Vaughn Palmer: Horgan ducks out, leaves damage control to Marks

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VICTORIA — Premier John Horgan took the lead two weeks ago when the New Democrats rolled out what they saw as good news about the Royal BC Museum.

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“We are going to be building an $800-million, safer, new, inclusive, accessible, modern museum,” Horgan gushed.

“When we add the $200 million archive and collections building being built right now, that is over $1 billion and I would definitely characterize that as a mammoth announcement for the people of BC.”

“Mammoth,” get it? Horgan indulged in a little joke about the museum’s best-known denizen.

Big-footed by the premier to the second spot in the lineup was Tourism Minister Melanie Mark.

“As the first and only First Nations woman to be elected and serve in cabinet, it has been my honor to be on this journey,” she declared.

Horgan stayed at the forefront the following week, when the NDP’s billion-dollar baby dominated question period.

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That made it easier for new BC Liberal leader Kevin Falcon to brand the museum makeover as a John Horgan vanity project.

By the end of the week, Horgan conceded that the museum project had “landed with a thud.”

“The shock of an announcement that was not characterized appropriately has led to some hard feelings,” he admitted to reporters. “I’m certainly getting calls in my community and I’m hearing from MLAs (and) not just Opposition members.”

The rescue would start with the release of the business plan “because I think British Columbians deserve to have a look at it.”

But when the plan was released Wednesday of this week, Mark was pressed into service as a solo act.

What are cabinet ministers for, if not running interference for the premier when he has climbed out on a limb?

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Alas for the tourism minister, the plan was so heavily redacted, she couldn’t demonstrate conclusively why the cabinet concluded that the only options were a $1 billion price tag and an eight-year closure of the museum.

Instead she argued “that there’s a risk to doing nothing,” as if the government plan were to take-it-or-leave it with no options in between.

Take the insistence that archives and artifacts are at risk of destruction.

Many of those are being moved to the new research and collections building that is being built in suburban Colwood.

Moreover, as Mark herself admits, only one per cent of the museum’s collections are on display in the main building at any time.

Why not keep the museum open with the one per cent until the other 99 per cent has been moved to safe storage?

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“Seismic risks are non-negotiable,” she declared at another point.

But the New Democrats negotiated the risk when they decided to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the museum instead of on dozens of endangered schools and hospitals.

On Wednesday, Mark again reminded reporters how, “I made history as the first First Nations woman to ever get elected in BC”

Listening to her rationalizations, there was no shaking the suspicion that her drive to close the museum was partly driven by a desire to decolonize the place.

“I don’t believe I use the word ‘decolonize,’” she claimed.

“That’s actually pretty easy to check,” returned reporter Andrew MacLeod from the Tyee.

He promptly posted examples of Mark saying a prime objective of the makeover was to “decolonize” the museum.

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It was the main reason she gave for the short notice closure of the third floor exhibits late last year.

In support of her case Wednesday, Mark three times quoted Green MLA Adam Olsen.

Strange. Olsen, who is also Indigenous, is not remotely a supporter of her plan.

“At a time when British Columbians are struggling with an affordability crisis, the government has chosen to build the most expensive museum ever constructed in Canada,” said Olsen, in a statement released shortly after Mark finished speaking.

The business plan, in one of its unredacted passages, disclosed a political dimension to the exercise.

Although construction of the replacement won’t begin for four years, the New Democrats will begin dismantling the existing museum in the spring of 2024.

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Was this about getting the project past the point of no return before the October 2024 election?

“Government is about making choices,” replied Mark, noting that the BC Liberals failed to address the threat to the museum when they were in office.

“There was a duty to act and nothing was done,” said the NDP minister. “We are here to say this is the right thing to do.”

As for the price tag, Mark recognized “that $789 million may seem like a lot for a capital project.”

“May” seem like a lot? As Olsen noted, it is the single most-expensive museum project in Canadian history.

Nearing the end of her media conference, Mark also claimed that the project is “going to pay for itself in the long run.”

For a moment, I wondered if she’d got hold of Premier Gordon Campbell’s talking points for the 2010 Winter Olympics, which was also going to pay for itself. And didn’t.

Instead it was further evidence of a minister who is so wedded to the museum project, she is not able to think critically about it.

Bad news for her if Horgan has to sacrifice the most controversial aspects of the project — $1 billion, eight years — to public opinion.

He may have to sideline his minister along with it.

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