Premier John Horgan on ALR, housing and politics
Reporter Joe Fries sat down for an exclusive one-on-one interview with Premier John Horgan during his visit to the South Okanagan last week. What follows is an abridged version of their wide-ranging interview. It’s been edited for length and clarity.
COURIER: Your government last week introduced legislation that would block property owners from being able to apply directly to get their property removed from the Agricultural Land Reserve, and instead require the applications to come from government bodies. The Liberals say you’re infringing on property rights. What’s your intention here?
HORGAN: “The intention is to make sure if there are deletions from the Agricultural Land Reserve that they’re in the community’s best interest.
That’s why we’re now having municipalities make the applications… (People) bought agricultural land, they knew what they were buying or they inherited it going back to 1972…. If there’s a community benefit to remove that land, then the municipalities will bring that forward.”
COURIER: During budget deliberations, Penticton city councillors noted a significant portion of grant-in-aid requests were from organizations that deal with some aspect of the health system, and they felt the province was downloading its responsibilities onto the municipality. What do you say to that?
HORGAN: “I would argue there has been no shortage of downloading over time, but in the 18 months we’ve been in government, we have not downloaded medical services onto municipalities – quite the contrary…. When it comes to community grants, though, we try our level best to meet needs when people make applications…. But municipalities, I appreciate if they don’t believe they should be funding that service… they should be talking to us because I haven’t heard that complaint.”
COURIER: There are hundreds of units of social housing slated to come online in Penticton this year, but services for residents of those places don’t seem to be expanding at the same rate. Why not?
HORGAN: Speaking specifically about modular housing projects, like the 66-unit development currently going in on Winnipeg Street, “We have connected services in many cases in the social housing we’ve been building…. Many of those who are hard to house or homeless are so because they have a mental health challenge or they have an addiction issue and they need services, they need to get training to get back into the workforce and all these other things. So we have, through BC Housing and the modular housing, attached services 24/7.”
COURIER: The former Liberal government committed to billions of dollars’ worth of public-private partnerships in which companies design, build, finance and operate projects for 30 years or more. The Okanagan Correctional Centre and W.R. Bennett Bridge are examples. Your government has signalled a shift by installing Community Benefits Agreements that require local hiring, apprentices and local procurement, and also moved to finance, operate and maintain projects itself, like the Pattullo Bridge replacement, for example. Why is your way better?
HORGAN: “I believe if we’re spending public dollars, there should be more than just the benefit of the piece of infrastructure, whether it’s the hospital, the school or the bridge… So the P3 model, in my opinion, is a failure because you’re constantly paying for the profit of the company that did the borrowing.
We have the highest credit rating in the country… we can borrow money way lower than SNC-Lavalin or any of these other companies.
P3s are paying the interest on loans for these companies, they’re paying premiums for the management services that come with those companies, and I believe the traditional model, particularly if it’s design-build projects… is a better model, because you know going in what the costs are going to be and you’re not paying it for all time.
COURIER: The Okanagan is a Liberal stronghold. Your party finished a distant second to the Liberals in the Penticton and Boundary-Similkameen ridings. Do you see a path to victory here or are you focused on swing ridings elsewhere?
HORGAN: “I believe that there are a lot of progressive voters in Penticton and the Boundary area. We look at the progressive politics that you see with (South OkanaganWest Kootenay NDP) MP Dick Cannings, and even (Liberal) MLA (Dan) Ashton, who’s not a right-of-centre guy.
So I think the people in the region are very much in line with my government and, provided we have the right candidates in the next election, I think we’re going to do very well.”