BCBusiness

BCBUsinEss.Ca nOVEmBER 2018 BCBusiness 35 comes when it comes to policies like this." Columnist Palmer believes the Site C decision wasn't really such a stretch for the premier. "Horgan hails from the hard-hat- wearing side of the NDP, not the environ- mental activist side," he says. "His support for continuing with Site C and LNG develop- ment is sincere." While in Opposition, the NDP was criti- cal of the Liberal government's LNG plans, but Horgan says it wasn't development they objected to. "My concern was the premier's hyperbolic approach to everything," he says. "Everything was 100 times bigger— we're not going to have any debt any more, the streets will be paved with gold, every- one's going to have an LNG plant. 'You're gonna have an LNG plant, you're gonna have an LNG plant,' like on Oprah. My position today is the same as it was before the elec- tion: if investors believe that they can make money and if it can Št into the framework of ensuring First Nations participation—which is now a court requirement—if our climate action goals can be realized, there's local jobs, and we get a beneŠt from the develop- ment of the project, then let's go." Wilkinson believes tension in the NDP caucus is a real problem for Horgan, citing Nanaimo MLA Leonard Krog's decision to run for mayor of that city, potentially imper- illing the government's tenuous hold on power. "It's a very surprising move," Wilkin- son says, "and one that must have John Hor- gan wishing he could go back in time and treat Leonard Krog with more respect. "John Horgan is leading a government based on the idea of 'tax –irst, sort out the plan later,'" Wilkinson adds. "We've watched them raise taxes on everything from gasoline to family cabins to business payrolls to the value of people's homes. Employment is —at and starting to decline, housing prices are still reaching record highs, and we have all been forced into becoming investors in the Trans Mountain pipeline, whether we wanted it or not. So I'd say this past year has been a serious dis- appointment to most British Columbians." The NDP has never been the Šrst choice of the B.C. business community. But Horgan says fear of the socialist hordes has always been overblown. "Anybody who spends time with [former NDP premier] Mike Har- court would be hard-pressed to call him a screaming communist," he says. "I've done everything I can to meet with business representatives, always with the view that they understand that I want them to suc- ceed. I want B.C.'s prosperity to continue." In fact, Harcourt has drifted so far from the teachings of Karl Marx that he's pub- licly attacked Horgan's education tax, a levy on real estate values above $3 million. But Horgan says the measure is in fact pro- business, because it attempts to address the business community's stated concerns over the diŸculty of sustaining a workforce. "Business after business said to me, Our employees can't live here because they can't Šnd a place for their kids to be cared for, they can't a¡ord to Šnd a house to live in, and we're not creating the spaces to train them to Šll the jobs we need today," he explains. "So I have been putting money into education, money into child care, put- ting money into housing. The education tax a¡ects a very small number of people, and it's a very small amount of money when you consider that the average house price in Vancouver went up about 6 percent last year. And we're asking for a thousand dol- lars of that to put into housing programs, which will stabilize the marketplace." WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN, PART 4: JOHN HORGAN, REYNOLDS SECONDARY SCHOOL DROPOUT "I was failing out in Grade 9, hanging out behind the band room doing things that were illegal," Horgan says. "And my basketball coach said, 'What are you doing? There's way more here than you think there is.' And he pulled me back on track, and he and the whole group of teachers and the principal kind of invested in me. I ended up becoming the student body president in Grade 12, I got a couple of university degrees, and I'm the premier of B.C. If you'd asked my Grade 9 teacher, 'What is John Horgan gonna do?' none of that would have been on the radar." Still, many seemed to see something in young Horgan. How many apple thieves end up getting Šnancial support from their victims? "Dad recognized John's potential, and they indeed carried on many animated political discussions at the breakfast table at Rockhome," says Bruce Hutchison's son, Robert, a retired provincial judge. "I know my dad admired John as a friend and a promising young man who he helped men- tor in his formative years. I'm sure he would have been delighted with his successful career leading to the premiership." That sense of community responsibility demonstrated by Hutchison and his teach- ers is what drew Horgan to the NDP. It's also why he thinks that, despite some appear- ances, the NDP aŸliation is still important. Even as an Alberta NDP premier throws grenades at him, a previous B.C. NDP pre- mier gripes about his education tax and the environmental wing of the party attacks his policies and decisions, Horgan still proudly waves the party banner. "I think the brand matters, the values matter," he says, pointing to a frame on his oŸce wall—a 1940s-era campaign poster of the Co-operative Commonwealth Fed- eration, forerunner to the NDP. It reads: "Humanity First; People Before ProŠts." "I got involved in politics through the social gospel," Horgan explains. "I think the brands matter to the public so the pub- lic can see where your core values are. But the day you are elected, you have to deal with the issues that are in front of you. Not in front of your neighbour or the neighbour beside that neighbour, but in front of you." WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN, PART 5: JOHN HORGAN, TALK SHOW HOST "I do like to talk," the premier says. "I talk a lot." Once, Horgan recalls, he was scheduled to appear on Vaughn Palmer's TV program Voice of BC, and Palmer had no voice. "You could barely hear him," Horgan says. "He said to me in a whisper, 'Just go, John. Talk!' And I did. I think that's my destiny. I can string sentences together. Talking for half an hour is dead simple for me. CFAX hosts would love to get me as a guest because Horgan, he'll just talk the whole time." Palmer agrees. "With his gift of the gab, Horgan would have been a great broadcaster, in the tradition of B.C.'s other politician-broadcasters: Rafe Mair, Christy Clark, Dave Barrett, Jim Nielsen, Barrie Clark." Horgan isn't getting a resumé together quite yet. He's pretty happy right where he is. ®

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