John Horgan won’t have the luxury of a honeymoon period in office following his swearing in as B.C. premier Tuesday.
A good portion of the province is literally on fire. The experienced (and large) Liberal opposition is out for blood and planning for the next election already. The alliance with the Greens is the only thing holding the whole rickety edifice together.
Horgan is now going to find out if he can swim by being dumped in the deep end.
Although he’s only served in opposition as an MLA, Horgan spent much of the 1990s in government as an NDP operative. He saw that government’s projects – and its fall – up close. He’s also been in the rough and tumble of the provincial legislature since 2005.
Hopefully, he’ll do well and live up to some of the NDP’s key promises from the campaign.
B.C. is doing well relative to much of the country, but the problems we do have are difficult to solve.
“We’re going to work hard every day to build a better B.C.,” Horgan said at his Tuesday swearing in.
He isn’t kidding that it’ll be hard work. Over the next few years he’ll be expected to make a serious dent in homelessness, rescue addicts from death by fentanyl, boost the minimum wage, get TransLink moving forward again, and do something about the soaring cost of housing without tanking the entire economy.
And put out some very literal fires.
We welcome Horgan and his cabinet to government. And we hope they’re up to the difficult tasks ahead.
– M.C.