Vaughn Palmer: It appears that Prime Minister Horgan was one of the winners of the federal elections.

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VICTORIA – When Prime Minister John Horgan was asked if he had any preferences about how British Columbia people should vote in federal elections, he initially abstained.

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Horgan said that he personally voted to re-elect Alistair MacGregor, his local NDP member of parliament.

“But as to how other British Columbia should vote, that’s totally up to them,” he told reporters on Friday. “My responsibility as the head of the Government of British Columbia is to work with whoever heads the Government of Canada.”

The neutrality pose – standard fare for any cautious prime minister – was not well received by federal supporters of the NDP, judging by Horgan’s later clarification on social media.

“I voted for Alistair MacGregor because Jagmeet Singh and his team will work every day to improve the lives of individuals and communities,” the prime minister declared on his Twitter account on Saturday.

Despite mandatory assent to his federal counterpart, the BC PND leader was prepared for the call he made to Prime Minister-elect Justin Trudeau after most of the election results were tallied.

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“I offered my congratulations after yesterday’s federal election,” Horgan said in a press release from his office on Tuesday. “We talk about continuing our work to improve the lives of the people of British Columbia.”

Most of the time, Horgan and Trudeau have been on the same page. Reporters have sometimes joked that their employment relationship is a political bromance. They picked up where they left off before the election, Horgan reported Tuesday.

“We will further our collaborative efforts to address climate change, make quality child care more affordable for families, and build the infrastructure we need to keep our people and our economy moving,” said the BC Prime Minister, citing some common themes from your employment relationship over the past four years. “Of utmost importance are the ongoing efforts to promote reconciliation with indigenous peoples.”

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Horgan did not mention any follow-up to a promise he made last Friday to pressure Ottawa to help him in the fight to retain BC’s stake in the Alaska cruise business. That was supposed to be “the first order of business… when I get a chance to speak to the incoming prime minister. I’m sure the incoming federal government will put this first on their agenda and I’m going to insist that they do so. “

Maybe you forgot.

The prime minister noted that he had recently assumed the rotating presidency of the continuing conference of Canadian prime ministers, also known as the Federation Council.

“I look forward to working collaboratively with the other prime ministers and the prime minister to address the challenges that the pandemic has imposed on our people, our economy and our health care system,” he said.

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Health care, specifically health care financing, is an issue where prime ministers and the prime minister can head for a showdown.

Quebec Prime Minister Francois Legault has already notified Ottawa that his province expects the federal government to get more of the funding for the country’s most expensive social program. Horgan is a possible ally of the Quebec prime minister, having expressed similar aspirations in the days before the pandemic began to consume the news cycle.

To leverage health care funding, the BC prime minister can rely on the federal NDP, which is still well positioned to play a supporting role for Trudeau’s minority government as a result of Monday’s elections.

The federal liberals did not reach their best stage for this year’s vote. But, subject to final counts, the Grits appear to have won a couple of seats in BC, which is not what the federal party did in the past national elections when the new Democrats were in power in Victoria. The federal NDP lost seats in BC in the 1974 and 1993 Canadian elections, as voters expressed frustration with the NDP provincial governments on the party’s federal standard-bearers.

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This time around, the NDP brand is viewed favorably in BC, thanks in part to the Horgan government’s track record.

Another electoral piece of good news for Horgan was the collapse of the green vote.

The New Democrats, who are no strangers to the moral high ground, must have enjoyed at least a moment of schadenfreude at the sight of altruistic greens ripping apart in absurd infighting.

The federal and provincial Green parties are separate.

However, it couldn’t be overlooked how former BC party leader Andrew Weaver, who last year left the provincial party adrift and supported Horgan for re-election, this year put the knife in the federal Green party and supported to Trudeau.

Finally, the new provincial Democrats were encouraged by how the federal conservatives lost seats in Metro Vancouver, relegating them to a party from the Fraser Valley, north and interior. The change echoed what happened to British Columbia Liberals in the 2020 provincial elections, as both parties failed to achieve a winning appeal in constituencies increasingly dominated by younger urban voters.

None of this necessarily translates into results in the next provincial elections, scheduled for three years from now. The results of future elections reflect those of the past only when political parties do not learn from their mistakes.

Additionally, British Columbia residents tend to inhabit “two political worlds” when they vote at the federal and provincial level in the memorable observation by University of British Columbia political scientist Donald Blake.

Still, amid all the talk of losers in the federal election, it appears that John Horgan was one of the winners.

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