PREMIER IS DOING DOUBLE DUTY AS THE NDP’S ‘MINISTER OF DEFENCE’

Horgan is a hulking giant in question period compared to government’s smaller players

Agriculture Minister Lana Popham was on the ropes in the house late last week, struggling to explain her threatening letter to a coastal fish farm and facing a barrage of questions from a whipped-up Liberal opposition, when Premier John Horgan rode to the rescue.

Recognizing his rookie minister was outmatched by the criticism, Horgan took over Popham’s questions to try to dig her out from accusations her letter amounted to a warning that the fish farm could see its licence pulled by the province when up for renewal next year.

“Don’t fearmonger,” Horgan shot back at the opposition on behalf of his now-benched minister. “No licences are being revoked. No tenures are being lifted. Tenures are being reviewed, as they should be, as the government of British Columbia protects the interest of all British Columbians, not just those that give you cheques.”

Almost every day last week, the new NDP premier found himself on his feet against the Liberal opposition, intervening on behalf of a minister in trouble.

His attempts to bolster his troops earned him a nickname heckled from Liberal critic Shirley Bond: “The Minister of Defence.”

There’s a certain truth to the unwanted moniker. When it comes to backstopping the government message, Horgan has emerged as the NDP’s strongest question period performer, with little trace of the thin-skinned frustration and hair-trigger temper that used to define his legislative appearances while in opposition.

He can now go toe-to-toe with the best critics the Liberal opposition has to offer, doing so again on Popham’s behalf Wednesday when former finance minister Mike de Jong took a blustery run at the minister over that letter.

Unfortunately for the premier, not all of his ministers have shown the same growth he has during the NDP’s first three months in office.

Case in point: Popham. Her Oct. 13 letter to fish farm company Marine Harvest Canada was widely construed as a veiled threat the government might revoke one of the company’s tenures when it comes up for renewal next year. Her letter cited extensively the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, which some believe gives First Nations a veto over projects in their territory.

The Liberals dubbed Popham the “Minister of Intimidation” and accused her of using her office to threaten Marine Harvest because she personally dislikes fish farms. “This is not how a government should speak, with threats and innuendo, to a lawful business,” KamloopsNorth

Thompson Liberal MLA Peter Milobar said.

“The health of wild salmon is of utmost importance to our government,” Popham replied, which would have been a good defence if her letter had made any reference to the health of wild salmon, which it did not.

The renewal of Marine Harvest’s licence is supposed to be handled by a unbiased civil servant in the Ministry of Forests who, as the statutory decisionmaker, keeps politics out of the process. Popham’s political fumbling may have left the government open to a lawsuit.

It fell to Horgan to bail her out twice during the week. He also used his weekly media event Wednesday to suggest the UN declaration was not the issue, despite it forming the bulk of Popham’s letter. First Nations don’t have a veto over projects, he clarified.

Still, the Liberals smelled blood in the water with Popham.

“This is about a letter that the minister penned, that was

intimidating,” Liberal MLA Michelle Stilwell said during an exchange with Horgan. “She wrote the letter. She doesn’t seem capable of defending the letter, and you’re coming to her rescue.”

The Liberals focused on Popham because they believe she’s one of the weakest links in Horgan’s first cabinet. They’ve also targeted Citizens’ Services Minister Jinny Sims and Transportation Minister Claire Trevena.

Trevena gave the Liberals ample ammunition with her handling of the NDP’s ride-for-hire review, which she announced last week with nary a note of humility to the voters who remembered the NDP’s election promise to clear the way for ride-hailing services by the end of 2017. That’s been delayed, as part of Trevena’s new ride-for-hire review, which excludes the actual ride-for-hire companies from participating. She hired a $165,000 consultant to study the existing taxi industry, while admitting the author did a similar report for the City of Vancouver in 2015 that she hadn’t bothered to read.

The strategy of zeroing in on the weakest members of the herd should be familiar to Horgan, because his NDP opposition dedicated entire question periods to trying to break and embarrass some of former premier Christy Clark’s worst ministers, including Coralee Oakes and Amrik Virk. Now, the Liberals are doing the same to his team.

Even though the new NDP government has only been in power roughly 100 days, you can clearly see two classes of cabinet ministers emerging: those who have already risen to the challenge of minister of the Crown, including Finance Minister Carole James, Health Minister Adrian Dix, Solicitor General Mike Farnworth and Attorney General David Eby, and the others, who will continue to need to the help of their Minister of Defence.