John Horgan, popular British Columbia premier, will leave province’s top job this fall

Pop­u­lar British Colum­bia Pre­mier John Hor­gan, six­ty-three, who recent­ly under­went a sec­ond bout with can­cer, announced Tues­day that he will leave office this fall after his gov­ern­ing New Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty picks his successor.

Hor­gan told a news con­fer­ence that his health is good “but my ener­gy flags”: He under­went thir­ty-three radi­a­tion treat­ments in the win­ter and spring.

He will go out after host­ing Canada’s provin­cial pre­miers in Vic­to­ria next month, with a goal of pres­sur­ing Canada’s fed­er­al gov­ern­ment into assum­ing a greater share of the country’s health care costs.

Hor­gan has been a mem­ber of the British Columbi­a’s Leg­isla­tive Assem­bly for sev­en­teen years, leader of the New Democ­rats for eight years, and pre­mier for five years. He gov­erned with a leg­isla­tive minor­i­ty for three years and won a major­i­ty gov­ern­ment in an elec­tion late in 2020.

“I have some time left in me: I feel good enough to keep con­tribut­ing,” said Hor­gan. The pre­mier and his wife Ellie reached a moment of deci­sion on a walk watch­ing otters at play off Otter Point on Van­cou­ver Island. “There was a moment when we said, ‘Let’s do more of this and less of that’,” he joked.

British Colum­bia has endured a series of nat­ur­al calami­ties since Hor­gan became pre­mier in the spring of 2017. Cli­mate dam­age has impact­ed the province with record for­est and range fires, rang­ing from Tele­graph Creek near the Alas­ka bor­der to Koote­nay Nation­al Park at the Con­ti­nen­tal Divide. B.C. expe­ri­enced record heat a year ago, with a fire devour­ing the town of Lyt­ton in the Fras­er Canyon. An atmos­pher­ic riv­er last Novem­ber flood­ed the Fras­er Val­ley and cut off land access to the Low­er Main­land from the rest of Canada.

The province has won applause for its treat­ment of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. with dai­ly brief­in­gs by Health Offi­cer Dr. Bon­nie Hen­ry and B.C. Health Min­is­ter Adri­an Dix. The gov­ern­ment, at one point, restrict­ed trav­el between regions of the coun­try. In the spring of 2020, with Puget Sound an ear­ly epi­cen­ter of coro­n­avirus deaths, B.C. pressed the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment to close the bor­der to nonessen­tial traffic.

Hor­gan has field­ed a strong cab­i­net. Its lead­ing lights include Attor­ney Gen­er­al David Eby, Min­is­ter of Jobs Ravi Kahlon (a for­mer Olympic field hock­ey play­er) and Health Min­is­ter Dix. Under Dix, how­ev­er, the New Democ­rats lost an impor­tant 2013 provin­cial elec­tion they were expect­ed to win.

The New Democ­rats are a big tent that includes orga­nized labor, envi­ron­men­tal­ists, fem­i­nists and Abo­rig­i­nal First Nations. Ele­ments of the par­ty are known to feud. Wit­ness sit-ins and arrests at old growth log­ging oper­a­tions on Van­cou­ver Island, and native block­ades of a gas pipeline route in north­west B.C.

The party’s base has expand­ed under Hor­gan as it has won sub­ur­ban-exur­ban leg­isla­tive seats in the Fras­er Riv­er Val­ley, the Van­cou­ver sub­urb of Rich­mond, and on the North Shore above Van­cou­ver. The long-rul­ing (not very lib­er­al) Lib­er­al Par­ty has been reduced to a large­ly rur­al base in inte­ri­or British Columbia.

Hor­gan was a tem­pera­men­tal oppo­si­tion leader, but has proven an avun­cu­lar head of gov­ern­ment. With forty-one seats in the Assem­bly, the New Democ­rats teamed with three Green Par­ty law­mak­ers to oust the long-rul­ing Lib­er­als and form a forty-four-mem­ber major­i­ty in the eighty-sev­en-mem­ber body.

Hor­gan became premier.

Hor­gan has one recent stum­ble. The gov­ern­ment announced it would spend near­ly $800 mil­lion (Cana­di­an) to tear down and rebuild the Roy­al British Colum­bia Muse­um in Vic­to­ria. The “megapro­ject” gen­er­at­ed out­rage giv­en the province’s hous­ing, health and edu­ca­tion needs. Hor­gan backed off, saying,”I made the wrong call…  I’ve heard the peo­ple of British Colum­bia quite clear­ly that we were mak­ing the wrong deci­sion at the wrong time.”

Hor­gan has enjoyed excel­lent rela­tions with Wash­ing­ton Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee. The two have dreamed of future high-speed rail ser­vice up and down the I‑5 corridor. 

Both lead­ers opposed – but could not stop – the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment from a project to triple capac­i­ty of the Trans Moun­tain Pipeline. The pipeline will car­ry Alber­ta tar sands oil to a ter­mi­nal near Burn­a­by, just east of Vancouver.

The project will triple oil tanker traf­fic through the San Juan and Gulf Islands out the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

The tanker route pass­es through some of the world’s most sen­si­tive marine waters includ­ing, nation­al parks and mon­u­ments in both the U.S. and Canada.

Why did Hor­gan bow out? “I am not able to make anoth­er six-year com­mit­ment to this job,” he said, mean­ing going through anoth­er elec­tion campaign.

Serv­ing as pre­mier, he added, “has been the thrill of my life.”