DARCY HANDED TOUGHEST JOB IN HORGAN’S CABINET
Premier acknowledges that of all posts, fixing opioid mess will be challenging
For all the pent-up excitement released at the cabinet swearing-in Tuesday, there was no overlooking how Premier John Horgan handed out some hugely difficult assignments to the first NDP ministers to hold office in 16 years.
None greater than the one given to Judy Darcy, as Horgan himself conceded in talking to reporters for his first media conference as premier.
It falls to Darcy to establish the stand-alone ministry of mental health and addiction services that the New Democrats promised in their election platform.
It means pulling together programs and clients spread over a half-dozen ministries and agencies, never an easy task amid bureaucratic resistance and organizational siloing at the best of times.
At the same time, she needs to address the immediate challenge of out-of-control abuse of opioids, in effect creating a ministry to manage a crisis in the midst of a crisis.
The New Westminster MLA has been in the spotlight before, as national president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees and business manager of the Hospital Employees’ Union here in B.C. But not the way she will be in the weeks and months ahead.
She’ll have plenty of company around the cabinet table in that regard, starting with her colleague Selina Robinson, MLA for Coquitlam Maillardville. In appointing Darcy to oversee the new ministry of mental health and addictions, Horgan bypassed Robinson, lately Opposition critic for those issues.
But the fallback assignment was scarcely less demanding. Robinson, the former city councillor and therapist is the new minister of municipal affairs and — ahem — housing.
No topic loomed larger than housing affordability in the NDP’s successful undermining of support for the B.C. Liberals in and around Metro Vancouver over the past two years.
To Robinson now falls the job of doing something about it, amid evidence that the considerable dollars and efforts expended so far have barely dented the problem.
Gone from the file is David Eby, the Vancouver-Point Grey MLA who committed much damage and more than a little mischief in his time as housing critic against the B.C. Liberals. Eby is the new attorney general and also inherits responsibility for the troubled Insurance Corp. of B.C. His inbox already includes a draft report on options for addressing the soaring cost of auto insurance, including remedies to curb claims and cap settlements. But given Eby’s history of aggressive legal, social, political activism, his biggest challenge as attorney general could be showing a measure of balance and fairness.
Horgan took a provocative approach to addressing the NDP’s under-representation in the North and Interior, appointing three MLAs from those regions to some of the toughest portfolios at the cabinet table.
Kootenay West’s Katrine Conroy is the new minister of children and family development, readily the cabinet post with the most depressing storylines: Taking kids into custody and breaking up families. Not taking them and running the risk of repeat abuse. Watching them age out of the system and go out into the real world with not nearly enough support.
The New Democrats have ably dramatized all the failings of the existing system under the B.C. Liberals over the years. As minister responsible, Conroy will have a hard time living up to the expectations that she and her colleagues have raised.
Conroy’s next-doorneighbour on the electoral map, Nelson-Creston MLA Michelle Mungall, has been an Opposition critic on a range of social issues in recent years.
Now she is the new minister of energy, mines and petroleum resources, three of the big-ticket sectors on the resource side of the provincial economy.
The government-supplied resume described Mungall as a former city councillor, community activist and manager for a non-profit, without indicating any particular expertise in the energy, mines and petroleum industry.
But perhaps she is expected to lean heavily on the boss. Horgan built up considerable knowledge on those files during his years as an Opposition critic for energy and mines.
Mungall also inherits responsibility for B.C. Hydro. And Horgan hinted that one of the orders of business when cabinet convenes for its first meeting today will be to get going on the promised review of Hydro’s Site C project on the Peace River.
The other big resource industry portfolio, forests and lands, was assigned to Stikine MLA Doug Donaldson, the lone New Democrat representing a riding in the northern Interior.
He’s worked in the forestry industry, including as a consulting biologist, and in other industries in the northwest, giving him a bit of a head start in understanding the complexities of the industry.
But he’ll preside over the NDP’s ambitious promises to boost employment and value-added production in the industry, while restoring inventories and the overall health of the resource.
A related challenge dealing with land and resources goes to Mid Island-Pacific Rim MLA Scott Fraser. He’s the minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, a renamed ministry that will take the lead on the NDP commitment to enshrine all 46 articles of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and all 94 calls to action from the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Then again, given the far-reaching implications of those commitments to First Nations, getting to “yes” on land and resource development will be a challenge for all New Democrats, not just Fraser.
Nor should the foregoing be taken as more than a starter set of the major challenges facing the government. But leave those details for another day.
It falls to (Judy) Darcy to establish the stand-alone ministry of mental health and addiction services that the New Democrats promised in their election platform.