The strange story of a man who would stop at nothing to turn a B.C. island into a theme park

Transcript

Depending on who you ask, Eddy Haymour is either a man whose dreams were snuffed out by a vindictive government, or a violent and abusive loudmouth who will do whatever it takes to get what he wants.

To Greg Crompton, he's all of the above and so much more. 

The filmmaker's new documentary Eddy's Kingdom tells the story of the now-85-year-old man who threatened politicians, held people hostage, fought in court and even drove away his own family — all in pursuit of his goal to open a theme park on a small B.C. island. 

"I think he is someone who is completely driven to realize his dream or what he thinks is right … so I admire him for that," Crompton told As It Happens host Carol Off.

"Also, he conflicts me, because … he's done some pretty deplorable things, but he's also, you know, had some things done to him that are pretty horrible as well."

Eddy's Kingdom is streaming now at the Toronto Hot Docs virtual film festival, and premieres at Vancouver's DOXA Documentary Film Festival later this month.

Crompton was a boy in Kelowna, B.C., when first heard about Haymour. 

His father was a real estate agent in the '70s, before Crompton was born, and had given Haymour a tour of Rattlesnake Island on Lake Okanagan.

Haymour immediately fell in love with the tiny island near the picturesque town of Peachland, saying it reminded him of his native Lebanon. 

He bought the land and devised a plan to turn it into a Middle Eastern theme park, complete with a giant pyramid, two miniature golf courses, and a nine-metre tall camel statue that would serve ice cream from its belly. 

"It would be a place that people from the Okanagan could come and learn about Middle Eastern culture," Crompton said. 

"He saw it as very much a way to kind of have cross-cultural understanding, which, again, to me, it's fascinating that this man had this idea, and then what he did to try and realize that."

Haymour began construction on the park, but was repeatedly hampered in his efforts by the B.C. government and residents of Peachland. He never realized his vision, but remnants of the early construction can still be seen on the island today.

Crompton remembers riding by in a boat in the '80s with his dad and seeing a statue of Haymour, and his giant pyramid. 

"It was kind of this lore that you knew about growing up in Kelowna, but no one knew the full story," he said.

"When I started kind of researching it, I realized, wow, there's so much more to the story."

Pushback from the town and elected officials 

Crompton says there was a lot of local opposition to Haymour's plans. Residents of Peachland didn't like the idea of a massive theme park ferrying people back and forth outside their sleepy community.

"It's this beautiful, kind of bucolic-like point of nature and everyone from Peachland kind of looks towards that island. And so they would see this Middle Eastern theme park that didn't kind of fit in their vision of what they wanted the Okanagan Valley to be like," he said.

"So people were pretty frustrated with that. And I think also Eddy is a charming character to some people, but he also may be a bit abrasive to others. And so I think he rubbed a lot of people the wrong way."

That's where then-B.C. premier William Andrew Cecil Bennett comes in. He was the member of provincial parliament for the area, and up for re-election, and he turned his considerable political powers toward stopping the park, Crompton said. 

"He gets all his ministers to deny him building permits, deny him, you know, water permits, deny him sewer permits — all these sort of things so Eddy just can't do anything. And then on opening day, you know, he shuts it down with a bunch of police presence," Crompton said.

"He uses all his government might to stop it."

Haymour told anyone who would listen that the government was out to get him, Crompton said, but nobody believed it. In fact, the extent of the premier's interference remained buried until the CBC's Fifth Estate unearthed it in a 1986 exposé.

"No one believes Eddy. Everyone's like, 'Oh yeah, sure, the government's doing this to you.'"

That's when Haymour turned to violence,  threatening local politicians, Crompton said. He was charged in 1973 with threatening to send a letter bomb to Bennett, though no evidence was ever found, according to a story by Kathy Michaels in the Cowichan Valley Citizen.

His home life was equally turbulent. He was accused of domestic abuse, Crompton said. His wife left him. Years before, he was accused of kidnapping his own children. 

His behaviour eventually landed him court facing 37 charges, stemming from remarks he'd made to an undercover police officer. 

The prosecution agreed to drop all the charges except one — possession of brass knuckles — and Haymour's lawyers agreed, Crompton said. 

But in a surprise twist, Crown pushed for Haymour to be found not criminally responsible by way of insanity, and he was forcibly institutionalized in a psychiatric ward.

"I think that's when Eddy kind of loses his trust in government because they just totally hoodwinked him," Crompton said.

"It was shocking, to be honest."

Hostage taking in Lebanon 

Things only got worse from there. After being released, Haymour went back to Lebanon in 1976, rounded up five cousins, and held 20 Canadians hostage with an AK-47 at the embassy in Beirut. 

"His demands are, you know, give me my land back, give me some money, bring me my kids and tell the world that I am not insane, which, you know, it's a wild ask, I think," Crompton said.

"He holds hostages for a number of hours, and in the end he surrenders."

Haymour never faced any jail time for the hostage-taking. Canada could not charge him for a crime committed overseas, and Lebanon charged him only with a misdemeanour and slapped him with a $200 fine. 

He returned to Canada a free man and took the B.C. government to court — and won.

In 1986, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that the government had treated Haymour unfairly, that he was wrongfully institutionalized.

"On the evidence before me, he was justified in having the [paranoid] belief he did," Supreme Court Justice Gordon MacKinnon wrote at the time, according to reporting by Omar Mouallem in the magazine Eighteen Bridges.

"To subject the plaintiff to that charade was, in my view, highly improper if not consciously cruel."

The court ordered the province to pay Haymour $250,000 in damages.

"That's what he always wanted. He wanted vindication. And I think that once the government gave him that, you know, he was over the moon in that sense," Crompton said.

"All these people who were kind of, you know, questioning, 'Oh, yeah. You're telling us that the government was doing you wrong. Yeah, yeah, sure,' they finally were proven wrong and he was proven right. And I think for him, that was incredible."

But still, he never got his island back. By that point, Crompton said, it had been converted into a provincial park.

To this day, Crompton says Haymour — now 85 years old — has expressed no remorse for his actions.

"I never got the sense that he felt sorry. I think he thought people understood what he was trying to do. You know, even the people that he held hostage. 

"When I asked them about exactly that, like, 'You traumatized these people. How does that make you feel?' And he's like, 'Well, I explained myself and why I was doing it and they understood'  — which I think is a big jump.

"I don't think he's ever been remorseful about that. And he's you know, to this day, he's still fighting for the island."

Eddy's Kingdom is streaming at Hot Docs until June 24., and premieres at Vancouver's DOXA Documentary Film Festival June 18.

Written by Sheena Goodyear. Interview produced by Jeanne Armstrong.