not only in the past but also in the future.

Classic Williams. When I invited him to appear on the talk show I hosted on the cable channel a few years ago, he agreed that it didn’t just mean looking back.

He then bombarded me with notes and research papers on how forestry in BC could be reformed through community control, cooperatives, and value-added development.

There is a political reckoning in the book, especially with Dave Barrett.

The two were close during Barrett’s tenure as Prime Minister from 1972 to 1975.

When Barrett lost his seat in the 1975 election, Williams resigned his, allowing Barrett to return to the House in a by-election.

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In return, Williams says that Barrett promised him that in the next election he would make sure veteran MLA Alex Macdonald stepped down in favor of the young Williams.

However, when the 1979 election came around, Barrett sided with Macdonald and Williams lost the fight for the nomination.

“Dave never lived up to our clear agreement,” says Williams, who did not return to the legislature until Barrett himself retired in 1984.

The book is also deeply personal.

Williams was separated for years from his biological father. He recounts his working-class upbringing in poignant detail.

He also talks about how “in my youth, before my marriage and political career”, he didn’t recognize that he was gay: “It wasn’t relevant then or it didn’t seem to be.”

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He then recounts how his homosexuality was used against him in a way that ended his career as an elected politician.

One day in the spring of 1991, Williams was buying coffee at the kiosk outside the legislature when he was approached by a then-government appointee from Social Credit.

“He asked me a question with a double meaning,” says Williams. The guy then repeated the question with a laugh.

“I recognized the key keyword, in effect: ‘I know you’re gay.'”

Williams didn’t know how the knowledge would be used against him, “but he had seen what happened to others.”

He resigned his seat, receiving praise on the floor of the legislature from Socred veteran Grace McCarthy.

“I think the creativity of Bob Williams at the time that he served as a member of the government was, in many ways, a great service to our province,” McCarthy said.

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“I also want to say that as a member of the opposition, he kept the government side on its toes. I wish him the best in the years to come.”

Williams went on to successive careers as a supervisor of crown corporations under the NDP, then to Vancity, all chronicled in the book in his provocative style.

There is an argument on almost every page: watch out for snowflakes.

But I found it refreshing to be confronted with the views of a politician who was inspired by something other than the last person he spoke to or the last opinion poll.

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