The first two-term NDP premier in British Columbia history has one story left in him.
John Horgan, who died last November, conducted a series of interviews in the year before he passed away, which have been turned into a memoir by longtime B.C. journalist Rod Mickleburgh.
John Horgan: In His Own Words published by Harbour Publishing, doesn’t come out until Oct. 14, but CBC News obtained an advanced copy.
There were plenty of noteworthy passages — but here are eight themes that stood out.
The first few chapters of the book concern Horgan’s upbringing in Victoria and Saanich, his working class roots and his conversion to progressive politics in university.
Horgan’s dad died when he was a toddler, so his memories are not only of his mother, Alice, but also the community that helped to raise him — and the ways those bonds shaped his politics.
“After she was on her own, people would constantly show up at the door: ‘What do you need? How can I help?’ Eventually that stopped, but it was never far from her mind that there, but for the Grace of God, go we,” he writes.
“And that became part of who I was.”
Co-author of memoir on late B.C. premier John Horgan reveals favourite anecdotes
While the book doesn’t have too much in the way of settling scores, Horgan is critical of some politicians he encountered during his career — a decent number of who are fellow NDPers.
“I got to watch Svend J. Robinson, who, in his own way, was very effective, even if it was often for Svend J. Robinson and not so much for anybody else,” he said of the longtime member of parliament.
Of Ujjal Dosanjh’s short duration as premier from 2000 to 2001, he wrote “Ujjal really didn’t have anything he wanted to do other than go to India, and he did.… He wasn’t the best choice.”
But perhaps his harshest barb is saved for former Kennedy Stewart, who was mayor of Vancouver for most of Horgan’s time as premier.
Or as Horgan writes of him, “We had to fight with Vancouver mayor Kennedy Stewart, who saw himself as czar of saving the world without much idea of what he was talking about.”
Horgan spends more time talking about Adrian Dix — a current MLA and Opposition leader for the NDP from 2011 to 2014 — than any other person outside his family, and analyzed the complex friendship the two of them had over decades.
“People might wonder why we remained good friends for so long when our personalities were so different. It was his absolute commitment to the job and politics, and his loftier goals, quite frankly,” he wrote.
At the same time, he contrasted his style of politics in relation to his loss as NDP leader in 2013 election, where polls predicted a Dix premiership, only for Christy Clark to emerge triumphant.
“Over time, I got tired of his long soliloquies,” he said.
“I would say, ‘There’s one key element you’re missing, and that’s people. You don’t have any of them in your calculation. Your political science is too much science and not enough art.'”
Of course, Horgan would replace Dix as NDP leader and become premier after a historic 2017 election, after which the media often remarked on a transition in Horgan’s public image from an aggressive leader of the opposition to a more upbeat leader of the province.
“After I became premier, people would ask, ‘How did you go from being this so-called angry man to being such an affable fellow?'” he wrote, blaming occasional lapses of an ‘Irish’ temper and successful branding by the B.C. Liberals as the main culprits.
“[As premier] I had the opportunity to do the things that I ran for office to do, getting good outcomes for people on tough problems requiring collaboration. Why wouldn’t I be happy about that? Why wouldn’t that bring joy to my day?”
Once the book shifts to Horgan’s time as premier, a decent number of chapters are spent considering the debates he faced around environmental issues, from approving the Site C dam to protests and civil disobedience over pipelines and old-growth forests.
Horgan makes clear he believes his government took the right balance in fighting where they could on the Trans Mountain pipeline, while ultimately allowing most projects to proceed.
“People say I went against the brand of the NDP by approving huge resource projects. I don’t agree,” he wrote.
“Those resource projects we approved boosted the economy, and the thousands of jobs helped a heck of a lot of workers and their communities. That was good for everyone.”
Likewise, on the government’s handling of the pandemic, Horgan expressed confidence in his government’s approach, and the decision to let Dix (who was then health minister) and provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry take the lead.
“You can’t be on top of everything. You can give the impression that you are, and many politicians do that, but I had a bunch of very smart people doing these jobs,” he said.
At the same time, he made a claim that he had to pull Dix and Henry back from pushing for more restrictions as the pandemic went on.
“I mean, I think the world of both of them, but we got to a point in COVID where for me it was: ‘No, no, people are done,'” he said, before describing a shouting match he had with Dix.
“You don’t run the goddamn government! The next time you try and shut something down without talking to me, you won’t be a minister anymore!”
If there is one area that Horgan expressed serious doubt over his handling as premier, it was the question of drug regulation and the province’s inability to reduce overdose deaths under his leadership.
“[It] seemed to get worse and worse no matter what we did or didn’t do,” he said.
“In my opinion we ended up spending too much time listening to the ‘free opioid, safe supply’ crowd. Not that I disagree with safe supply, nor do I want to leave the wrong impression, but I created the ministry to deal more with mental health, and it got completely consumed by addictions and the opioid crisis.”
Horgan said in retrospect, he shouldn’t have created a separate Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions, but was less sure about what would have been more successful.
“We brought forward a whole host of harm reduction initiatives. More than anyone else in the country. We assumed that if we were giving a sufficient number of people the drugs they needed, the market would collapse. But the market didn’t collapse. During the pandemic, it expanded,” he said.
“It’s really sad. I don’t have an answer.”
Final respects paid to late B.C. premier John Horgan
But Horgan’s memoirs cover both the lows and highs of governing British Columbia from 2017 and 2022, along with the surreal — including when he recounted asking B.C. celebrities Seth Rogen and Ryan Reynolds to make videos asking young people to be responsible.
“I asked Ryan Reynolds to do a public service announcement. He agreed: ‘I hope young people in BC don’t kill my mom.’ It got people’s attention,” he wrote.
But he was less enthused by Rogen’s response.
“Sadly, I also asked Seth Rogen, and his message was that young people should stay at home and smoke weed. Not a bad idea, but thanks, Seth.”
