Bennett: The Rebel Who Challenged and Changed a Nation

by John Boyko

In the late 1920s, Canada's economy was showing all the signs of a full-fledged depression. Life savings were evaporating, unemployment was up, and exports were dramatically down. Riding on the popularity of his promise to "blast" Canada's way into world markets — and thus stop the economy's downward spiral — Richard Bedford Bennett defeated William Lyon Mackenzie King at the polls on July 28, 1930, and assumed the leadership of the country. Over the next five years, however, Bennett's name became synonymous with the worst of the Depression — from Bennett buggies, to Bennett tea, to Bennett-burghs. Eighty years later, he is widely viewed as a difficult man, an ineffectual leader, and a politician who "flip-flopped" on his conservative beliefs in exchange for popularity. John Boyko offers not only the first major biography of the man, but a fresh perspective on the old scholarship. Boyko looks at the Prime Minister's sometimes controversial and often misunderstood policies through a longer lens, one that shows not a politician angling for votes, but rather a man following through on a life-long dedication to a greater role for government in society and the economy. It is easy to understand why Bennett has been so misunderstood. It is not often, after all, that a Conservative Prime Minister finds himself to the left of his Liberal opposition, but that it exactly where Bennett landed. Bennett's New Deal — a series of proposals that included unemployment insurance; the establishment of a minimum wage and limits on work hours; an extension of federally backed farm credit; fair-trade and anti-monopoly legislation; and a revamped Wheat Board to oversee and control grain prices — was certainly a departure from the Conservative politics of the day. The same could be said for his creation of the Bank of Canada and the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission. Boyko explores the origins and hardening of those beliefs as he details Bennett's birth (into relative poverty) in Hopewell Cape, New Brunswick, his stunning success as a corporate lawyer and financial entrepreneur in Calgary, his years in politics, and his eventual retirement in England. As he ranges through the ups and downs of his subject's career, Boyko also invites his reader to compare the challenges faced by Bennett to those faced in Canada's more recent history. Nearly every other Canadian prime minister finds his or her way into the analysis, with Bennett's beliefs and actions measured against theirs.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Canada, Politics, Biography

504 pages, Paperback

First published April 5, 2010

About the author

My 8th book, The Devil's Trick: How Canada Fought the Vietnam War, will be published by Knopf Penguin Random House in Canada and the US on April 13, 2021. It explores the largely unknown ways in which Canada was involved in the war and changed by it.

Sir John's Echo: The Voice for a Stronger Canada, was released by Dundurn Press in 2017.

Cold Fire: Kennedy's Northern Front, was published by Knopf Penguin Random House in Canada and the US in 2016. It was short-listed for the Dafoe Prize for Non-Fiction.

Blood and Daring: How Canada Fought the American Civil War and Forged a Nation was published in 2013. It was a national bestseller and chosen as one of the Globe and Mail's Best Books of the year. It was shortlisted for a Governor General's award for its translation into French.

My other books include Bennett: The Rebel Who Challenged and Changed a Nation, Into the Hurricane: Attacking CCF and Socialism in Canada, and Last Steps to Freedom: The Evolution of Canadian Racism.

I enjoy writing my Monday morning blog (johnboyko.com) and I also write op-eds for newspapers across Canada and entries for the Canadian Encyclopedia.

Reviews

[Tricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite fascinating! As a history teacher I have realized how much detail is left out of the Canadian History program in the high schools. I was enthralled with this oft maligned Prime Minister. My mother grew up in Alberta and heard him abused by the adults in her home, frequently. I was struck most by his vision of the future for the country and amazed at how all of his ideas were implemented or improved on by future Prime Ministers. Mackenzie King seems to have ridden on his coattails with a great deal of success and no credit was given him!!!

[Jason Keenan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating look at one of Canada's most unfairly vilified Prime Ministers. It seems he was judged not on what he did, but on what his critics claimed he did. It was amazing to learn that the Conservatives lost the 1935 election mainly because they were one of many parties competing for the a split vote -- on the left. Interesting look at leading a principled life in politics - and the price paid for that.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting read about a prime minister most know very little about, and what we do know is a most likely a stereotype. Boyko paints a picture of an inherently honest and brilliant man, wealthy yes, but extremely generous with his wealth. Many institutions which we as Canadians take for granted were either put in place by Bennett, or first proposed by Bennett to be implemented by others a generation later. Boyko goes against the stereotype of a leader who was beholden to big business and uncaring of the plight of Canadians during the Depression, and instead shows us a Bennett who was a firm believer throughout his life in the good the government could and should do to make the life of the individual better. He may be labelled the first Red Tory.

The narrative moves along nicely and keeps the reader's interest. The one thing I would have appreciated more insight into is the role Bennett's Christian faith played in his actions and decisions. The author speaks of Bennett's faith in his early formative years and in his later years, but we are left to guess at any spiritual motivations throughout the years of active politics. Part of that may not be the fault of the author, since Bennett destroyed most, if not all of his personal papers before his death. Unlike King who left volumes of diaries to allow us to see what he was really thinking, Bennett's private thoughts remain for the most part a mystery.

One slightly annoying habit of the author is that every 40 or 50 pages, he will examine something happening in Bennett's governance and compare it to something that happened in later years in Canadian political history, all with a slight slant (he's not a Harper fan). It might have been better to leave it to the knowledgeable reader to make those historical connections themselves.

The book paints a positive picture of a prime minister who, like Hoover in the States, was a generous, intelligent, extremely capable man who is forever linked to a depression that cannot be entirely laid at his feet for blame. A recommended read for those interested in Canadian History.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

A new biography of a relatively controversial and hated Canadian Prime Minister. Boyko wants to, and for the most part succeeds, make the argument that Bennett is the most mis-understood Prime Minister in Canadian History. He argues that Bennett was a Red Tory with a firm belief in the power of the state, a friend of the working man as well as an exceptionally successful capitalist. Boyko makes a good case that has to be considered...though his language is sometimes too flowery and his attempts to equate events in the first 3 decades of the country with events in the last 2 years are truly an over-reach.

[Jeffrey Thiessen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished this biography of the Rt Hon the Viscount Bennett of Mickleham, Calgary and Hopewell with an appreciation for our former Prime Minister (1930-35). A Conservative who may have been more liberal than his rivals during the Depression, Bennett did his best for Canada and the Commonwealth during his time in office and beyond.

[David Akin]

Bennett -- who ran as leader of the Liberal-Conservative Party -- gave us the CBC, the Bank of Canada and the Canadian Wheat Board. And, in Boyko's pretty good biography, he was also a helluva character.

[Nathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a sad fact of Canadian history that we have forgotten much of it, care little about most of it, and spend a lot of ink and breath maligning just about all of it. Our history has great men and women with powerful minds and hearts. Boyko does what he can to revive the legacy of one such man, even though immediately the parasites rise to dispute his claim to honour. Even a cursory reading through other reviews will reveal the knee-jerk Canadian reaction to our history, with the perilous claim that we have only shame in our history. Our history is "too white", "too male", or simply "too boring". Yet, such assertions reveal the inherent racism and prejudice within the hearts of those who cast such stones. One reviewer made the arrogant yet incredibly ironic claim "I wasn't convinced for a second", revealing the transparent and proud declaration of a lack of openness.

Boyko has done incredibly noble work in this book, trying to reclaim a Canadian sense of history and pride in what we have accomplished; in our systems, people, and parliament. All Canadians should read this!

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Never finished it

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written...but I don't buy his argument for one moment! But bless his enthusiastic, apologist heart for trying his best to persuade me.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprised by the significance this prime minister has had on Canadian history.