John Horgan: In His Own Words

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This candid, unvarnished memoir of British Columbia's most popular premier reveals a legacy of enduring value to Canadian politics and culture.

The public outpouring of emotion at the time of John Horgan's death in 2024 surprised few who had come to know him well. The tributes to BC's most popular premier reflected a man whose multifaceted character won admiration that deepened over time-someone both bold and unassuming, driven by principle but flexible enough to welcome ideas from across the political spectrum.

In the wake of the loss comes the unmistakable voice of Horgan himself, in this candid, piercing, often funny memoir. Here, he reveals the path that transformed him from the wayward figure of his youth-the son of "an Irish scrapper"-to the first two-term NDP premier in BC history. He meets his soulmate, Ellie, while drunkenly belting out songs on a university pub crawl. He attends a single talk by a tiny man he'd never heard of named Tommy Douglas and is changed overnight from a self-declared jock who was "just chipping away at what the world was all about" into a student of Canadian politics committed to helping lift whole communities out of struggle.

With characteristic frankness, Horgan leads readers through the pivotal moments of his political career-such as forging a remarkable alliance with the Greens and leading the NDP to its largest electoral victory in BC history. He also offers vivid accounts of his government's pressure-filled response to the COVID pandemic, his efforts to open new ways toward reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, and of facing the cancer that eventually ended his life. With each of these passages, a uniquely spirited personality comes into sharper focus, one who was always in search of a fragile balance between urgent environmental, labour and resource issues and whose memory and legacy will be essential to the province and the country in the challenging years ahead.

Author Bio

After years of service as MLA for Langford-Juan de Fuca and leader of the opposition, John Horgan was premier of British Columbia from 2017 to 2022. He retired from politics in 2023 and was appointed Canada's ambassador to Germany. He passed away the following year at the age of sixty-five. Rod Mickleburgh is a former labour reporter for the Vancouver Sun and Province and a senior writer at The Globe and Mail for more than twenty years. He is also the co-author of The Art of the Impossible: Dave Barrett and the NDP in Power, 1972-1975. He worked closely with John Horgan to enable him to recount his life story. Mickleburgh lives in Vancouver, BC.