Bill Bennett was premier of BC (governor, for American readers) for eleven years with a majority government each time, and he managed the rare trick of retiring while he was still on top. His successor, Bill Vander Zalm, won the subsequent election, unlike Kim Campbell when she took over for Mulroney at the federal level, for example.

Bill Bennett oversaw Expo 86, which included a massive redevelopment of False Creek in Vancouver and the Skytrain; the construction of the Coquihalla Highway; chaired the premiers council while Pierre Trudeau was working on constitutional repatriation; and, most controversially, implemented a massive program of spending restraint, gutting a number of social services and labour laws in an effort to strengthen the BC economy, which was struggling in response to a crash in commodity prices.

He remains a controversial figure, but I suspect even his critics would admit that he truly believed in the policies he promoted, to the extent that he intentionally bore the blame for them so that his successor would not be tainted. He also implemented a number of lower-key reforms in an effort to achieve good financial management, and several of those have since become standard procedure among Canadian governments, including changing the role of the Treasury Board to oversee financial accountability, and using an external auditor to review provincial finances.

Whether you agree with his policies (and respect his legacy) depends on which side of the ideological divide you’re on – he is loathed by the left in BC, and respected by the right. His focus on financial accountability, however, is something that both sides of the aisle could learn from. Government spending, as Plecas rightly points out, is at the margin: politicians care about new programs and ideas, because that’s what gets votes. In order to afford new programs, though, you have to manage your current programs carefully. A lessons all governments could take to heart.