John Horgan: The man I knew

1 of 1 2 of 1 Get the best of Vancouver in your inbox, every Tuesday and Thursday. Sign up for our free newsletter . When the Covid pandemic was declared in March 2020, then-BC Premier John Horgan called me into his office at the provincial legislature.

“I’m not going to be running this thing,” he told me, referring to the province’s response to the public health emergency. “You’re not going to see me in front of the television cameras every day.” He insisted instead that figures such as Dr.



Bonnie Henry, Health Minister Adrian Dix, and other members of his cabinet would largely be leading the way. “I want you to hold me to this,” he told me. And sure enough, he stuck to his pledge.

He did something a political leader seldom does: he checked his ego at the door. He led by letting others lead. It was an extraordinary approach taken at an unprecedented time, and it worked.

Since his untimely death on November 12, Horgan has been justly lionized as a man of the people and as “the people’s premier.” The tributes aren’t based necessarily on his public policies, although some—getting rid of bridge tolls, scrapping medical service premiums, and hiring back healthcare workers—certainly had a populist element to them. Rather, I think it was more Horgan’s ability to transcend the trappings of politics and of the political office he held that endeared him to so many people.

He was the proverbial “every man” who everyone else could instantly relate to..