Why Does David Hahn Hate WAC Bennett So Much?

DefyingHistory
PrivatizationVille

Despite the fact that he was a noted free-enterpriser, union-hater and socialist-thwarter, WAC Bennett knew the value of solid public enterprises regardless.

For it was he who took the unreliable, and patchwork, BC Ferry system out of private hands and made it a toll authority in 1960.

And I know it really happened that way because it says so on David Hahn's own website:

I was born in 1959 so I don't remember the vagaries of the CP or the Blackball-operated runs between Vancouver Island and the Mainland, but my Dad has told me plenty. And even he, a union hand from way back, gives Mr. Bennett his due on this one.

And so do I.

Because while I may have cursed the indigestion of the sunshine breakfast or the outright gastric discomfort of the chili, until recently BC Ferries rarely let me down.

But all that has changed with privatization as the catastrophes have mounted in lock-step with the prices.

One of the recent catastrophes was a fire aboard the Queen of Surrey in which there is plenty of blame to go around for everyone, both at Mr. Hahn's Ferry Corp and at Transport Canada, as was reported by Shannon Kari in last Friday's Globe and Mail.

But the man who got all of our boats for a song will have none of it. Ignoring history completely, Mr. Hahn had this to say:

"The problem was government. We should never be part of government again," he said. B.C. Ferries was made an independent commercial company in the spring of 2003.


Sheesh.

Has this man not heard that old adage about the linkage between a willfull ignorance of history and doom?

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