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JOHN HORGAN '79: A LEGACY OF ACTIVISM
JOHN HORGAN ’79 : A LEGACY OF ACTIVISM
TRENT Magazine (TM): On November 17, you went to bed as John Horgan, premier of British Columbia, and by the end of the 18th, you were John from Langford. Tell us a bit about how retirement felt at that moment and how you’ve evolved into it?
John Horgan (JH): That last day I had, of course, the honour to go to the swearing in of the new premier of BC, David Eby—my friend, and now the leader of the province. And I have had, as have previous premiers going back generations, a security detail that I travel with. They pick me up in the morning, they take me home at night. And over the past five years, they’ve become very dear friends of mine.
On the last day, I had flown from Victoria to Vancouver for the swearing in, and then I was on my own. My
detail, which was no longer my detail, but the detail of the new premier, took me to the floatplane and wished me luck. And then said, “Oh, before we go, here you are!” and gave me a half-month’s bus pass so that I could get from the floatplane in Victoria to my house. It was just a nice way to go from being the guy that required a security detail to the guy who could hop on the bus. And that, quite frankly, has been a seamless transition. It’s been really good to be normal again.
TM: Our thoughts are always with you and your battle with cancer. Has that continued to go well?
JH: Absolutely. A year ago today was the darkest day of the treatment, but a year later I’m cancer free. I’ve lost more weight, enough weight to be
happy about it. I don’t recommend the diet to anyone, but I’m feeling really good.
I’m 63. I’ve got lots of road ahead of me, but it’s nice to know that I’m not going to be carrying the burdens of five million British Colombians with me. I’ll be helping them in any way I can, but not thinking about it when I go to bed. I’ve really been enjoying that.
TM: Some of your successes as premier include eliminating medical services premiums, your work with the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia leading to no-fault insurance, and leading BC to adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous people. But what do you see as your legacy as premier?
“I would urge anyone who’s listening in other parts of the country, we’ve got to start looking at our politics differently, not as left and right, but as progress and no progress. JOHN HORGAN
JH: It was a very activist government, without any doubt, including other Trent grads. Nathan Cullen ’94, Sheila Malcolmson ’85, both Trent alumni who were in my cabinet, continue to serve as cabinet ministers here in BC. And so, the items that you mentioned are all important. And there were many, many more: re-balancing labour laws, environmental policies that were making sense, looking at the forest industry, the foundational industry in British Columbia. How we can continue to create jobs and wealth, while protecting and preserving these last vital stands, in some cases, of diverse forests across the province.
All of those things were really important and exciting to be part of. The Declaration would be the pinnacle; ensuring Indigenous rights and title, which has been an issue in British Columbia since European expansion, and had not been resolved (as it had been in other provinces) over time. To make progress on social and economic justice for First Peoples in BC was very important to me.
But I’d have to say—and people have been asking me this question—I think the thing I’m most proud of is that we were able to (and of course we’ll be judged by history, but if polls and people at the grocery store are any indication) change the debate in British Columbia about left and right, and linear politics, broadly speaking.
I’m a social democrat. That goes back to attending a lecture by Tommy Douglas in the Wenjack Theatre a million years ago, and only because my roommate from Peter Robinson College promised me a beer if I went with him. I didn’t know who Tommy Douglas was. I was studying psychology. I wanted to be a social worker, and, after just a couple of hours with this little man, with his booming voice, with a powerful message, I became fixed on his message: the way to solve problems for individuals is to
have solutions for collective problems. And so, I shifted from psych to history and Canadian Studies and never looked back.
I was able, and my colleagues were able over the past five years, to change the story in British Columbia—which was [told by] the right-of-centre parties. The current opposition is called the BC Liberal Party. I think they’re in the process of changing their name to BC United, which no, is not a soccer team; it’s apparently going to be a political party. But, in reality, [BC United] is the right-of-centre voters west of the Rocky Mountains (they use Liberal now, they were Conservative in the past), with the NDP as the left-of-centre voters within British Columbia. This schism, this polarization, has been characterized across the country as “wacky” politics in BC.
I believe our legacy is that British Colombians now know that they can change government without catastrophic consequences. The decade of the 1990s—the NDP years—are characterized as this awful time because the right-of-centre parties have been so effective at that branding exercise. I
think what we’ve been able to do is break that brand. And this is so important at this time in our history.
I would urge anyone who’s listening in other parts of the country, we’ve got to start looking at our politics differently, not as left and right, but as progress and no progress. And that doesn’t mean instinctively progressive either. I think there’s space in government to make good choices, left and right (if we have to be linear). But at the end of the day, we have to look at our circumstances and provide the services that people need in order to meet the challenges of modernity.
TM: Trent University has long been known as an activist university. How did that Trent activism, and Trent life in general, inform you and continue to inform you?
JH: I had a picture in my office: it’s a picture of [my wife] Ellie and I in front of Peter Robinson College with our homemade protest signs, saying “Stop the Cuts!” If I hadn’t missed the bus, I would’ve been in an occupation of the President’s Office in my time at Trent.
It was part and parcel of the awakening of my political awareness. And I carried that, joining a political party that was founded on dissent, the CCF/ NDP, coming from a thing called the League for Social Reconstruction, which predated both of those political institutions.
And so, I’ve been enamoured by protests my entire life. And the importance of minority voices speaking out to inform the majority that they may not have all the information they need to make sound decisions. I am very much part and parcel of protest, but I also came to a conclusion early on that the better way to realize the change was to not just stand on the grass outside of the building and yell at it, but to actually get inside the building and affect the changes that I wanted to see.
I was a government worker for 20 years in Ottawa and in Victoria, so I never saw myself as a front window guy, the front man for the operation at any time. But I was yelling at my TV one day, there was a news story on … I’m sure that everyone gets that. I was lamenting the stupidity of the thencurrent BC government while my kid’s band was practicing. And the drummer was upstairs, and he asked me what I was yelling at. I said, “All these stupid people are doing stupid things.” And he asked me what I was going do about it; and it was, quite frankly, at that moment, some 20 years ago now, that I said, “Well, I’m going to run for office and you’re going to help me.” And he did, he helped me pass out leaflets and all of that stuff. And I got elected to be MLA. And then, because I understood government, I moved rapidly through the legislature because when
legislation came forward, I understood it—because I used to help write it.
So, then I was the house leader, and then I became the leader of the NDP, when pretty much nobody else wanted it—including me, quite frankly.
Politics is ugly. It has serious downsides. I think of the former good mayor of Peterborough, also a Trent grad, who I reached out to when she was getting harassed about something by a narrow sliver of the population. Good people are not going to [run for office] if we allow idiots in the town square. Stay on Twitter if you need to be abrasive, but don’t be showing up at people’s houses and don’t be throwing rocks at them. Cowards do that.
So, for me, getting involved was something I had kind of avoided until I got into it. And then I thought it was fantastic. And I want more good people to make the choice to get involved. But if the idiots are continued to allow to, in the form of what they characterize as dissent, literally be anarchists, then we’re not going to make the progress we need to make.
TM: Now, we talked about your time at Trent, and we can’t gloss over the fact that you met your wife, Ellie, at Trent University the first week you were here, and that is a story in itself.
JH: Well, it is. And I think that the better way to characterize it is that I did meet Ellie at Trent, but Ellie met me at the Pig’s Ear Tavern. [laughter] It was the first week, first day, quite frankly, at Trent. And it was a pub crawl through the Red Dog and the Trent Inn, and it ended at the Pig’s Ear, ’cause we lived at Peter Robinson College, which was the townhouses at that time. So, I’d had
a few beers and was quite animated, and Ellie recalls very much meeting me the night before, a kiss was involved [laughter]. And the next day at campus, I was well hung over and this beautiful blonde came up and said, “Hi, John, how are you?”
I was 3,000 miles from Vancouver Island, and I had absolutely, without any doubt, never set eyes upon this vision of beauty that captured my heart instantly, but apparently I had the night before. So, I got home and I said to my roommates, “Is anyone else going out with a beautiful blonde?” And one of the guys said, “The one that dumped you at the door last night?” [laughter] So it turned out that it was, and we were.... We’ve been together every minute since then, literally. It has been a 40-some year run. And both of us are so grateful that Peterborough and Trent created the opportunity for us to bump into each other. We are very much soulmates, and it’s been a great ride, and we’re both looking forward to what we’re going to do next.
TM: And now that politics have moved from, you know, a legislature to the grocery store, what’s next for John from Langford?
JH: I don’t know. And I’m anxious to find out, but I’m not closing any doors ... I’m happy to be John from Langford, the local MLA. I want to get reconnected with the great community that I live in. Ellie and I have been in the same house for 30 years, a tiny house in Langford, which is one of the fastest growing cities in British Columbia. It is certainly the fastest growing on Vancouver Island. There’s lots going on, and I just want to be part of that until I don’t, and then I’ll go do something else. I don’t know what that’s going to be. I’m looking forward to it though.
