The Sommers Scandal: The Felling of Trees and Tree Lords

In 1953, Forests Minister Robert E. Sommers was one of the most powerful men in BC, able to influence the province's major industry, forestry, with a stroke of his pen. Five years later he plummeted from the heights when he was sent to jail for conspiracy and accepting bribes.

The Sommers scandal was the first and biggest stain on the record of Premier W.A.C. Bennett's Socreds. Betty O'Keefe and Ian Macdonald have recreated those stormy days of the mid-1950s, when Sommers, Bennett, Attorney General Robert Sommers, Phil Gaglardi and Gordon Gibson rocked the rafters of the Legislature with bellowed accusations and denials. Weaving interviews with major players and the media reports of the day, they show the relentless process by which Sommers was finally brought to trial, and reveal the confusing array of verdicts for Sommers and his co-accused.

The Sommers story is also the story of BC's forest industry. The forest-management system was under attack and investigation as the Sommers scandal unfolded, and the decisions made in the 1950s set the course for the death of logging towns, the corporate concentration and the crisis of overcutting some 30 years later.

Ian Macdonald was born in Glasgow, Scotland. He was a reporter for the Victoria Times Colonist, the Vancouver Province, and the Vancouver Sun. He was parliamentary correspondent in Victoria and bureau chief in Ottawa for the Ottawa Sun. He worked in media relations for federal ministers and the prime ministers office, and was head of Transport Canada Information. Ian has written for magazines, radio, television and film.

Betty O'Keefe was a Vancouver Province reporter for seven years in the 1950s, working as children's columnist, features writer and church editor. She then worked in corporate communications for 15 years and was commissioned to write two corporate biographies: Brenda: The Story of a Mine and The Mines of Babine Lake. Betty was the first woman to head the public-relations committee for the Mining Association of BC and the first woman to chair the information department of the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association.