B.C. Premier John Horgan’s decision this week to move forward with the Site C dam project has disappointed many NDP voters and drawn furious fire from the green side of the political spectrum. But what hasn’t been lost on some observers is that Horgan was adroitly manoeuvred into the chute by not only the Liberals but also the Greens. It was a classic political ambush.
The B.C. Liberals, of course, set it all up. Rushing forward the most costly megaproject in B.C. history without the standard due diligence, the Liberals left Horgan exposed with an almost $4-billion price tag for cancellation. The $4 billion, along with every other official figure tied to the project, has been subjected by critics to scornful dismissal, but that’s the number Horgan and the NDP would have had to wear if they shot down Site C. Every B.C. Liberal politician, every day, right up to the next election, would call out “the Dippers” for flushing $4 billion down the Peace River and placing B.C.’s “energy future” in jeopardy. It would have been fast ferries on steroids and, in all likelihood, just as ruinous. As it was, the Liberal caucus slammed the Horgan government this week for carrying out a “needless review,” in effect congratulating themselves for their recklessness.
But what about the Greens? This summer, Andrew Weaver had a golden opportunity to force the NDP to cancel Site C. All he had to do was make it a condition of the power-sharing agreement that enabled the NDP to form government. When Province columnist Mike Smyth asked Weaver this week why he didn’t do that, Weaver responded weakly, “What would our trump card be if they said no?” It was posed as a question because evidently it was never tried, even though, as Smyth points out, “Horgan would have folded like a cheap lawn chair” if it had been. Because then the blame would have fallen largely on the Greens, who had forced the NDP’s hand. Weaver didn’t let that happen; he wanted the NDP to own Site C, either way. Now his Greens in the field are reporting on the supposed collapse of NDP support and bewailing the death of B.C.’s clean energy sector for the next two generations.
Politics can be such a sordid business.
In the end, Horgan stood in the crossfire and took the direct hit. He didn’t pretend to be magically sold on the project and he announced a number of measures to mitigate the negative impacts, though none will satisfy the committed opposition. Unlike the crowing Liberals or the calculating Greens, Horgan at least behaved like a leader.
