The Politician, The Physicist, And The Diplomat

Although he never worked for Hydro or its predecessors, W. A. C. Bennett, the province's long-ruling premier, had as great an impact on the company as anyone since Francis Barnard and Robert Horne-Payne. Bennett, whom everyone called "Wacky," combined his vision of the province's future with a steadfast and sometimes ruthless political will that shaped British Columbia's history-and with it the physical and economic landscape of the province. BC Hydro was part of that vision. His government's creation of a new publicly owned utility was marked by the unique and potentially troublesome decision to appoint two men as co-chairs of the organization: Gordon Shrum, head of the BC Energy Board and the Power Commission's chairman, Hugh Keenleyside.

Norm Olsen of the Power Commission recalls the behind-the-scenes wranglings that preceded the merger.

Dr. Keenleyside began a series of "negotiating" meetings with Dr. Shrum, and each time he returned to Victoria he would tell us what had transpired. We
had many ups and downs, good news/bad news stories about division of responsibilities and salary levels because BCE senior salaries were double BCPC salaries-and there were many differences in conditions and benefits.We all anticipated great improve-ments in salary but were in for major disappointments.

One of the first decisions to be made was where Hydro's head office should be: Vancouver or Victoria. The directors and senior managers were all invited to "vote" and express reasons. By a very close margin, the decision was in favour of Vancouver. As a result, more than 100 Power Commission staff were required to move to Vancouver. On one day about 100 houses went on the market-with a most depressing effect. In my case, it was 13 months before we found a buyer, and the BCPC policy provided no protection against losses or forced sales. It was not a happy time.

Shrum and Keenleyside had extremely different backgrounds and personalities. Shrum was a blunt-spoken physicist who had struck terror into generations of UBC engineering students; Keenleyside, who had also been a UBC academic, was a subtle diplomat who had been Canada's ambassador to Mexico. Both wrote memoirs that give some insight into their views on the Hydro challenge.

Shrum wrote that he was "not at all happy" when Bennett announced that he and Keenleyside would be joint chairmen.

I thought I was in for a very tough time. Keenleyside had a bigger reputation than I had in Ottawa and around the world, although not in British Columbia, and I knew that he was a clever negotiator and diplomat. I have a very different style: I tend to be abrupt. I did not think we would work well together.

Keenleyside's views were not much different.

Gordon Shrum and I had started teaching at UBC within a year of each other. We had been on terms of reasonable friendship ever since. I had always admired his determination, his self-confidence, his ingenuity, his lecturing ability and, except in some aspects of his relationship with other human beings, his intelli-gence… When Premier Bennett startled us both by appointing us joint chairmen, I am sure Shrum was deeply incensed. I was dubious about the prospective relationship… Gordon Shrum's views and mine being on some matters incompatible and our styles and methods of work being so divergent, I entered the new arrangement with some hesitation.

The other big question was how merging the two very different staffs would work. Shrum's view was typically clear and forceful.

[In] my opinion… the staff of the Power Commission were not nearly as competent as the people at BC Electric. The latter paid higher salaries and had been involved in power generation for many years, building up excellent staff, whereas the Power Commission had not been set up until after the war, when good engineers were in great demand and not many experienced ones would go at a small salary to a little government power commission that boasted only one hydroelectric plant. When the Power Commission staff came to our building, I tried hard to find one department head among them who could be senior to any of ours. Unfortunately I could not; Keenleyside was annoyed to find his own people in second place and I don't blame him. It was unfortunate: they were very good people but too young and inexperienced.

Keenleyside's view was more searching and more dispassionate.

BC Electric having been roughly three times the size of BCPC, the managers of its various divisions had directed more subordinates, handled larger sums of money and become more widely known in the business communities of Victoria and Vancouver than had their Commission counterparts. On the other hand, the Commission managers had been responsible for a great variety of duties and had operated under a more flexible system because of the wider geographic areas and the more diversified local conditions within which their work was done. Although even the most senior Commission supervisors were younger and less experienced, they brought greater ardour to their work than some of the BC Electric managers. Neither group was likely to view the prospect of working with the other with lively enthusiasm.

Perhaps it was inevitable that those with greater experience and a record of longer (though not necessarily more important) responsibilities should have been given the higher posts. Thus, most of the BC Electric managers kept their status and most of the Power Commission managers became "associate managers" in the new organization.

In the end, like Shrum, Keenleyside felt that the new arrangements worked out reasonably well.

Gradually, as time passed and experience accumulated, changes occurred, and when I retired in l969 the top posts were about equally divided between managers from the two original organizations.

The different styles of the two chairmen were obvious to anyone who worked for them. Guy Barclay was one of the BC Electric managers who remained in his post.

I liked Shrum. He would come directly to people for answers. He didn't follow the lines of communication. A typical call from him that I remember: "Your manager at Sechelt is refusing to give someone power. Fire him if necessary." I went up and checked, and the problem was in Vancouver, not Sechelt. The manager in Sechelt could have been more positive and helped more in this case, but I didn't fire him.

Keenleyside was different though, in the end, no less formidable. Former BCPC employee Tom Farmer compares the two.

Keenleyside was a very hard man to know. He could be very charming, a real diplomat, no doubt about that. You'd know damn well if you got hit by Shrum. He was very forthright, right out. If he didn't like someone, he told them. And I got told a couple of times. With Keenleyside it was very subtle. But it was there. You might be bleeding to death before you realized what had happened.