‘JOHN WHISPERERS’ KEY IN HORGAN’S ELECTION WIN
Remarkably candid interview with premier just one highlight of Matter of Confidence
The B.C. New Democrats and the B.C. Liberals both approached the 2017 election with every intention of offering relief from the onerous tolls on the Port Mann and Golden Ears bridges.
Both major parties acknowledged the growing backlash among voters in Surrey, the Fraser Valley, and elsewhere who were paying as much as $1,500 a year for their two-way daily commute.
But because the tolls were critical to underwriting the billions of dollars of debt incurred to build the two publicly financed crossings, neither scheme was predicated on getting rid of them altogether.
The Liberals were out first, announcing April 9, just two days before the final four weeks of campaigning, that they would cap the tolling payout at $500 a year, thereby offering significant relief.
Up to that point, the New Democrats were preparing to announce a 50 per cent cut in tolls, meaning the Liberals had effectively upstaged them. Then something extraordinary happened.
“We’re going to get rid of the tolls,” NDP campaign director Bob Dewar declared to his team at party headquarters.
“Find out how to do it. But we’re doing it.”
Dewar, a consummate pro recruited by NDP Leader John Horgan from the party apparatus in Manitoba, had framed the B.C. campaign on making life more affordable for British Columbians. No way was he going to lose the opening round.
In a matter of hours, Horgan would announce the toll-free B.C. promise to a cheering throng in Surrey, ensuring it was the Liberals, not the New Democrats, who would find themselves upstaged.
“And so one of the most important moments in the entire election campaign for B.C. New Democrats was actually a policy made up on the fly in a spur-ofthe-moment reaction to their Liberal political opponents,” authors Rob Shaw and Richard Zussman write in a Matter of Confidence, their just-published account of last year’s battle for B.C.
“It established the fact that the NDP was serious about being bold in the election campaign,” the book says. “The quick-thinking Dewar had also sent a message to veteran New Democrats, many of whom were used to the slow, plodding, cumbersome platform development within the party.”
Horgan’s hiring of Dewar as chief of staff and later campaign director was one of the key moves that carried him to the threshold of the office of premier.
His earlier chief of staff, John Heaney, quit to work for the Alberta NDP premier, Rachel Notley. Horgan felt betrayed by the loss of the brilliant, driven Heaney. But Shaw and Zussman reckon it turned out to be a blessing because “Heaney reinforced the worst tendencies in Horgan to be chippy and frustrated.”
Dewar and another staffing recruit, Marie Della Mattia, were the prime calming influences on the mercurial NDP leader during the campaign. New Democrats would refer to them, with a mixture of a we and bemusement, as “the John whisperers.”
Shaw, who reports for The Vancouver Sun and Province, and Zussman, now with Global television, covered the events of 2017 in detail. They supplemented that work with in-depth interviews, and it shows on page after page in their vivid, indispensable book.
Some of the most telling passages document Horgan’s transition from the aforementioned chippy and frustrated opposition leader to the still passionate but comfortable-in-his-own-skin candidate who out-classed premier Christy Clark in campaign 2017.
A chapter titled The Man Who Did Not Want to be Premier circles back to Horgan’s conclusion, following the NDP loss in the 2013 election, that he had neither the stomach nor the temperament to enter the subsequent leadership race.
Even after he was persuaded to change his mind, doubts lingered. “I can’t do this. I can’t win,” he told insiders at one point. “They are going to rip me to pieces because I am the angry guy.”
At another point he confronted rising star David Eby over rumours that he, stung by what he saw as a faltering performance on Horgan’s part, was preparing a leadership challenge.
“The tension was high,” the authors write. “The rumours were swirling. Horgan had heard that not only did Eby want his job, but that he had put together a shadow leadership team.” But Eby denied all: “Not true. I want you to be premier. I want you to succeed.”
Up to a year before the election, Horgan still entertained thoughts of quitting, signalling to party officials and would-be successors his willingness to step aside.
“I talked to them and said if you think you can do better, I am OK with that,” Horgan confessed to the authors in a remarkably candid interview for the book. “I canvassed widely. It’s not that I didn’t believe I was up for the job, but I didn’t want anyone to have excuses.”
Given the NDP history of turning on and dumping one leader after another, nobody volunteered to take over what was regarded as a more-likely-than-not shot at adding to a long list of defeats.
But as Shaw and Zussman recount, this time the New Democrats would have help — from the woman who campaigned as if she couldn’t lose her majority and from a Green party leader who would go on to pick the winner in the closest election in B.C. history. But that is a story for another day.
The quick-thinking (Bob) Dewar had also sent a message to veteran New Democrats.