MIKE SMYTH: John Horgan reflects on his year of triumph and adversity
As for 2018, he says, there’s a lot of work to do, including fixing the ICBC ‘train wreck’
For Premier John Horgan, a defining moment in deciding the fate of the controversial Site C dam didn’t occur during a cabinet meeting or in a high-level discussion with a powerful business leader or a senior policy chief.
It happened at the Vancouver airport, when a Site C worker stormed up to him to demand that Horgan not kill the project that provided his livelihood.
“I don’t even know his name,” Horgan said in a year-end interview.
“But he said, ‘You can’t stop this project. You’re a crazy man if you do.’ I listened to him politely, but he was very agitated. He was working on the project and this is how he feeds his family and pays his bills.”
As Horgan talked to the Site C worker, a crowd of curious onlookers gathered.
“A couple of people turned into a dozen people and that turned into about 30 people,” Horgan said.
“Finally I said, ‘Look, it’s not just about you, dude. It’s about 4½ million people.’ All of a sudden there was clapping and that’s when I turned around and saw all these people watching me engage with this guy.
“It was a defining moment for me because I realized it was not about me telling him, ‘I’m going to kill Site C,’ or, ‘I’m going to build Site C.’ It was, ‘It’s not about you or me. It’s about all of us.’”
At the time, Horgan was in the middle of a tug of war between forces that wanted to cancel the $10.7-billion megaproject and those pressuring him to complete it.
The dam was started by Christy Clark’s previous Liberal government and Horgan’s NDP criticized it as too expensive, too damaging to the environment and agricultural land and that B.C. didn’t need the power.
But Horgan announced last week his government will complete construction of the dam anyway, angering environmentalists and key First Nations opposed to it.
He repeated his key reason for forging ahead: The government would have been saddled with $4 billion in unsecured debt if they had cancelled it, triggering a 12-per-cent B.C. Hydro rate hike, and a possible credit downgrade by bond-rating agencies that would have drove up interest rates on the province’s long-term debt.
He said that would have prevented the government from delivering on other commitments like housing and child care.
“That’s where the evidence took us,” he said. “It’s what’s best for the whole province overall, not just one person or one group.”
Horgan revealed the Site C decision caused a lot of tension within his own family.
He said his wife Ellie was opposed to the project.
“We looked over the evidence together and she understands the decision,” he said.
But he said the toughest family discussion took place with his older brother Pat, who has terminal cancer.
“He’s an ardent opponent of Site C, so it was tough,” Horgan said.
“My brother is in the last days. The tumours are now up around the brain stem and they’re pulling his eye over, so he’s got an eye patch. He’s very thin.”
He described his brother as a father figure who raised him after their father died when Horgan was a child.
Horgan said his brother’s illness was the lowest point of an incredible year in which he joined forces with the Green party to bring down the Liberal government after the closest election in B.C. history.
Horgan’s relationship with Green party Leader Andrew Weaver took an end-of-theyear hit over the Site C dam decision.
Weaver even suggested recall campaigns should be launched against key cabinet ministers, something that could theoretically bring down the NDP government that he claims to support.
Horgan said he and Weaver have smoothed things over.
“We aired our grievances and we’re back on track,” he said.
Despite the Site C troubles — and the personal grief over his brother’s illness — Horgan seems to be having a jolly time as premier.
He even dressed up as Santa Claus at the legislature’s annual kids Christmas party and handed out presents to the children — and a lump of coal to any reporters he spied.
“I get up every morning like the Energizer bunny,” he said. “I’m whistling and humming and I’m just engaged.”
What happened to Hulk Horgan, the guy who used to lose his temper when he was the Opposition leader?
“In opposition, you’re paid to be grumpy and in government, you’re paid to be optimistic,” he said.
He struck a pessimistic tone, though, when asked about the new year ahead.
“ICBC is a train wreck,” he said. “There’s a lot of work to do there.”
I took that as a hint the government will cap court awards for injuries suffered in auto accidents, something that will trigger a new controversy in 2018.
For now, Horgan is happy in public and grieving in private over his brother’s illness.