W. A. C. Bennett

William Andrew Cecil Bennett was born in New Brunswick and moved to Kelowna, BC, in 1930, building a thriving chain of hardware stores. Breaking with the provincial coalition in 1951, he took leadership of the nascent Social Credit League, winning a surprise minority government in 1952 and governing BC for the next two decades.

Bennett transformed British Columbia through massive public infrastructure investments. He nationalized private utilities to create BC Hydro, established the BC Ferries fleet, built the Pacific Great Eastern Railway into the northern wilderness, and constructed the colossal W.A.C. Bennett Dam on the Peace River, permanently transforming the economic geography of the Canadian Pacific.