Talk:W.A.C. Bennett

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[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)