Then-B.C. Premier John Horgan addresses the Union of B.C. Municipalities Convention, in Whistler, B.C., on Sept. 16, 2022.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
When John Horgan announced he was stepping down as premier of B.C. on June 28, 2022, most people were shocked.
He had recently made it through a well-publicized battle with throat cancer, declaring himself free of the disease. His popularity remained high in a province renowned for being hard on leaders of all political stripes. But his fight with cancer had taken a physical toll. He didn’t have the stamina he once had. It changed his outlook on things.
He told me in a conversation we had around then about going for a walk on a beach with his beloved wife, Ellie, and how it dawned on him that he wanted to do more of that – walking hand-in-hand in the sand with her – and less of the job that ate up his time and energy.
It was news that was greeted with sadness, not only inside the New Democratic Party that he led, but the province generally. But it wouldn’t compare with the loss people everywhere in B.C. felt on Tuesday when word went out that Mr. Horgan had died at the age of 65 of thyroid cancer, the third type of cancer he’d experienced.
There have been B.C. premiers who served longer in the job than his five years, but there haven’t been any in the time I’ve covered politics in the province – a period that spans nearly 40 years – who have been as popular. And that widespread admiration was a bit of a surprise.
It needs to be acknowledged that he didn’t know if he even wanted the job he found himself in. In his first run as NDP leader in 2011, he bowed out to eventual winner Adrian Dix. When Mr. Dix lost the 2013 election, one that the pollsters and everyone else thought the NDP would win in a landslide, all eyes turned to Mr. Horgan. He was reluctant. There were other, better options in the party, he demurred. Eventually, he was persuaded. He was handed the job by acclamation in the spring of 2014.
The next four years as Opposition leader would be anything but fun. As Mr. Horgan would later confide, he had to play someone who wasn’t him in that role. He had to pretend every problem the government was confronted with had a black-and-white answer. He knew better. He had to thump his desk and stomp his feet all the time, feigning disdain with everything the BC Liberals did. Often his Irish temper got the better of him, often when he was dealing with the media. “Angry John” became a sometimes-deserving moniker.
Then something astounding happened. With the help of the BC Greens, the NDP formed government in 2017, and Mr. Horgan found himself in charge of a province. And boy, was the transformation in his tone and style and general demeanour dramatic. It was almost like he had found the job he was meant to have all along. It fit as comfortably as a pair of his old lacrosse gloves.
As premier, he did something few political leaders do these days: delegated authority. He gave his cabinet ministers real power, reining them in only when he had to. He was a fiscal conservative – balancing budgets until the pandemic arrived – and a social progressive. He wasn’t afraid to anger more radical elements in his often-fractious party in the name of the common good. He supported the continued development of the Site C dam he campaigned against in Opposition. He authorized tax benefits necessary for the development of a $40-billion LNG project in Kitimat, against the wishes of the environmental wing of his party.
In the sometimes long conversations I had with Mr. Horgan while he was in government, he offered candid assessments of the realities of the job. He admitted that those in power often had no hope of solving the big problems of the day – homelessness, the high costs of housing, an overburdened health-care system – but rather could only chip away at them. Make them a “little less” of the problem they were.
Most of those issues would remain so for years, he told me.
Mr. Horgan was the kind of person you wanted to have a pint with. I was lucky enough to have done so on a few occasions. I once asked him to account for his enduring popularity.
“I lived in the same tiny house, in the same tiny little neighbourhood, in the same tiny little town called Langford for 30 years with my wife who I love,” he told me. “I’ve had a blessed life.”
John Horgan, the 36th premier of B.C., left us too soon. May the Irish hills caress him.