So far, so good for B.C. NDP’s opening 100 days
One hundred days into the life of the first new NDP government in B.C. in 16 years, some positives stand out and some not-so-positive things.
The first and most obvious plus for the New Democrats is Premier John Horgan himself.
Not so long ago, Horgan’s chippy, frustrated performance as leader of the Opposition raised doubts. Today, the transformation is remarkable.
On the public platform the premier’s tone is positive, unifying and grounded in themes of affordability and fairness. Inside the legislature, he’s a partisan inspiration to his side and the B.C. Liberal Opposition has yet to rattle him.
Also, he’s ably managed his powersharing arrangement with the Greens, despite the occasional pillowfight with Andrew Weaver.
The second advantage for the government is the presence of a strong front bench of cabinet ministers.
I’m thinking of David Eby as attorney-general, Adrian Dix in health, George Heyman on the environment, Rob Fleming in education, Mike Farnworth as house leader and solicitor-general and Carole James as deputy premier and minister of finance. They know their files, often better than their critics on the other side.
They also provide a point of comparison for the underperforming members of cabinet.
Case in point, Transportation Minister Claire Trevena has faltered several times, most recently in defending the NDP decision to put off for a year the promise to implement ride-hailing.
Then there’s Selina Robinson, minister of municipal affairs and housing. She seemed to know her stuff in Opposition, but has scrambled to keep up with expectations on the NDP commitments to make housing more affordable.
One of her worst performances came this week, during an interview on the Jon McComb show on CKNW when she repeatedly showed that she had nothing to say on the file.
Even government insiders were asking why she granted an interview only to demonstrate how far behind the curve she was on what was arguably the No. 1 issue in the party election platform.
As for the recent troubles of Agriculture Minister Lana Popham, that strikes me as a case of an activist overreaching her powers at the cabinet table.
She came into office closely tied to the anti-fish farming movement and in her righteousness, served what amounted to a premature eviction notice on the farms and halfthreatened the job of the province’s senior fish pathologist.
Contrast that with the caution exercised this week by Heyman on the climate change file. Before getting elected to the legislature, he toured the province on behalf of the Sierra Club with a film that dramatized the evils of fracking as a way of developing the provincial natural gas resource.
But as environment minister this week, he was a study in caution when asked whether the government’s continued encouragement of liquefied natural gas development was compatible with NDP targets for reducing carbon emissions.
Immediate performances aside, the New Democrats have collectively created some longer-term problems for themselves by breaking some promises and postponing many others for decision making in the year ahead.
If past practice is any guide, they will discover that governments don’t remain popular for long in this province and difficult decisions don’t get any easier with the passage of time.
But given all the hurdles the New Democrats had to clear to get into government, a fair summation of their progress to date would be “so far, so good.”