Soon after NDP MLA John Horgan’s announcement on Monday that he will enter the BC NDP leadership race, former BC NDP Minister of Small Business Ian Waddell was ruminating on Horgan’s chances.
Waddell told Business in Vancouver most New Democrats will likely hold off on making their decision on who to support until at least February 26, when the BC Liberal Party chooses its leader.
“I think if it’s Christy [Clark who becomes Liberal leader], the New Democrats will go with John Horgan,” Waddell said.
“If the Liberals pick Kevin [Falcon], the NDP will go with Adrian Dix.”
Waddell has a long history with Dix, Horgan and rumoured leadership candidate Mike Farnworth: he has helped each of them get jobs in the past.
Former premier Glen Clark once worked as an assistant to Waddell when Waddell was MP for Vancouver Kingsway in the 1980s. So did Dix.
When Waddell’s riding disappeared in the 1988 redrawing of the electoral map, he ran and won in the former Port Moody-Coquitlam riding. There, he shared a constituency office with MLA Mark Rose. Both those men hired Farnworth to work as an assistant before Farnworth first won as an MLA for Port Coquitlam – Burke Mountain in 1991.
“Kevin Falcon is going to be a tough, ideological, hard-nosed, right-of-centre guy and Adrian [Dix] can face that. He’d be the opposite,” Waddell said.
“If the Liberals go with Christy, who is this friendly person, Dix would come across as too stern, not human enough. Horgan is a smiley kind of family guy who is genuinely a hockey parent kind of guy.”