You needed a program to keep track of which ministers came and – more importantly – were forced to resign during the Vander Zalm years. Most of them over conflict-of-interest concerns. Stephen Rogers, Jack Kempf, Stan Hagen, Cliff Michael, Brian Smith and Grace McCarthy (within a week of each other due to alleged interference from the Premier’s Office), Bill Reid (allegations of embezzlement), Peter Dueck, Bud Smith. Finally, in 1991, Mel Couvelier quit Cabinet in protest, saying he “couldn’t sit beside” Vander Zalm any longer while the latter was under investigation for, you guessed it, conflict of interest.
The Vander Zalm years
