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Sober Second Thoughts
by Joel Arthur McInnis
February 24, 2024

During my presentation at the Public Hearing, I found myself unexpectedly with 20 seconds left so I pivoted and pointed out that our former Premier John Horgan realized that when he had made a mistake on rebuilding the Royal B.C. Museum, he changed his mind. They were welcome to follow his example.

Readers will remember the background to this change of heart was that Horgan initially heralded a substantial $789-million overhaul of the Museum. Yet, his enthusiasm was rapidly met with more enthusiastic opposition. Detractors questioned the towering costs of the renovation and much else. The former NDP cabinet minister Elizabeth Cull described the announcement as “tone-deaf,” insisting that funding museums and healthcare should not be a binary choice.

Well within just seven days, Horgan expressed regret for making the Museum a “political football.” He committed to disclosing his supposed comprehensive business case, acknowledged the public’s discontent, and then, not long after that, admitted he had made the “wrong call,” and pulled the plug on it altogether. Then, not long after that too, he pulled a second plug on his political career albeit with extenuating circumstances. Politics can be unforgiving.

Fast forward to the past week and we saw it all over again. We had the replacement Premier David Eby cave on amendments, this time to the Land Act, in the face of mounting opposition. The Premier’s turnaround time from start to finish took about three months, longer than Horgan’s, but just as dramatic. That is lightning speed in the political realm. In that very short space of time Eby and his government put paid to the consultations that had gone on and the decision those consultations supposedly supported. Quite apart from the merits either way, and which I frankly do not know enough about to take a position, the example I want to point to is the fact of the reversals. My sense is Eby’s consultations were as haphazard as those on Bayview. Perhaps David Foster was not around to lend support.

Whatever one’s views on either what should be done with the Museum, if anything, or on co-management of public lands in British Columbia, two premiers in a row very publicly climbed down in the face of opposition. Two premiers “took the public’s temperature”. Two premiers “read the room” and both were smart enough to recant their prior positions.

Rather than chair the Public Hearing with a thermometer to hand the Mayor brought a battering ram. The arrogance of the questions she put, and how contrived and pat the answers were, reinforced what I have said already and that was the fix was in, and “smacked of bias”. How sad that Council felt it needed to run roughshod over the public’s views while fudging the fact that no consultation took place with those potentially most directly impacted – Transport Canada and Harbour Air.

So here is what we need to take away from this. The next election is in 2026 – just over two years from now on October 17th. When that day comes there should be consequences for the Mayor and certain Councillors. A beautiful irony to it when all the Mayor needed to do was come around herself, just as David Eby, and John Horgan did. Sadly, Mayor Alto was not as big as the premiers were in admitting that they had misjudged the public mood. The Mayor and said Councillors should not be allowed a further misjudgment.