John Horgan, Social Democrat, Former BC Premier, Dead at 65
by Gary Porter
John Horgan died November 12, 2024 of cancer at the relatively young age of 65. Horgan was a dedicated, lifelong public servant, a former Premier of British Columbia. He was devoted, as are all social democrats, firstly to the defense of private ownership of the means of production for the profit of the wealthy few, and secondarily to the pursuit of minor reforms to ease the suffering of workers and their families.
As Premier of British Columbia, Horgan led the province through the COVID-19 pandemic, advocated for economic growth at any cost to the environment to “create jobs” in British Columbia and beyond. He spoke publicly of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, while forcing them, with heavily armed and thuggish RCMP, to allow construction of the Coastal Gaslink fracked-gas pipeline through their unceded land and under the lakes, rivers and streams from which their drinking water comes. He and his competent Minister of Health, Adrian Dix, navigated the province through a number of extreme weather events, including floods and wildfires.
John Horgan was first elected to the British Columbia Legislature in 2005, representing the constituency of Malahat—Juan de Fuca. He was re-elected four times, held numerous critic portfolios, and served as the opposition House Leader. In 2014, he was elected Leader of the British Columbia New Democratic Party (BC NDP), and in 2017, became Premier. In 2020, he led the BC NDP to a historic win with more seats in the legislature than it had ever won before. In 2021, he became Chair of the Council of the Federation, working with all provincial premiers.
Prior to his election, Mr. Horgan worked in the House of Commons in Ottawa and for the government of British Columbia. He served as lead negotiator on the Columbia Basin Trust, and helped to negotiate the Columbia River Treaty, a water management agreement with the United States of America. He also served as Chief of Staff to the Premier of British Columbia, Dan Miller, and worked as an Associate Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Finance, with a specific focus on energy projects. Horgan worked at Columbia Power, advancing clean energy initiatives such as the repowering of the Keenleyside and Brilliant dams. He then co-founded Ideaworks, a consulting company that helped community groups, not-for-profit organizations, and small businesses manage government processes.
Mr. Horgan was born and raised in Victoria, British Columbia. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Trent University in 1983 and a Master of Arts from the University of Sydney in 1986. After he stepped aside as Premier two years ago, owing to his second round of cancer, Horgan was added to the board of directors of Teck Resources, a major coal company. Although Alberta has the biggest coal reserves in Canada, BC produces the most coal -- a major greenhouse gas emitter. His acceptance of such a position was a major disappointment to NDP members in BC, but not a surprise for socialists who understood Horgan’s lack of commitment to anything but capitalist profit very well. He was subsequently appointed by Prime Minster Trudeau as Canada’s ambassador to Germany, in recognition of his lifelong loyalty to Canada’s capitalist rulers.
In November 2017, shortly after the election of the NDP and the formation of the Confidence and Supply Agreement with Andrew Weaver and his four Green Party MLAs, Horgan claimed to be considering whether or not to proceed with the massive Site C dam on the Peace River in north-east British Columbia. He and the bureaucratic clique dominating the BC NDP convention, kept the issue off the floor. Indigenous people in the Peace River area, farmers facing the massive flooding of some of the best farmland in BC, and climate activists who understood that the principal purpose of the dam was to provide massive amounts of energy to nearby oil and gas companies for their extensive fracking operations, all opposed the dam. Horgan announced the dam would go ahead days after the convention. The dam is owned by BC Hydro and was budgeted to cost $6 billion. In fact it was constructed at twice that amount, $12 billion.
A month later, in December during the Christmas break at the legislature, Horgan announced the launch of the biggest project ever in BC, the $40 billion methane gas project, including a 670-kilometer pipeline across the unceded territories of many indigenous peoples, plus the construction in Kitimat of a facility to liquefy the gas for export. Although an estimated two-thirds-plus of the BC NDP membership opposed the project, and still do, the issue has never been allowed by Horgan and his party bureaucrats to be discussed on the floor of an NDP convention. Horgan was no democrat.
Horgan did raise the minimum wage in BC to $15 an hour, the first jurisdiction in Canada to do so, and tied it to the consumer price index. It is currently $17.40 per hour. He resolved the financial crisis of the province-owned BC Insurance Corporation. The Liberals, governing for 16 years before the NDP and who were hostile to BCIC, and rather partial to the private insurance business, allowed ambulance-chasing lawyers to bleed the corporation nearly dry. Horgan sharply limited the claims to provable real-world amounts. Now the public auto insurer is sound. My annual insurance premium last month was a bit over $700 and I got two rebates from BCIC during the past year because it runs on a not-for-profit basis and returns excess premiums to the insured.
John Horgan, an exemplar of the social democratic clique that dominates the NDP across Canada, never represented a Workers’ Agenda nor the struggle for socialism. His premiership was another missed opportunity to make substantial change for the better.