SO MANY CHALLENGES FOR CABINET
Premier John Horgan's mostly freshfaced, gender-balanced cabinet begins its mandate under trial by fire. More than 40,000 British Columbians have been forced from their homes by 152 wildfires burning in B.C.'s Interior. One of the incoming government's first actions was to extend a provincial state of emergency and announce payments to evacuees — drawn from a $100-million emergency wildfire fund — of $600 a household for every 14 days they're unable to return home. The social, environmental and economic costs of forest fire season will be enormous.
But fire is just one of the many challenges newly appointed ministers face. After all, there are campaign promises to keep.
One of those was the creation of a separate Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions, carving out responsibility for expanding mental health services and managing the opioid crisis, from the Ministry of Health. Public health staffers have expressed concern that their institutions will be buried in bureaucratic red tape.
Long-serving government staffers know from experience that it probably won't work. In 2001, Gordon Campbell's new Liberal government created a Ministry of Health Planning separate from the Ministry of Health. The result was two silos with two ministers, two deputy ministers and two teams of public servants that failed to accomplish much of anything.
Health Minister Adrian Dix and Mental Health and Addiction Minister Judy Darcy will have to co-ordinate their approach to a societal problem that involves homelessness, poverty, aging out of care, education, policing and courts. Meanwhile, Dix will have to work on reducing waiting times for health services, lowering the cost of prescription drugs, improving seniors' care, building hospitals and establishing urgent care centres, per the NDP platform.
Only slightly less daunting is the task assigned to Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Claire Trevena and parliamentary secretary for TransLink Bowinn Ma. They'll be responsible for eliminating bridge tolls, as promised, replacing the Pattullo Bridge, finding an alternative to the Massey Tunnel replacement project (assuming they kill the 10-lane bridge proposed by the previous government) and expediting projects to build a Broadway corridor subway in Vancouver and an LRT line in Surrey.
Education Minister Rob Fleming will have to find hundreds of millions of dollars for the Liberals' $360-million classroom enhancement fund to satisfy the B.C. Teachers' Federation. And Housing Minister Selina Robinson will have to somehow oversee construction of thousands of rental and social housing units.
Children and Family Development Minister Katrine Conroy must implement the NDP's $10-a-day child care plan while Labour Minister Harry Bains begins to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2021 and amend the labour code to eliminate the secret ballot on union certification votes.
Shane Simpson, minister of social development and poverty reduction, is tasked with setting in motion a poverty reduction plan.
Melanie Mark, minister of advanced education, will have to fund $1,000 completion grants for post-secondary graduates and make student loans interest free.
Finance Minister and deputy premier Carole James will be asked to meet all of these commitments while balancing the budget.
Horgan's appointments for cabinet, senior public servants and heads of provincial agencies seem well considered. His choices for deputy ministers are, in many cases, non-partisan, having left in place competent people who have served the public well.
His government will be sorely tested in the months ahead while it grapples with these challenges, while, at the same time, governing with the slimmest of majorities.