Some residents return home in B.C., others fear the worst
Premier John Horgan handed key responsibilities in his new cabinet to Metro Vancouver MLAs Tuesday, giving the region, and the NDP’s political power base, a massive voice in shaping his new administration.
Almost two-thirds of Horgan’s new 22-person cabinet comes from the Lower Mainland, where the NDP made key gains in the May 9 election that ultimately allowed it to topple the B.C. Liberals and officially assume power on Tuesday.
The NDP’s strong showing in Vancouver during the election — it holds eight of 11 city ridings — appears to have been recognized with the largest representation at the cabinet table, including some of the most important portfolios in government.
That includes David Eby (attorney general, and also minister responsible for liquor, gambling and the Insurance Corp. of B.C.), Adrian Dix (health), Shane Simpson (social development and poverty reduction), George Heyman (environment and climate change strategy), Melanie Mark (advanced education) and George Chow (minister of state for trade).
Horgan’s recent appointment of former Vancouver city councillor Geoff Meggs as his chief of staff also bolstered the relationship with Vancouver.
Overall, the 22-person cabinet unveiled Tuesday was genderbalanced, with a mix of new and old MLAs that marked only a modest reorganization from the structure of the previous Liberal government. They were all sworn in at a ceremony at Government House in which Lt.-Gov. Judith Guichon made Horgan as B.C.’s 36th premier.
Horgan pledged quick action this summer on several key issues: Assisting those displaced by wildfires, reducing the fentanyl overdose crisis, solving the softwood lumber dispute, raising welfare and disability rates, putting more teachers in classrooms and eliminating tolls at the Port Mann and Golden Ears bridges.
The list of priority puts early pressure on several new cabinet ministers, such as Education Minister Rob Fleming, who will have to act quickly to solve funding issues that teachers say are preventing the proper hiring of staff before schools return in September.
New Westminster MLA Judy Darcy was put in charge of tackling the overdose crisis through a new Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions. Horgan is meeting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau next week to also discuss the crisis. Darcy faces a particularly daunting task because she will have to work with Dix’s health ministry to separate out services for mental health without communications problems, which has been a concern raised by public health officials.
Horgan appeared to do his best to deal with his party’s poor showing in the north and interior, appointing the only four MLAs it had outside of Metro Vancouver and Vancouver Island to cabinet posts: Doug Donaldson (forests, lands, natural resource operations and rural development), Jennifer Rice (parliamentary secretary for emergency preparedness), Katrine Conroy (children and family development) and Michelle Mungall (energy, mines and petroleum resources).
Mungall will inherit the NDP’s promise to put the $9-billion Site C dam up before a review, which Horgan said will happen immediately.
The Liberals, who were defeated on a confidence vote last month by an NDP-Green power-sharing alliance, slammed the new NDP cabinet. “This #GreeNDP government was not recognized by the majority B.C. and will pander to minority interest at the expense of the majority,” tweeted MLA Rich Coleman, the former deputy premier.