Remembering EXPO 86

Forty years ago this week, EXPO 86 opened on the shores of False Creek and the world came to Vancouver. Twenty-two million visits over five months. A skyline reimagined. SkyTrain, Canada Place, B.C. Place, Science World, the Coquihalla Highway — all delivered on time and under budget.

For ICBA and B.C.'s open shop contractors, though, EXPO was something even bigger. It was the moment everything changed.

When the world's fair was first announced, the assumption was simple: it would be built union-only, like every major public project before it. Building Trades Council president Roy Gauthier had already met with Jimmy Pattison and was pushing for an all-union, no-strike agreement. The fix looked in.

One man stood in the way: Premier Bill Bennett.

Bennett had a different vision. "EXPO is a fair for all British Columbians," he told his minister responsible, Claude Richmond — and he meant it. In a televised address on March 29, 1984, he drew the line in plain language: there would be no discrimination in B.C. based on union or non-union status.

The Building Trades didn't believe him. On April 12, 1984, Gauthier sat across from Bennett in Victoria and made what former Bennett principal secretary Bud Smith calls one of the most colossal miscalculations in B.C. labour history, telling Bennett that only the unions would build EXPO: "Mr. Premier, it'll be all or it'll be nothing." Bennett's eyes turned to ice. "Roy, in that case, it'll be nothing." He walked upstairs to cabinet and told his colleagues they'd reached a consensus.

A few weeks later, Pattison challenged B.C.'s open shop contractors to fill a ballroom at the Hotel Vancouver in under a week, to prove they could build EXPO. Ninety firms showed up. "We'll Build Expo," roared the Province cover the next morning.

By August, Bennett's government proclaimed legislation dividing the EXPO site into legally distinct zones — the move that broke union non-affiliation clauses and opened the gates. ICBA members built the Chinese Pavilion, the Italian Pavilion, and on and on. Kerkhoff Construction alone built 20 EXPO 86 buildings.

Forty years later, 85% of B.C. construction is open shop. None of that happens without Bill Bennett's spine.

EXPO didn't just put Vancouver on the world stage. It reshaped an industry — and gave ICBA's founders the proof of concept that's driven us for half a century.

Want to know more about how important EXPO 86 was to ICBA? Check out pages 36-42 of our ICBA50 collection of stories HERE.