[2] After leaving school at grade 9, he found work in his late teens at a fly-in fishing lodge near the Northern Ontario town of Red Lake.

[2] He later returned to school, graduating from the University of Guelph in 1976 with an honours degree in English, and went on to own and operate fly-in fishing and hunting lodges in the Northwest Territories and Manitoba.

[1][3] Bennett ran for the BC Liberals in the 2001 provincial election, defeating the incumbent New Democratic candidate Erda Walsh to become member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for East Kootenay.

[4] After being re-elected at the 2005 provincial election, he was appointed to cabinet by Premier Gordon Campbell as Minister of State for Mining,[5] but resigned from the post in February 2007 after it was revealed that he had sent a profanity-laden email to a constituent.

[8] He sat in the legislature as an independent member following his ouster from caucus, and supported George Abbott in the subsequent Liberal leadership election to replace the outgoing Campbell.