Bill Vander Zalm

Wilhelmus Nicholaas Theodore Marie "Bill" Vander Zalm (born May 29, 1934 in Noordwijkerhout , Netherlands ) is a Canadian politician and entrepreneur . From August 6, 1986 to April 2, 1991, he was Prime Minister of the Province of British Columbia and Chairman of the British Columbia Social Credit Party . He was previously Mayor of Surrey from 1969 to 1975 . Vander Zalm's political career was marked by eccentricity , populism , controversy and scandals. From 1991 onwards, after his forced resignation, this led to the rapid decline of the Socreds , who had dominated provincial politics for four decades.

Urban and provincial politics

Vander Zalm's family came from South Holland and emigrated to Canada in 1947. After finishing school, he first sold tulips , built a gardening company from 1956 and speculated on real estate . In 1965 he was elected to Surrey City Council and was Mayor of that city from 1969 to 1975. During his tenure, he cracked down on social welfare fraudsters ( social welfare was then the responsibility of the municipalities). His statement that healthy welfare recipients should be given a shovel and forced to work caused a stir.

Originally Vander Zalm was a supporter of the Liberals. In 1968 he ran unsuccessfully as a candidate for the Liberal Party of Canada for a seat in the Canadian lower house . In 1972 he applied for chairmanship of the British Columbia Liberal Party , but was defeated by David Anderson . In 1974 he joined the British Columbia Social Credit Party.

In 1975, Vander Zalm was elected to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia as a member of the Surrey constituency, when the Socreds were able to return to government after three years in opposition. Under Prime Minister Bill Bennett , he headed the Departments of State Personnel (1975–78), Communities (1978–81) and Education (1981–83). Bennett dismissed him in 1983 because of disagreement from the government, whereupon he gave up his mandate. In 1984 he bought the Fantasy Garden World amusement park in Richmond and redesigned it in the style of a Dutch village. In the same year he had no success in the mayoral elections in Vancouver .

prime minister

1986 Bill Bennett announced his early retirement. Vander Zalm ran for the party chairmanship and created a media hype about himself. At the party convention on August 6, 1986 in Whistler , he prevailed in the fourth ballot and succeeded Bennett as Prime Minister. In October 1986, his party won the elections again: the Socreds had no actual election program, but relied mainly on their charismatic chairman. Vander Zalm himself was elected in the Richmond constituency.

Vander Zalm's cabinet was composed mainly of backbenchers who had gone unnoticed during Bennett's reign. The Socreds were an insecure alliance of supporters of the Liberal Party of Canada, rural social conservatives and urban business leaders. Under Vander Zalm's leadership, business representatives increasingly lost influence to the social conservatives. He went on a course of confrontation with abortion advocates and trade unions. The appointment of his close friend David Poole as "chief secretary" was particularly controversial. Poole received more and more powers and, before his resignation in 1989, had become the second most powerful man in the province without ever having been elected.

Vander Zalm's right-wing populist course and his controversial personnel policy drove many moderate Socreds to join the Liberal Party. In September 1990, he sold his amusement park to a Taiwanese investor and had a conflict of interest in the process . The future buyer had received preferential treatment before the contract was signed, including lunch with the lieutenant governor . Vander Zalm claimed that he had ceded control of the amusement park to his wife years earlier. However, documents signed by him proved that he was still the majority shareholder and had therefore abused his office as prime minister to give the investor access to influential ministers.

On April 2, 1991, Vander Zalm had to give in to public pressure and resign. He was succeeded by Rita Johnston , who suffered a heavy defeat in the subsequent elections and could no longer stop the collapse of the Social Credit Party. Vander Zalm was charged with breach of trust with possible criminal intent, but was acquitted in 1992 by the British Columbian Supreme Court.

In 1999 Vander Zalm attempted a political comeback and ran a by-election in the Delta- South constituency. He ran for the right-wing British Columbia Reform Party , which had emerged from the now insignificant Social Credit Party. He received 32.9% of the vote and was defeated by the Liberal candidate.

literature

• Gary Mason: Fantasy Government - Bill Vander Zalm and the Future of Social Credit. New Star Books, 1989. ISBN 0-07-549868-5 .

Web links

• Wilhelmus Nicholaas Theodore Marie Vander Zalm ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .