Below the Radar Transcript
Episode 188: Bob Williams Unplugged — with Bob Williams
Speakers: Sam Walters, Am Johal, Bob Williams
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Sam Walters 0:04
Hello listeners! I’m Sam with Below the Radar, a knowledge democracy podcast. Below the Radar is recorded on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.
On this episode of Below the Radar, our host, Am Johal, talks with Bob Williams, the former BC NDP representative for Vancouver East, and they discuss his book, Using Power Well: Bob Williams and the Making of British Columbia. The book describes Bob’s time in municipal and provincial politics, his impact on Vancity Credit Union, as well as his future projects. We hope that you enjoy the episode.
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Am Johal 0:42
Hello, welcome to Below the Radar. Delighted that you could join us again this week. We, for the first time, are bringing back a guest for the second time. We haven't done that on the podcast before. We have Bob Williams with us today. Welcome, Bob.
Bob Williams 0:58
Thanks, Am. It's a pleasure to be here with you on this special occasion.
Am Johal 1:02
Yeah, you have a memoir out. It's going to be—the launch in Victoria and Vancouver is happening later this month in June. This episode is coming out in September. But wondering if we can begin with you introducing yourself a little bit.
Bob Williams 1:16
Oh, gosh. So we better go back. I'm an East End kid and I come out of the Depression. So I am pretty old man right now. But I love the East Side. And I actually live in the West End now, I have to admit, because it's another one of our great neighbourhoods in this town. I went to East End schools. I started at Beaconsfield school, and it was right next to the city dump. And we lived in a shack nearby, my three siblings in our family, my mom and dad. And there was a Doukhobor guy across the street that used to go and rummage in the dump and collect bottles there. That is now Casa Serena, the senior centre for the Italian Cultural Centre. But it was the city dump, that was all part of Still Creek. So I would go out with this guy from across the street that used to work in the dump. I think he was a Ukrainian. None of it made any difference to me at the time. And I would learn what the best bottles were and I'd make a few pennies and we'd go and have lunch at his place. And when I got home at the end of the day after well, being down at the train tracks and watching the trains go through the Grandview cut, my dad would say, "Has Bobby been with that goddamn bohunk again across the street?" And it was the wonderful garlic that I grew to love. So that's where I started and melted with the local community. So I went on to Britannia High, which Dave Barrett went to as well a couple of years ahead of me. It's a wonderful school, and I'm overjoyed that the school board is keeping it in place because it's one of the oldest schools. And they're keeping it because there's a significant Indigenous community there. And they have programmed for it. And that counts for them. So all that's good news. But when we were kids there, we were out walking the Drive, which was a very different Drive there. It was pretty Anglo, not Italian. But the school was half Chinese Canadians. We elected a Chinese Canadian as a community council, President Ronnie Kong. And he was part of a third of the school, which were all ethnic Chinese Canadians. So it was a wonderful, diverse community that I really loved.
Am Johal 3:45
Bob, I had a chance to read an earlier version of the book before it came out. It was just so beautifully written, particularly stories of your childhood because it evoked Vancouver that I hadn't experienced before. And I'm wondering if you could speak to a little bit of the stories of the early years that are in the book.
Bob Williams 4:02
Oh, sure. There were three kids in our family at that time. My mother had two more boys when I was 20. That was the score in those earlier days. I would get up in the morning and all the chores before everybody got up. And I'd cut the kindling and light the stove and put on the porridge and get everything ready for the day. And I love doing it actually, I didn't think twice about it. And you know, there was no heat in the houses in those days until you lit the fire. So it was a pleasure for my folks to get up to a warm house. But at the same time I was stuck with looking after the younger kids, and I resented it to some extent like most kids would I guess. But my grandmother, Nana, she had a squatters cabin over at Roche Point, which is now Cates Park. And in those days through squatters all over the place it Vancouver. But she like me to come with her to camp, which is what she called it. And so we would take the old streetcar up Hastings Street, and she would have baskets and buckets and things that I pack and help and we would cross it Capitol Hill School, and then get to the escarpment down Capitol Hill and to where her rowboat was. There was a boat builder there where she kept her boat. I was probably about 10 years old, I guess, and rowed her across the inlet to the cabin on the other side. And that was joyous. She had a boyfriend there. Then, she was a widow. And Charlie would arrive on his days off from the BC Electric. He was a motorman. He was taking his putt-putt up the inlet from down in town. And I'd watched for him coming under the Second Narrows Bridge, and we'd all be together there and he let me run the boat at that young age. We all enjoy that. And my brothers and sister kind of resented it, because I was the guy that got to go up the inlet with Nana and spend much of my summer away. And the squatters all along that strip in Dollarton, or Cates Park, were all fascinating people, including Malcolm Lowry, who is a well established novelist and maybe poet I guess. And Nana would say "that guy, he's always a drunk, don't go near him." So I learned the good and the bad and I had to fend for water and take the rowboat past McKenzie barge, and it happened to be private property there. And I hadn't fully appreciated the differences in those days. So it affected me quite a bit. The old boy on private property has to yell and scream. And I'd be dropping the buckets and scrambling for water. And I guess I never forgot it. And then later, I read some of Malcolm's other works. One of them was scrambling for water and dealing with that same guy. So I guess my thoughts about property rights and a whole bunch of stuff like that evolved from a pretty decent beginning.
Am Johal 7:09
Vancouver, particularly in the post-Second World War era was you know, going through big challenges, big crises, as well. And I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit to that time period. You just got back from Vernon as well. And you, of course, spent some time there as a kid as well.
Bob Williams 7:26
I did. Yeah. My dad was in the Army, RCOC, the Ordnance Corps. And there is a substantial army camp in Vernon, and he never went to Europe, but he wasn't a zombie as some of the others were called. Like one of my uncles, who was a conscientious objector, which got translated into zombie. So we were in Vernon for about three or four years, and lived in Okanagan Landing right next to the paddlewheeler that connected everybody on the lake. But I love Vancouver even way back then, and I was such a complainer that I got sent down on the train, at that tender age to be with my Nana, and spend the whole summer on Burrard Inlet. The town hasn't changed greatly. Its bones are still the same. And the army camp is still there. But it's even the beneficiary of NDP legislation, the ALR. My personal view as a planner, geographer, economist, is that it may be that stretches between Prichard in the Thompson area, through to a Shuswap and Salmon Arm and down through Armstrong to Vernon, is the most beautiful landscape in the province. And the ALR has protected it. There's a few things that you do or you're involved in that you're really pleased about. And one of the joys of my life is just wandering through that area, and knowing that it is protected and exceedingly beautiful. And diverse, and unlike the rest of the Okanagan. The diversity is really neat. But we were supposed to be talking about the post-Second World War Vancouver. The Drive was wonderful. There were still big vacant lots and skunk cabbages and little swamps. And it was mainly an Anglo Street. I mean, [], ladies wear, English dresses and so on. You'd never see that in current days on the Drive. The teachers were very good, but it's only in later life I realized they were all socialists. Damn lot of them, that's maybe why I enjoyed school so much. And I participated in everything from drama to journalism, and then had a job in the 15 cent store as well. So I was a busy kid. But I really enjoyed art classes. So that was my extra course. And I was a bit of a dozer, really, as a kid in school. In grade 10, the beginning of grade 10, I was called down to the principal's office. E. L. Yeo, Colonel Yeo, former military guy. And it was just me being called down to that damned office. And I thought, "What the hell is this all about? What have I done now?" And Buck Yeo said to me, "Bob, I'm calling you down because I don't think you know your potential." And I didn't know I was just dawdling along and dreaming about going skiing on the weekend, and gazing out the windows of the school to see if there is a new snow on the mountains. But he said, "No, you really have a lot of potential and we don't think you realize it. So we just like to get on with it, you know?" And it was after that, that I enrolled myself in a poster competition, and ended up becoming third in North America. So going through my mother's things when she died, she still had that clipping from that. And it had a big impression on me.
Am Johal 11:17
You went to UBC for planning school. And I'm wondering, in the context of going to school, that what was the political climate at the time, or what sent you in a direction in terms of developing your own political orientation at the time?
Bob Williams 11:32
That was the beginning of establishing planning in Canada, I was able to get a central mortgage, Canada Mortgage Fellowship, which funded me to actually go to Europe as well, to go to school. And my colleagues have all been friends and colleagues since. One of the Mary Rawson, she has been a close friend all my life. And I had gone out to a rally for John Diefenbaker. And that was the beginning of the "Follow John" thing across Canada. It had caught on in Vancouver as well. And I didn't expect it to, and I was of course a socialist. So I was complaining in classes for God's sake, that guy is capturing the whole damn country. And Mary, who was actually a Red Tory at the time, said to me, "If you feel that strongly, you need to show in the party that you think is appropriate." So I said, "Well, yeah, you're right." And so I went right down to the old teletower here in the Downtown Eastside, and it had been the original city hall back in the early days. I went up on a rickety elevator to the—maybe it was the sixth floor—and sign up in the CCF. And I joined the Constituency Association, Vancouver East at that stage and became very active in all the local affairs so much so that it captured me. Still, city planning was what intrigued me most of all, but the broader issues and the questions that issue on the Eastside captured me as well. In those days, the riding was really well run in the sense that so many people were committed to the socialist ideal. And I was one of them. And we grew to really love one another in the riding. So much so that when it came time to find a new person for the role of MLA, it was unanimous that Tom Berger's folks had been around looking at being here. But one of our oldest members who had really learned all her metals, along with her husband, was sat behind the chair of the meetings there doing her knitting. But she had the power at those damn meetings. And when it came to Tom Berger having the role of MLA, she said, "No, we've already decided." What I didn't know is that they decided on me. And as a result in Vancouver East, there was no contest for the nomination. I won by acclamation. I was just the right guy at the right time and helped create that climate as well. And since we've been doing so well, organizing in the city generally at that stage. I thought I could run for Alderman or city councillor. So I just proposed it at one of our meetings, and we used all our talent and my old boy scout friends and everybody from the East Side. We damn well elected me quickly. And that was a great experience as well.
Am Johal 14:33
You share a piece in the book about a space that, whether it was the Constituency Association or a club on Kingsway, that people would go to. Can you speak a bit about that? It sounds so charming by today's standards, because physical space is hard to come by.
Bob Williams 14:49
Well, that's right, the old gal that did her knitting in the back of the chair of the meeting, her and her husband collected tiny money to buy a hall. And some of the CCF people had done the same in other areas. Our hall is the Rio Hall, 25 Kingsway I think. They also had managed to get a bingo license as part of that. And so they really had provided permanent funding for the left on the east side of the city. It was pretty damn neat and close, everybody really loved one another. It's only in much, much later time that Ben Clark, who I'd fostered in the riding on the death of Harold Winch, who had been our MP and MLA an earlier years, said to me after the memorial we had... He said, "You know, it's, it's all over, but it's never going to be the same again." I hadn't realized at the time, but it's true. Those had been very special years. My people really scrambled. I was really lucky to have been part of it.
Am Johal 16:00
So in those years, when you joined Vancouver City Council and the elections of that time and kind of the temperament of the Council of the day, what are the kinds of things you were struggling with at the time?
Bob Williams 16:12
Oh, well, there's all kinds of local issues on the Eastside. Factories that blew up and damn near killed babies and children nearby. They never would have tolerated on the west side. So there was always those kinds of rumbles. But the really neat thing that surprised me was how receptive the council was. The Non-Partisan Association in those days was a non-partisan association, but they wouldn't have the CCF or the NDP near them. But other than that, they really were kind of non-partisan. I got to enjoy the council. There were some very intelligent conservatives that sort of run the place. Earl Adams was a longtime Councillor that played that role. But I got to really deal with some of them like Ernie Broome. He was a fairly crass conservative, and was sort of for hire if you needed a rezoning or something like that. And I had figured him out pretty quickly with my planning background. And he was promoted an expansion of the Kerrisdale apartment zone, which has been quite rigid ever since those days. He and I knew that we were the two that could sorted out. So I thought to myself, "Where's the weakest link in this chain in terms of getting the number of votes I needed?" And I realized it was Bert Emery, the old boy that had showboat in Kitsilano. The only thing that got his attention was Kitsilano. And at that time, Kitsilano was up for urban renewal. I mean, it was a slum, especially east of Burrard Street. There was a Sikh temple in that neighbourhood. And it was up for urban renewal, literally. And I realized that to expand at Kerrisdale was crazy relative to policy. And so I started saying, you know, this is a terrible mistake to accentuate Kerrisdale which, of course, had more appeal, strangely, in those days, and I kept talking about Kitsilano. "If we do this, and Kerrisdale, were destroying the possibilities in Kitsilano." And finally, I could see that the bell was ringing for Bert Emery. And I had that vote. And so when the vote came, I had the votes and the Kerrisdale stuff didn't go anywhere. I got a note from Ernie Broome and says, "see me in my office right after the council prorogues." So I did and I thought, "What the hell's this gonna be about?" So I walked in and he said, "There you are, you son of a bitch. I've never seen such a professional piece of work. You know, I knew that once you woke Bert Emery up, I was dead. I was simply dead." And he opened this empty filing cabinet. And there's a couple of glasses rattling there. And he said, "Sit down and have a drink." But it was that kind of place. And it was a hell of a lot of fun. A surprising amount of collegiality. I really enjoyed it. But it was short.
Am Johal 19:12
Yeah. And I guess at that time, in order to run for city council, you had to own property. But that was changed during the time that you were on council.
Bob Williams 19:20
Yeah, that's right. And I had read stuff in the United Nations Charter, about this whole business of the right to run and the right to be elected, which is critical democracy. So I was able to talk privately to each of the councillors. And the one that I won over who was really critical was, let's see... What's one of the great early—
Am Johal 19:43
Aeneas Bell-Irving.
Bob Williams 19:46
Indeed, thank you, my dear. Aeneas. And he and I frequently talked about thoughtful issues. And I had not known that in their family growing up in the Downtown Eastside on Alexander Street, not far from where we are now. In those days, a Scottish well-to-do family has established their residence there. And you can sense how it could have been so because it was the closest to the harbour, the view of the inlet and the ocean, the breezes and so on. And so we enjoyed each other a lot. He had moved out of his house after, you know, the family was limited to just him. And he said, "Well, you know, you're, you're right, Bob, I'm in an apartment building now." They didn't have condos in those days. "And I wouldn't have the right to run for public office if I didn't own other property." And so I ended up getting his vote. And I knew then that I had the majority. When we had the vote, his vote came in, and I'd won. And Earl Adams, who is the leader of the Council, said, "For Christ's sake. That dumb son of a bitch!" And it was a stage whisper sort of thing. Once again, it was a wonderful experience, this kid from the side, still pretty young, 31, whatever it was, winning these kinds of battles. I wasn't really ready to leave, but Arthur Turner, who had been the MLA for in the riding for 25 years, he wanted out, and he knew that I was the guy. And I hadn't learned until later when I was a town planner out in Delta and challenging the farmland question and rolling back some of the zoning. I didn't realize that Arthur and a whole group from the Eastside had come out to Ladner to listen to the public hearings and then settled it. Once they'd heard me out there, I was the guy like it or not.
Am Johal 21:39
That time period of being elected as an MLA and then being an opposition. And then, of course, a Dave Barrett majority, which has been written about widely, but really amazing stories from that period. I'm wondering if you can sort of begin talking a little bit about your thoughts on the W. A. C. Bennett administration and that period of the late 60s, early 70s. Because he was, I mean, the way people talk about it, it's almost like a quiet revolution in Quebec or something like that, when the SoCreds of that era finally got voted out. Because BC was a very different place in that, that time.
Bob Williams 22:12
Oh, yeah. Well, you know, we each of us had a small office at City Hall, 10 councillors whatever we were. And then I got to Victoria and I think, well, that's a—I've been elevated. Well, it wasn't that way, in the Bennett government. And so you walk into your caucus meeting. And there's, there's simply three offices. One is for the leader, Bob Strachan. One was for the staff, which was a tiny staff, John Wood and a couple of others. And then there was one big office where, you know, the dozen MLAs shared. In one office. And a big desk in the middle. And we had to pile up statutes on each side of us to have a private spot to phone from. And I said, "For God's sake, you guys, why do you put up with this stuff?" I came from city council, and I wouldn't tolerate it. And they said, "Well, lot's of luck, kid. This is W. A. C. Bennett, and you know, this place is run the way he wants. He brings you in in January, and he gets you out by Easter. And that's it. And we live with it." So I said, no, no, I'm gonna set an office of my own up out in the hallway where he walks every day into the legislature. So I yanked a desk and telephones, the secretary, and out into the corridor where he walked into the legislature. And on this first day, he stopped dead, saw me there, secretary's telephone, the works. And it was within a couple of months that we all had proper offices and all the rest of it. So, and I wanted to carry on with similar things, but they held me down a little bit. I didn't quite know my place at that time. But maybe I never quite knew my place, when I think about it. You know, I was this kid from the east end that shouldn't have had all these fancy ideas. But I did. And that made it a lot of fun.
Am Johal 24:18
So in the election of the Dave Barrett majority government of '72, there's that great story of you meeting up with Dave Barrett, at The Only seafood restaurant. Because I think, there's—I guess it was one thing to go out and get elected. But then the "then what?" question.
Bob Williams 24:37
Right. Well, Dave and I did keep close contact with each other daily in that election. So I was here in the city and I was responsible for some of the publicity radio ads, which we'd never done before. We'd never done radio before, for example. But we kept close contact. And then election night, we talk to one another again. But we were in our own ridings. The next morning, he phoned about 10 in the morning and said, "Hey, Bob, we got to figure out what we're going to be doing now." And I said, "Well, great. I've been making a few notes here, Dave." And he said, "I'll come to your place, and then we'll go for lunch." And so he did. And, he said to me, "Well, you know, on special occasions, my birthdays, my dad—his dad had a greengrocer right at Powell Street grounds." And he said, "he would take me to The Only, the seafood place near Carrall and Hastings." And sure enough, we headed down there. And I had made a whole bunch of notes on a great big brown paper envelope, a piece of junk at the house, and basically laid out the whole nature of the cabinet and what we would be doing. So we parked and worked up Carrall Street. And in those days, drugs weren't a thing on the east side, Downtown Eastside, they were mainly alcoholics and, you know, loggers that did come into town and folks like that. And as we were walking up Carrall Street in the alcoves along the way, the old boys who were just coming to from a good night out, would wake up and see us and they'd wave, "Hey, Davey, congratulations!" You know, so we carried on, and we went to the back of The Only and I laid out the envelope, and we discussed everything. And in that time, it was the whole transition committee for the new government. And dammit, we had done it, Dave would check a bunch of stuff and say, okay, yeah, okay. And that was it. Then we were able to get together and go over this. And then the public announcements from my old brown envelope. And we had forgotten to list who would be the Minister for BC Hydro. Can you imagine? But we did. So, a sharp reporter said, "Well, what about BC Hydro, who's looking after that?" And he looked at me and he said, "Well, Bob Williams, of course. He's got water, you know, that's hydro. Don't you—Don't you know?" So it was a usual ball caught in the air by Dave Barrett. And with a quick answer, it generally worked well. But occasionally, he missed the ball, but hardly ever. And it was a pleasure working with him, because he... Especially, you know, he was a kind of evangelist, and he would float on audiences and just get fed from them in terms of the spirit of the meeting. So it was an exciting time to be with a guy like that, who just had all the ability in the world. And much of it was just naturally fed, you know. It was a marvel. He'd come into a Cabinet meeting, and he'd say, "Well, Shirley and I have been talking about this this morning." And there'd be a whole new view of the world. So it was a joyous place where we got along with one another and, and loved one another. It was a great time.
Am Johal 28:27
And wondering if you can talk a little bit more about, you know, that tumultuous, exciting time of the government of the rest. So much was accomplished in those three years, even people like Michael Audain talk about the importance of that administration. And you know, the work that was done, from housing to the agricultural land reserve, to Crown corporations that were established, it's quite groundbreaking what was done such a short period of time.
Bob Williams 28:55
Yeah. Michael was a number two in the housing department. But you know, he's a brilliant entrepreneur, as we know him today and a great patron of the arts. He sent me a lovely note, just recently saying I wouldn't miss your book launching. I'll be there because I want to be. So yeah, at first, I was fit to be tied because of the lack of talent. You know, I'd grown up with all these new planners, we had created a whole new generation—a small new generation of planners in the province and I was one of them. And when I got to Victoria was astounded at the lack of talent, that pure lack of bloody talent over there. And in forestry, and I'd spent a summer in Finland studying forestry because I thought we had to have some credibility in the field. And when I met with my senior people in the forest ministry, I was... There's maybe one exception or two, but the actual deputies and so on had no creativity and no sense of where and what they should be doing. And their previous minister, Williston, had been very able. And he clearly ran the department. The bureaucrats didn't think they had a job, really. They they took orders from the minister, well, yeah, okay. But he, for some reason, had a big vault in his office, because he was doing all of the confidential sessions. So, so be it. But after I would meet with these characters, I was fit to be tied. We didn't have the talent to run this bloody big outfit. And I would go to the vault and I'd simply scream. That's weird now, but I just went [scream].
And after a while, I thought, hey, there's nobody in your way. There is nobody here to stop you. And I thought, for God's sake, but it took me two or three weeks to understand that. And then I thought, okay, let's just go. I ended up hiring the best talent in the province, the outside consultants and so on. We ended up taking over forest companies and all the like, and then one of them was the American Celanese. And they'd been trying to unload the company, which had a big section up in Prince Rupert in the Northwest, and in the southeast in the Kootenays. And I was able to, one, actually hire a former Tory leader in the province, John de Wolf, who was working up in the Northwest. And so I was getting all of the insider information on the company. And I had made up my mind, we would acquire it. And because of inside information, we were actually totally informed on the mechanics of the company. It's the best way to buy places, of course. So we ended up acquiring this giant of a company with millions of acres of land, and 2 pulp mills and several saw mills, and so on. And we got it for the mortgage, which was on the company. So it was 65 million, if I remember correctly, and it was at some 5%, or something like that. We ended up making, I think it was 150 million within a couple of years. So it was an extraordinary piece of work. But we ended up picking up several others as well. And so there was—it just strengthen us. And there was a boldness about all this. I guess I realized I really had a sense of business and finance, more than I realized. And so we were able to acquire assets with these talented people we had working for us. Some of the young lawyers said, this is the most complex deal we've ever done in British Columbia. I said, okay. And then I asked [Alexander] MacDonald, who was our Attorney General, about hiring some high level talent to complete the deal. And he did and the guy was extraordinary talented, and Alex was a great person for talent. So I spent a chunk of the afternoon with him explaining the nature of the deal. And he had my home number. He phoned me after dinner that night, and he said, "Have I got this right? You're getting 12 million acres of land, you're getting two pulp mills, you're getting four saw mills?" I said, "Yes." "And you're getting it just for taking over the existing mortgage?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Oh, my God, what a deal you've got." And []. He was a lovely man. But it was that way. We ended up just having the right know how, at the right time in the right place. And it was a wonderful experience.
Am Johal 34:08
Is it true that you were looking to buy Rolls Royce?
Bob Williams 34:14
Well, yeah. Actually, Rolls Royce was in trouble in Britain at the time. And I was satisfied to the talent that we brought together here could tackle any acquisition anywhere in the world. We were well underway, and I phoned Dave up after dinner one night, and I said, "You know, Davey, I'd like to make an offer for Rolls Royce." He said, "What?" And I said, "Yeah, now we're, now we're humming here. We can do anything we want. There's really no limit to what we can do in this province because of the nature of our assets and know how and so on." And he said, "Well, I think you've got quite a bit on your plate now, Bob. I'd wait." But it's the only time that he ever cautioned me. It was always a go. With Dave, it was always a go, and fun.
Am Johal 35:11
Bob, I wanted to talk a little bit about your long standing relationship with Vancity Credit Union. And there was a point in which you joined the board with a group of people. And, you know, the Vancity Credit Union at that time is very different than what it became. And wondering if you can talk a little bit about that relationship to the credit union movement in BC.
Bob Williams 35:33
Well, credit unions are a wonderful democratic option in terms of finance. And I had been convinced for some time that Vancity was a natural for having a broader base and a more generous view of the world. And so I pulled a couple of friends together. And we ran for the board of Vancity, the three of us as a package, and we all did fairly well, but I got elected. Subsequently, we were able to add David Levi and Darlene Marzari, and, and other strong people. And within three years, we owned the entire board. That was the beginning of the 80s. And that was when real estate in this town actually collapsed. Believe it or not, I ended up getting new information about loans we had made. And it became apparent that we were close to bankruptcy as a result of my interviewing all of these borrowers, some of whom are fighting amongst themselves, and were disgruntled and were willing to talk about it. As a result, I had top flight information on our biggest loans. And we were close to being virtually bankrupt as a major credit union in our city. And as a result of that, I was able to take new information to the board every monthly meeting, and expose bad loans to the point where it was obvious to the rest of the board that we were in dangerous trouble. And they were ill-informed. I didn't realize at the time, but management was so afraid of me and what I knew that they brought the best lawyers in town to every meeting that I was attending. And I didn't realize that they were special lawyers, just to watch me. And to prevent me from really doing much damage. Although things had gone too far, the damage was done. In those days, the board only met once a month, the CEO never met with any of the members or directors of the board. They were only invited to the dinner meeting at the tennis club up 16th and Granville. And I had to sort of take it all on and expose it step by step to the point where they realized we had to fire the CEO. And on the day that we fired the CEO, I had raised another issue. It was a loan on Fairview Slopes that was 125% more than the value of the land. Well, you can't do that in a bank, you know, you'll go broke yesterday. The CEO at the time said, "I didn't even have one meeting where you didn't, you know, go after me, you know?" He was subsequently hired by the SoCreds to head up a Crown Corporation in Victoria. So it was a very tough beginning. And we had five years to pull the credit union together and turn it into what has become the most significant credit union in English Canada.
More recently, I've met with our former Treasury boss in that credit union, who's a very capable economist. And he's developed a bit of a life in Korea. And he's wonderfully fluent in economics and languages. So he has since reviewed those years, and has turned out a book in Korean about how Bob Williams, the Action Slate, and Vancity were the new emblem for credit unions in Canada. But it's all in Korean, and I haven't seen it yet. But the incredible thing about Vancity and the Action Slate is that, here this was a socialist takeover of our biggest independent financial institution in the city. Nobody has ever stopped to write the story of what an incredible piece of work this was. You know, it's a way better than robbing the bank if you own it. And it's Chris Dobrzanski, who will be at my book launch, who has written a book in Korea, hoping to give me a copy of the Korean book.
Am Johal 39:54
You can do auto-tanslate on the internet now you get a pretty good version. This has been a long standing relationship through your work Vancity, with the region of Emilia-Romagna in Bologna and the University of Bologna. With Stefano and Vera Zamagni, and many other intellectuals of the co-operative economics movement, and wondering if you could speak to the depth of that relationship and how you got to know that group there?
Bob Williams 40:21
Well, I created a lot of independence for myself when I was Chair and Director. So we—
Am Johal 40:28
Big surprise.
Bob Williams 40:30
And so we created a structure that allowed me to tour North America to look at other financial institutions. And in that work, where I looked at South ShoreBank in Chicago, and the Co-op Bank in Washington, DC, BankBoston and others. I got to know the really great people in creative finance in America. And out of that I uncovered the whole world of Emilia-Romagna and Bologna and the University of Bologna. So we ended up getting a team together, board and potential other staff and Dobrzanski was one of them. And we went to Bologna, we met Stefano and Vera and the other staff at the University of Bologna. And the people had governed the region of about 4 million people in the Po River Valley. It was fascinating. This was one of the most creative regions in the world. And it was so highly decentralized, and related to the full range of small scale entrepreneurs. And it was a marvel. What I'd have not realized is that Italy was not a decentralized state. And so the middle left and the middle right had got together we... now, probably 40-50 years ago now, to decentralize. And so regions, there was no regional government. I mean, like Tuscany was not a government region, Emilia-Romagna, was not. But they'd created this very fluid kind of system that allowed them to rethink their economies and Emilia-Romagna to concentrate on co-operative alternatives and options. And so it was a highly fluid state that really thought about each of their sectors, in ceramics or another one and the research capacity and management capacity. That was extraordinary. And we arrived there, and were able to see it all in almost one swoop. And I was convinced that this pattern was probably the best kind of future pattern for VC, especially in the social sectors. We have harmed ourselves here in some ways by the state apparatus to do stuff. And so we've limited the creativity and the opportunities here. That's not the case in Emilia-Romagna. They're immensely creative and highly productive. And it's greatly beneficial to the point where they're creating social markets, not capitalist markets. It's extraordinary stuff amongst the most talented people in the world. So as a result, we came back, convinced about those possibilities here. And we began some projects, including the one on Main Street, 312 Main, that we saw as the way of reaching out to those options. That's still quite a ways off, but there are still some people who harbour those radical thoughts and may pull it off in a decade or two.
Am Johal 43:42
You know, I myself went to the Bologna program that Vancity was running as a week at SFU, and two weeks in the region. Absolutely, fantastic education to be able to visit those co-ops, but also the thinking that was going on at the University of Economics as this broader idea than what is taught in a very narrow way, in our universities. Pockets of them maybe get to the places they do. Bob, you've of course also ran the Railway Club for many years. In fact, one would say the heyday of the Railway Club from about 1980 to 2008 or so.
Bob Williams 44:17
Yeah, it was about 30 years.
Am Johal 44:18
So how did you have a time to do that? And what drove you to pick it up in the first place?
Bob Williams 44:23
Well, they're open until two or three AM? Well, it was, actually... Leah and I had two children that weren't employed. And I thought, Okay, here's this old joint and with a wonderful ménage à trois that ran it. But it had been in something in its heyday in the Second World War and so on. The Dunsmuir House across the street was for soldiers and veterans and so on. There was a natural linkage there. I had already owned a bar in Port Moody. I had a funny thing about bars that I tend to see them as the living rooms for the marginalized to a very great extent. And that was certainly was the case out in Port Moody, to some extent. So we acquired it, but I'd—by then I'd realized that the bar business was essentially an entertainment business. And that that's what we had to do with the Railway Club. And I wasn't anywhere special in that sector. But our daughter Janet was and really knew the musicians in town. And she developed the full scale expertise around new talent. And as a result, you know, we had k.d. lang there and Spirit of the West. And she ended up running Spirit of the West for a decade. It was exciting. And to a great extent, we simply did it for the hell of it. We did it for the hell of it. We got 30 year ride out of it. But it also became the meeting place for artists, intellectuals, politicians and musicians. Once again, it was just a gas, it was a lot of fun. And you know, the time disappeared there. And for Jim Green, one of our leaders here in town, it was a special thing. Saturday afternoon sessions with particular musicians.
Am Johal 46:16
Yeah, rockabilly route.
Bob Williams 46:18
Rockabilly was Saturday stuff. Yeah.
Am Johal 46:20
It was a rip roaring good time, I had some wonderful, wonderful times there, made many good friends. Now your, your memoir has just come out. Why don't you tell us this story?
Bob Williams 46:31
Yeah.
Am Johal 46:32
How did this project start for you in terms of deciding to do one?
Bob Williams 46:39
Well, it's probably a dozen years or more ago that I started. And I'm fortunate enough to have a place in Arizona, and I decided, when I was taking it easy down there, I better start. And once I started, a dozen years ago, I thought it was more like the trains on Wall Street or CPR here, where we used to live. The boxcars kept batting into one another and waking me up in terms of memory at four in the morning. And I'd get up in the desert, and all of these memories would rush out and I wrote them down. And then, you know, as the sun would rise, you know, the other chunk of your mind would come into—you're analyzing those memories. And so I did that for a period down there and in Key West. And then it kind of slid off. I dictated it to stenographers down there and then slowly picked it up over the years. And then I was able to be well, I ran into our two editors. You know, Thomas Bevan and the Councillor in Victoria. They both said, look, we got to get this back on track. And we did proceed with it. Fortunately, Harbour Publishing, Howie and his son Silas picked it up. As a result, there's a book launch next week. I didn't know if I'd ever get it on or if anybody would want to publish it. But it seems to be turning out well, we'll see in the next couple of weeks. But it's actually been an exciting business lately, and I'm overjoyed that I've lived long enough to have done that.
Am Johal 48:22
Having seen some of your handwritten letters, Bob, you have such impeccable, long form handwriting, and you wrote probably a bunch of this book by hand.
Bob Williams 48:32
All of it.
Am Johal 48:32
All of it. Wow.
Bob Williams 48:33
Oh, yes. But I, in those days, we were... I only more recently learned the way they teach writing. And when I went to school in this province, it was the MacLeans method of—I don't even know the word for the kind of writing they taught, clearly a fluid kind of thing. But you know, I remember my teachers with the rulers. If you didn't hold a pen a certain way, and Whap Whap Whap. Of course, they don't do those cruel things anymore. But as a result, I took writing seriously, and both in an intellectual sense and a physical sense, I guess. But I was gonna mention that Thomas Bevan, who has been my assistant for the last decade, really, and it's one of the editors. It was Sam Sullivan, the former mayor that introduced us. I gave a lecture to one of Sam's UBC classes. And this young man who was the brightest there and the tallest there, ended up chasing me after I left the two or three hour lecture. And he said, "Hey, Bob, Bob, I'd like to talk to you." I said, "Great." And he said, "I'd like to ask you, what should I do with my life?" And I thought, here I am in my 70s or whatever. Then I thought Holy Moses what a gift. This brightest kid in the class. And he's asking me, "what should I do with my life?" And as a result I've ended up using him and benefiting from him to this greatest extent, possibly, now to the point that he's working in a Crown Corporation. But now that this little project is done, he's saying, "you've had lots more to write about, Bob. Let's work on this." So we'll see.
Am Johal 50:19
Yeah, you've also had a long relationship with the city of Surrey, particularly when you were chairing ICBC and buying the mall, which, you know, became the Technical University and then the SFU campus for Surrey and wondering if you can speak a little bit to and when you look at regional development now the role of Surrey in terms of the future of the city?
Bob Williams 50:42
Yeah, well Surrey's in great turmoil right now almost as usual with the present Mayor McCallum, hopefully they'll deal with that in the coming election. But I've always been a fan of the potential of Surrey, this huge municipality. And in the early days, as planners used to describe it as sprawl and blah, blah, blah, but in truth they've carved out in the future they want in this region, they have simply done so. And they muddled it up so much, that almost any potential is possible. But at the same time, they've had no city centre. Now, I've always as a student of the region, knowing that we were a binodal region. The interurban system that went out to Chilliwack created a new centre. Well, there was established centres in New West and Vancouver. The New West one shifted Surrey, because that's where the growth in population was. But I'd always seen the region as binodal. And as an East End kid, I'd resented the lack of stuff on the east side. So I realized that there is a potential there south of the river that still needed to be filled. But at the same time, I had been around with Bob Strachan, who founded and created the ICBC. And when he talked to me about it and wanted to convince me about it, I said, "No, you don't have to convince me, I think there's a real need for a public automobile insurance company. It's just a natural fit." He says, "But do you understand, the big deal is that it's a centre for capital formulation." And all of a sudden, the lights went on. The long term funds that you need for an insurance corporation can be recycled and recycled and recycled. And that becomes a powerhouse for the province, a powerhouse.
And that was firmly in my mind when I walked in the door at ICBC, after Andrew Petter asked me to take on the job. And as a result, I was able to—and I ended up taking it on directly as the builder of Surrey City Centre. Well, I realized pretty damn fast that I had taken on too much. Or at least it had to go to a professional. And I spent time with big Tom, our great architect who we lost a couple of years ago. And he ended up finding Gordon Paul Smith, who's one of the greatest able entrepreneurs I've ever worked with in my life, and we're still great friends. And as a result of that work, we established the new city centre, and option city land and bought a shopping centre and rebuilt it. And it's now clearly going to be a major city. I think for planners, it's a great lesson, that if there's a will, to do things you can do them. And as I said in the book, the only limit is our imagination in this province. It's truly the only limit.
Am Johal 51:29
In the book as well, you come out, for the first time in a public way. And I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit to, you know, in the time period where there were so much stigma to be open about but also you tell a story in the book about kind of the political implications as well, in terms of the way people use this issue politically.
Bob Williams 54:12
I never publicly admitted to being gay. But the possibilities of exposure. I mean, I was, I was happily married in many ways, but had this other side to me as well. I realized at a certain point in my career that some of my political enemies were aware of this and I realized at that time, and in this place, as in most places, it would have been fatal to have run again. Even though I'd put in all the time I had and I had been working on then next transition for Mike Harcourt. I ended up resigning and taking on the role of the transition since I was the most experienced one anyway. As a result of that, created a job for myself to coordinate the Crown corporations, and working with a couple of my long term colleagues. So that's the way it was handled. And I must say that becoming a civil servant at that late stage of my life, again, I'd been one much when I was a kid was another new education for me, in terms of how the civil service handles itself, and what it values. It all resulted in some good results. And my wife is still, in many ways, my closest friend, I'm happy that I was able to accommodate the people I love.
Am Johal 55:44
So Bob, what do you have planned for the second half of your life?
Bob Williams 55:48
[laughs]
Yeah, indeed. Well, I've been talking to Spencer Herbert are very capable MLA in West End, and wanting to get together with him and the infrastructure minister—
Am Johal 56:00
Bowinn Ma.
Bob Williams 56:01
And yes, and she has a very good background from the airport, and so on. So I'm looking forward to that meeting now that the House is just stepping down. And we'll be getting together and I have a list of projects. So, you know, having done Whistler, and creating the modern Whistler with Al Raine, and Nancy [Raine], and then doing with Arthur Erickson, Robson square. And then with Bing Thom and Gordon Smith, doing Surrey City Centre... I have a list of projects. So I mean, I think it's extraordinary that they're building the Pattullo Bridge, with no thought of either end, they're just going to build another bloody bridge in the same spot. Hello, does anybody look at Scott Road and all that damn garbage down there? And say, "Can't we do something better?" We're going to build a new bridge to this garbage on Scott Road, for God's sake! Is there anybody that thinks, is there anybody that thinks! The answer is not a hell of a lot, and they're not in the right place. And so we've already proved that you can build a city centre in what was a commercial slum up there on the hill. When I look at White Rock and places like that, and I say, you look down from the hill above, and you realize it's a jam spot. That's a narrow little road. And there's always higley pigley, little businesses, cafes, and so on. Then you're looking at Boundary Bay, for God's sake, Boundary Bay! For 20 miles that way, and five or six miles that way. And you say, this is the Netherlands, for God's sake. You just say all you have to do is add one more street that takes in a bit of the bay. And you have the best downtown in the Fraser Valley, right there. And it's all waterfront, and it's the best beach south of the river, by far. And then you relocate the railway. And you open it all up. There's a fortune to be made in Boundary Bay, a fortune to be made. And nobody's aware of it. Nobody seems to be aware of it. And then you can go and look at other stuff as well.
I mean, right here in the City of Vancouver False Creek flats for God's sake. Well, you know, you're looking at it. And you say, there's this whole giant, magnificent new city to the west of Main Street. And then you look east of Main, right to Clark Dr. It was all you know, tidal land. And we still haven't dealt with it. No proper plans even today, when you got this giant, productive, valuable city right next door. Is there anybody home in City Hall? I went up there with the previous city engineer, good one. I was, took him by his window on the fifth floor. I used to work in the sewer department on the fifth floor as a kid. And I take him to the window and I said, "Look over there." I said, "What do you see west of Main? What do you see east of Main?" I said "Exactly. How can you work up here, look down there and not deal with it? But you're not!” And then if you created some water back again, in the False Creek flats for God's sake. I mean, I talked to Gordon Smith, my guy on Surrey, and I said, we should be building canals down there. Canals, and creating new waterfront all through the False Creek flat. Does anybody have any sense of values? I mean, that's one of the projects I worked on. when I was in government. I created the assessment authority of British Columbia. And I carried out studies for Russia in terms of the potential of urban areas and downtowns, and so on. And, you know, and proved the dynamic value of downtowns is extraordinary. We actually did the number work and the arithmetic to prove it. Nobody has done that in North America before or since. And so there's a whole database there that we have provided that shows you how and where to do it.
Am Johal 1:00:06
Bob, congratulations again on getting this book out into the world and I have a feeling you're going to need to write a second one because you still have a lot of work ahead of you. Thank you so much for joining us on Below the Radar.
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Sam Walters 1:00:23
Below the Radar is a knowledge democracy podcast created by SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Thanks for listening to our conversation with Bob Williams! Head to the show notes to learn more about the resources mentioned in the show. We release episodes every Tuesday, so make sure to subscribe to Below the Radar on your podcasting app of choice to make sure you never miss an episode. Thanks again for tuning in!
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