With the provincial political parties in full-on election mode after the dropping of the writ last Tuesday, the race is on as we head toward the May 9 vote. This week, we present a primer on the main election issues and profiles of the three major party leaders.
A May 9 election primer
Voters in B.C. elect a new government on May 9, and the parties are already positioning themselves with platforms they hope will catch the attention of British Columbians.
After B.C. Liberal Leader Christy Clark emerged from her meeting with Lt.-Gov. Judith Guichon at Government House on Tuesday, she quickly staked out her party’s position as responsible stewards of the provincial finances who will focus on creating jobs. She attacked the New Democrats as irresponsible free-spenders.
NDP Leader John Horgan, in contrast, said his party would fix education and health care, make life more affordable and create sustainable jobs. He said the B.C. Liberals have driven families to their financial limits with increases in fees and utility costs.
Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver promised a platform and a party with fresh ideas, untrammelled by the tired thinking of the two major parties. He is unrolling his platform in stages, including a promise of $750 million a year to build 4,000 new units of housing.
Here’s a look at some of the major issues:
Housing
The benchmark price for detached properties in Greater Vancouver stood at more than $1.5 million last May, giving rise to complaints about unaffordable homes as tent cities for homeless people sprang up in Victoria and Vancouver. The government imposed a 15 per cent tax on foreign buyers in Metro Vancouver to help cool the market and restore hope that home ownership was still achievable for people who feared they couldn’t afford to live in their communities.
Campaign finances
With no set limits on corporate, union or individual contributions to political parties, fundraising in B.C. has become known as the Wild West. The New Democrats blame the Liberals for continuing to fill party coffers while the party turned down six attempts to ban union and corporate donations to political parties. A special prosecutor has been appointed to assist the RCMP in its Election Act probe of donations to both major parties.
Child care
The NDP is promising $10-a-day daycare based on Quebec’s system as one of the major planks in its campaign. A shortage of child-care spaces, coupled with the added strains of sky-high house prices in B.C.’s major cities, are making it difficult for young families, say the Opposition New Democrats, who believe affordable care is good for families and the economy.
Education
There’s peace on British Columbia’s education front, but the toll of a long-running battle between the government and teachers that saw a bitter strike shut down schools and a court case in the Supreme Court of Canada could be a campaign issue. The NDP is pointing to years of turmoil, while the Liberals say they have brought stability to classrooms.
Pipelines
The federal government approved the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline last year, but the prospect of more oil tankers in Burrard Inlet near Vancouver is controversial. The Liberals say they fought for increased environmental protections from Ottawa and economic benefits from the company behind the project. But the NDP says the environmental risks are too great.
Economy
B.C. leads Canada in job creation and its economic growth has put it among the country’s best performers for years, but rural regions are hurting. The promise of riches from proposed liquefied natural gas operations have yet to appear. Clark says good jobs help families and make strong communities, but the NDP says the government forgot about industries such as forestry to chase the LNG dream.
Minimum wage
The NDP, backed by the B.C. Federation of Labour, is promising a minimum wage of $15 an hour, while the Liberals have been implementing staggered increases that will bring the minimum wage to $11.35 an hour by September. The Liberals say the minimum wage has increased six times since 2011 and less than five per cent of workers in British Columbia earn the minimum wage.
— The Canadian Press
Christy Clark, B.C. Liberals
Christy Clark is leading the B.C. Liberals into what she hopes will be her second consecutive victory as party leader.
Age: 51
Born: Oct. 29, 1965, in Burnaby, B.C.
Education: Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and Universite de la Sorbonne in Paris.
Family: She is separated from ex-husband Mark Marissen, a former senior strategist for the Liberal Party of Canada. Her son, Hamish Marissen-Clark, is 15 years old.
Political career: Clark was first elected in 1996 and was named both deputy premier and education minister in 2001. She became premier in 2011.
Personal career: While on hiatus from politics, Clark hosted a radio talk show on CKNW between 2007 and 2010.
Riding: Westside-Kelowna
Idols: Former B.C. premier W.A.C. Bennett, actor Mary Tyler Moore and Abraham Lincoln
Quote: “I really regret that. Because I still want a cigarette every day. Every single day. It’s terrible.” — Clark on her decision to take up smoking at the age of 12. She quit 17 years later after turning 29..
It was the lure of ice cream that first drew Christy Clark into politics.
As a child, the future premier of British Columbia would accompany her father as he knocked on doors around Burnaby during his several attempts for public office.
“He’d promise us ice cream,” Clark, 51, said in a recent interview.
“Hi, will you vote for my daddy?” she laughed, miming knocking on a door. “Who’s not going to vote for a candidate, or who’s at least not going to say something positive?”
Since then, Clark has enjoyed the sweet taste of her own political victories. She is leading the B.C. Liberal Party in its bid for a fifth consecutive election victory after she pulled off a come-from-behind win in 2013.
Beyond her father’s political ambitions, Clark’s family played a powerful role in shaping her approach to life and politics. Political debate was a mainstay around the dinner table.
“The only way for me to survive and succeed was to fiercely fight for what I believed.” said Clark, the youngest of four children.
“I learned that at a very, very young age. If you didn’t cover your plate, somebody would eat your food.”
Clark would apply those lessons during her time in student government at Simon Fraser University, which she said was “the nastiest politics I’ve ever been involved in.”
She corralled a cohort of right-of-centre students to “break the stranglehold” the left had on the school’s student society. Clark won by a razor-thin six votes, but was later disqualified after forgetting to pay a small fine because she failed to remove campaign material.
Andy Tomec, who covered Clark’s run at student politics for the campus newspaper, remembers her as a consummate politician.
“I think she got up in the morning thinking about politics, and I bet she went to bed thinking about it as well,” Tomec said.
“I don’t know if she has an off button.”
The budding politician’s charisma and disarming smile were renowned.
Mike McDonald, a longtime B.C. Liberal who directed the party’s 2013 campaign, met Clark at Simon Fraser. They spent time as volunteers driving around the province before the 1991 election to recruit candidates for the upstart provincial Liberal party.
“I would identify who the prospects were and she would go close the deal, because you couldn’t say no to Christy,” he said. “She has that personality that a lot of people want to say yes to.”
Those who were asked for comment on the premier say she is known for having a penchant for rough-and-tumble politics.
“She’s no shrinking violet,” McDonald said.
Clark was first elected to the legislature in 1996 and became deputy premier and education minister after the Liberals’ landslide victory in 2001. She left government in 2005 to spend more time with her family.
After a failed bid to run for Vancouver mayor the following year, she hosted a radio talk show.
Tom Plasteras, who hired Clark for the job, remembers her work ethic.
“Things that tend to exhaust the rest of us energize her,” said Plasteras, former program director at CKNW.
In 2011, Clark won the B.C. Liberal leadership as an outsider candidate with the support of only one member of the legislature. She became the first woman in B.C. to lead a party to victory two years later.
Clark enters this election with baggage.
The RCMP are investigating potential violations of political contribution laws by the two main parties, rosy forecasts that liquefied natural gas would herald an economic windfall have come up short, and there is opposition in the Lower Mainland to a pipeline expansion the government supports.
When she’s not working, Clark is an avid fan of musicals and plays, a passion she shares with her 15-year-old son Hamish, who she says has ambitions to become an actor.
But even when it comes to the theatre, politics isn’t far from her thoughts. Her favourite musical is Les Miserables.
“It’s a political show,” she said, smiling.
— Geordon Omand, The Canadian Press
John Horgan, B.C. NDP
John Horgan, leader of British Columbia’s New Democratic Party, is a three-term member of the provincial legislature.
Born: Victoria
Age: 57
Family: Married Ellie in 1984; two grown sons, Nate and Evan.
Career: A former backroom NDP strategist from southern Vancouver Island. He was acclaimed party leader on May 1, 2014.
Riding: Juan de Fuca
Lives: Langford
Hobby: Refinishes furniture found at flea markets, garage sales or second-hand stores. He prizes his walnut dining table that was once covered in chicken manure and coats of paint.
Quote: “You are stripping away and you see this beauty emerge from two or three or four layers of grubby paint,” he said. “I’m colour blind and the grain of the wood is something I can visualize.”
As a teenager, John Horgan was as far away from becoming a political leader in British Columbia as you could get.
He was shooting pool at Suzy-Q’s, smoking cigarettes and playing the role of troublemaker at the corner of Douglas and Yates streets in downtown Victoria.
“I was a 14-year-old, 15-year-old who’s not doing what he’s supposed to be doing,” Horgan said in a recent interview at the NDP’s downtown Vancouver office.
“I was hanging around with the wrong crowd,” the NDP leader said. “I wasn’t showing up at school. I was getting into trouble. I’m going to leave it at that.”
It was only when a high school basketball coach took him by the collar and told him to report to the gym that he turned things around and devoted himself to sports and academics.
“That’s really my deep dark secret. I could have gone one way and I ended up where I’m at,” Horgan said.
His father died from a brain aneurysm when he was 18 months old and Horgan fought bladder cancer a decade ago. He said those personal struggles opened his heart, especially to society’s underdogs.
Horgan, 57, said he has no memories of his dad.
“My brothers, my mom and my sister would always tell me the stories,” he said. “My brothers would tell me stories about how he was a basketball fanatic.”
Pat Horgan managed Victoria’s top senior men’s basketball squad in the 1950s and ran the score clock during local lacrosse games. Horgan said his dad would have been proud to know his youngest son played basketball and lacrosse in the same venues.
At six-foot-two, 250 pounds, playing team sports taught him he could make points without resorting to goon tactics.
“I’m large. I didn’t have to do much,” he said.
A Victoria news magazine once put his photo on its cover holding a lacrosse stick under the headline “The Enforcer.”
“My coach saw this and he came into my office and said, ’Horgan, you were a lover. You were never a fighter.’ I tended to stay out of the penalty box. I liked to score goals.”
His mother became his role model as she struggled to raise four children alone, while instilling a willingness to help and stand up for others. Money was tight and, at times, food hampers were delivered to the Horgan home.
“My mom taught me if there was someone who needed help you should step in and help them,” said Horgan, who grew up wanting to be a social worker. “I was raised to be kind to people.”
But his imposing presence and Irish verbal skills can come across as confrontational.
“I’m passionate, for sure,” he said. “I always respond viscerally to bullying.”
Horgan has two grown sons, Nate and Evan, and he says he never missed their hockey games or musical events.
He met his wife, Ellie, while they were students at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont.
Horgan was acclaimed NDP leader in 2014 after the party’s demoralizing 2013 election defeat. The NDP has been in Opposition since 2001.
Former premier Dan Miller, also known for a sharp tongue, said he doesn’t see a problem with his former chief of staff showing his emotions.
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a bit of an edge, frankly,” said Miller, who described Horgan as a problem-solver and a strong communicator.
“John has the ability to understand issues and concepts and explain them to individuals or the public at large.”
Roy Banner said his friend often gets on the bus in his riding and holds impromptu meetings with passengers.
“He’s approachable,” Banner said. “He’s able to put things in peoples minds by the way he tells a story.”
In his spare time, Horgan prefers reading science-fiction or watching Star Trek.
“I like to dive into something that doesn’t exist,” said Horgan, who hitched up a pant leg to show off his Star Trek socks. “I like to be completely detached from the world I live in. That’s how I relax.”
— Dirk Meissner, The Canadian Press
Andrew Weaver, B.C. Greens
BC Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver is aiming for a historic breakthrough for his third-place party.
Age: 56
Born: Nov. 16, 1961, Victoria
Education: Bachelor of science in mathematics and physics from the University of Victoria in 1983, a masters in advanced studies in mathematics from Cambridge University in 1984, and a PhD in applied mathematics from the University of British Columbia in 1987.
Academic career: Weaver was a lead author on four scientific assessments by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body that shared a Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore in 2007. He has been a University of Victoria professor for 20 years and has authored or co-authored over 200 peer-reviewed papers.
Political career: Weaver says former party leader Jane Sterk asked him to run three times before he agreed. In 2013, he was the first Green elected to B.C.’s legislature, and in 2015 he won the leadership.
Current riding: Oak Bay-Gordon Head
Idols: David Suzuki, Tommy Douglas and Lady Gaga
Quote: “We see too much politics being based on sound bites and too little being based on thoughtful analysis.”
Andrew Weaver was teaching a class of University of Victoria undergraduates about climate science and public policy when he realized he needed to do more than just lecture.
The internationally recognized climate scientist, who was part of a team that shared a Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, often asked students whether the present generation owed anything to future generations in terms of the environment it leaves behind.
Students usually agreed that their grandchildren deserved an Earth free of the worst impacts of climate change. But when Weaver asked whether they voted, they replied their votes didn’t count or that politicians were all corrupt.
“You have the power to change the system,” he remembers telling students. “If you’re not engaged in it, you have no one to blame but yourself.”
But Weaver could only say those words for so long without taking action himself.
He had spent decades contributing to science that proved climate change was real and it was primarily human-caused. As part of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he’d authored multiple reports that showed clear scientific consensus on the issue.
Weaver had advised former Liberal premier Gordon Campbell on his groundbreaking climate plan, which included Canada’s first carbon tax. But he watched as politicians from all sides attacked the plan.
When he was asked a fourth time to run by former Green leader Jane Sterk, Weaver said yes.
“I said, ’OK, Jane, I’ll run. The reason why I’ll run is not because I have this idea of being a career politician. I’ll run because I have to practise what I preach.’ ”
He didn’t expect to win in Oak Bay-Gordon Head in 2013, but he became the first Green elected to the B.C. legislature. He is a prolific writer of private member’s bills that have sometimes attracted Premier Christy Clark’s support, including a proposal to ban mandatory high heels in all B.C. workplaces.
Although he doesn’t see politics as a career path and has called for term limits for legislature members, Weaver has a knack for the political game. Despite leading a third-place party, he’s managed to grab a disproportionate amount of media attention.
Weaver’s friends say he is unusual in politics because he makes decisions based on evidence rather than on partisanship. Elizabeth May, the federal Green party leader, said she was stunned by how well he spoke to voters.
“I was realizing: ‘Good heavens, Andrew’s actually going to be good at this,’ ” she recalled with a laugh. “I was kind of worried: Could a scientist make this leap? Science, in some ways, is kind of the opposite of politics. You have to be evidence-based.”
In fact, it appears his scientific background has shaped his entire approach to politics. May recalled the controversy surrounding Cobble Hill Holdings, the company that had been issued a permit to dump contaminated soil near Shawnigan Lake.
“What does a scientist do? Picks up his test tubes, goes to Shawnigan Lake and tests the water,” May said. “He gets his information and his evidence lined up before he takes a position on something.”
Weaver found elevated levels of heavy metals, although the Environment Ministry has said their testing never showed contamination above the legal limit. After years of
community opposition, the province cancelled the permit in February.
Weaver said his scientific training has shaped how he works with staff and candidates. He doesn’t micromanage them, he said, because the secret to success in science is to surround yourself with the smartest people you can find and let them go.
“He really believes in the people around him,” said Adam Olsen, the Green candidate in Saanich and North Islands and a former party leader. “When I come up with an idea, he says: ‘Adam, you go with full force at that. I’ll be happy to support you.’ ”
Weaver, 56, is on leave from the University of Victoria. He’s authored 16 scientific papers since he was elected.
Michael Eby, a climate scientist at the university, described his longtime boss as a talented salesman skilled at securing grants.
“You have to be a very positive, proactive and hard-working individual to be able to keep promoting yourself and the work that you’re doing,” Eby said. “He’s very good at it.”
— Laura Kane, The Canadian Press
