Accomplishments: 2017-2022

The Horgan era was all about putting people first – and, boy, did his government deliver. And it wasn’t the easiest of times to make the changes they did: a pandemic, unprecedented wildfires and flooding, economic uncertainty. But move forward they did.

Here’s a look at some of the highlights.

And here is the best of the rest!

• Cancelled Kevin Falcon’s tax breaks for the wealthy and well-connected and asked the top 2% of earners to pay their fair share so we can invest in the services British Columbians rely on
• Got British Columbians vaccinated against COVID-19 in the largest immunization plan in BC’s history, with over 90% of eligible people receiving at least one dose
• Made history in partnership with the Tahltan by reaching the first shared decision-making agreement under the
• Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
• Eliminated the largest fossil fuel subsidy in BC
• Delivered the highest level of supports in Canada for people and businesses to get through the pandemic
• Reversed the devastating BC Liberal funding cuts to women’s centres, so survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence can get the support they need
• Eliminated the discriminatory minimum wage for liquor servers that overwhelmingly hurt women
• Made it easier for workers to join a union without the fear of threats or intimidation
• Expanded cancer coverage for firefighters
• First major party in Canadian history to elect a majority of women to the legislature (29 women in the 57-member BC NDP caucus)
• Eliminated PST on electric bikes and electric planes
• Providing families up to $133 a month to help with costs through the Child Opportunity Benefit
• Launched a new year-round BC Wildfire Service to better protect people and communities
• Grown hourly wages for BC workers by the most in Canada since 2017
• Became the first province to appoint a Minister of Mental Health and Addictions to prioritize helping people struggling with substance use
• Introduced paid leave for workers facing domestic or sexual violence
• Passed new laws to make BC more accessible and remove barriers for people living with disabilities
• Building the Surrey-Langley Skytrain
• Expanded access to safe supply as part of work to stop the toxic drug crisis and save lives
• Providing $5 million to the BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres to help end violence against Indigenous women and girls
• Fast-tracking nurses who trained in other countries so they can work in BC
• Ensured good-paying jobs, better training and apprenticeships, and more trades opportunities for Indigenous peoples, women and youth in key public-sector infrastructure projects in B.C. through Community Benefits Agreements
• Cancelled the interest on BC student loans, saving students and young families with loans an average of $2,300
• Helped more than 2.7 million British Columbians with the BC Recovery Benefit that provided up to $1,000 for families
• Building, modernizing and expanding hospitals throughout the province, including Surrey, Richmond, Vancouver, Dawson Creek, Stuart Lake and the Cowichan Valley
• Protecting 1.7 million hectares of old growth forests by partnering with First Nations, after decades of BC Liberal inaction left some of BC’s oldest trees at risk
• Reduced wait times for MRIs by more than half since 2017
• Providing universal, no-cost access to medical abortions and never, ever backing down from supporting the right to choose
• More people working in BC today than before the COVID-19 pandemic
• Levelled-up wages for workers in long-term care and assisted living
• Supporting First Nations to facilitate truth-telling, healing and justice for survivors, intergenerational survivors as they lead investigations at former residential schools
• Record investments in new schools and seismic upgrades since 2017, after the BC Liberals shut down 267 schools
• Strengthened the Disaster Financial Assistance program to ensure more people, communities and businesses receive increased benefits
• Brought back the BC Human Rights Commission that was dismantled by the BC Liberals in 2002
• Established the Centre for Innovation and Clean Energy
• Protected renters with by freezing rent during the worst of the pandemic and capping increases
• Largest-ever permanent increase to income assistance and disability assistance rates
• Rebuilt the Coquihalla highway in record time after flooding and mudslides in fall 2021
• Building more with made-in-BC wood through mass timber projects that have a lower carbon footprint, strengthen partnerships with First Nations, and deliver more opportunities for local workers
• Strongest economic recovery in Canada
• Passed a Zero Emissions Vehicles Act requiring all cars and trucks sold in BC to be zero emission by 2040
• Launched the first accredited PPE testing lab in Western Canada
• Led the largest shoreline and coastal cleanup in BC’s history, removing more than 100 derelict vessels and over 127 tonnes of plastic waste from our natural environment
• Replacing the Massey Tunnel, which Kevin Falcon says he’d cancel
• Built 231 new school playgrounds (with more to come) – relieving tens of thousands of parents of having to raise all the money themselves prior to 2017
• Replacing the Pattullo Bridge
• Major safety improvements to some of BC’s busiest highways including the Malahat and Highway 1 in the Fraser Valley
• Speeding up the use of made-in-BC cleaner fuels – one of the single biggest ways we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions – to the equivalent of taking over 700,000 cars off the road
• Put money back in people’s pockets through three ICBC rebates totalling $420
• Banned the grizzly bear trophy hunt, ensuring the protection of one of BC’s most iconic species
• Establishing Canada’s first Chinese Canadian Museum to showcase a rich history of accomplishments and shine a light on injustice
• Proudly raised the trans flag at the legislature as the first government in BC history to do so
• Making it easier and more affordable for British Columbians to switch from fossil fuels to clean electricity
• Supporting BC shipyards to increase shipbuilding, refit, repair and maintenance in BC
• Becoming the first province to enshrine the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in law in 2019
• Relaunched Buy BC and made it easier for British Columbians to explore new and different products from around the province
• Modernizing BC’s forestry policy to ensure it’s environmentally sustainable and ensures the benefits are shared more widely with Indigenous Peoples
• Redressing the internment of Japanese Canadians and redressing the historical wrong by honouring survivors and their families
• Ranked #1 across Canada in the National Energy Efficiency Scorecard for three straight years
• Pushing the federal government to fund their fair share of health-care costs so we can make improve our cherished public system and make sure people get the best care possible in their time of need
• Implementing a 30-point plan to tackle the housing crisis
• Delivered an action plan with 89 specific actions to implement the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
• Introduced an economic plan focused on closing the skills gap, tackling climate change, and growing a more inclusive, sustainable province
• Stopped illegal renovictions
• Shortest wait times for hip and knee replacement surgeries, after they were among the longest in Canada before 2017
• 100,000 new jobs created for British Columbians in 2021 alone
• Introduced Grow BC to support BC food growers and wine and beer producers
• Implementing historic anti-racism data legislation that means working closely with Indigenous and Black people, and people of colour, to reduce systemic barriers and deliver better access to government programs and services
• Leading North America in the uptake of zero-emission vehicles
• Became the first jurisdiction in Canada to make sure all public schools provide students with equitable, stigma-free access to free menstrual products in school washrooms
• Made an historic agreement to share gaming revenue with BC First Nations
• Giving foster parents and other caregivers a boost in support payments – the first increase in a decade
  supporting Indigenous-owned clean energy projects
• Modernizing BC’s 45-year-old Police Act to reflect today’s challenges with a specific focus on systemic racism and improving approaches to harm reduction and mental health
• Removing barriers for youth leaving care care by providing free tuition and helping with living expenses
• Launched Canada’s first provincewide screening program for lung cancer
• Supporting our province’s vibrant communities and creative economy by boosting funding for the BC Arts Council and Creative BC
• Taking action to help ensure that disasters like the Mount Polley Mine tailings pond spill never happen again, by implementing science-based public oversight in the management of BC’s natural resources
• Made it easier to find low- and no-cost mental health support
• New urgent and primary care centres for people to access better health care closer to home
• Expanding high-speed Internet service to every rural, remote and Indigenous community across BC
• Protecting wild salmon migration routes and implementing a made-in-BC Wild Salmon strategy
• Supporting access to affordable farmland for young farmers
• Protecting BC’s farmland by addressing mega-mansions and speculation on ALR land
• Brought in new rules to protect young people from unsafe work
• Safely developing natural gas while protecting BC’s air, land and water, guaranteeing jobs and training for British Columbians, and moving forward in partnership with First Nations
• Welcomed more than 100,000 people to BC in 2021, the most in 60 years
• Established access zones to protect workers and the people relying on services from threats or intimidation at places like schools and health care facilities
• Removing over 600 instances of unnecessarily gendered language from government regulations – because every British Columbian deserves equal access to services, no matter their sexual orientation, gender identity, race or cultural beliefs
• Doubling the number of treatment beds for youth struggling with additions in BC
• Providing complete cell service along the Highway of Tears
• Expanding several BC Parks and establishing a new one in the Cowichan Valley – the first new park on Vancouver Island in 20 years
• Restored the tax benefit and lifted the cap on lending for credit unions
• Opened new complex care housing sites to provide care for those with complex needs
• Doubled the investment in new and upgraded schools that students deserve
• Took action to lower drug costs by making record investments in Fair PharmaCare, helping to negotiate a new national generics agreement and expanding the use of biosimilar drugs
• Providing rebates for electric vehicles to make it more affordable for British Columbians to make the switch to an EV
• Enable a new homebuyer protection period to protect people in an overheated housing market
• More than doubling the forestry revenues that will be shared with First Nations
• Introduced an X gender option on B.C.-issued identity documents for British Columbians who do not identify as male or female
• Launched Resilience BC, a provincewide, anti-racism network, which will provide greater focus and leadership in identifying and challenging racism across BC
• Recognized Wet’suwet’en rights and title and set out a process to reach agreement on how to implement them, working towards resolving matters of rights and title outstanding for decades
• Introduced a new, simplified procurement strategy to take advantage of the BC government’s buying power to help grow local economies, create jobs throughout the province, and make good use of made-in-BC innovation
• Created the first-of-its-kind $500-million strategic investment fund, InBC, to support BC-based businesses and position our province as a front-runner in the post-pandemic economy
• Created a beneficial ownership registry to combat money laundering
• Reestablished needs-based student grants, which were cancelled by the BC Liberals, to make post-secondary education and training more affordable for thousands of students throughout BC
• Put out the financial dumpster fire at ICBC created by the BC Liberals
• Made changes to strata insurance regulations to help address the rising cost of strata insurance in B.C. and bring further transparency to the industry
• Ended the discriminatory practice of hospital ‘birth alerts’
• Funded the first Indigenous law degree program in all of Canada
• Gave early childhood educators a well-deserved raise
• Became the first province in Canada to develop an Electric Vehicle Maintenance Training Program to make sure the province’s workforce has the skills and training needed to support more electric vehicles on the road
• Launched a sexual violence prevention campaign at all of British Columbia’s public post-secondary campuses
  Addressing systemic racism in BC’s health care system through training and education, and prioritizing the hiring of a health-care workforce that better represents B.C.’s diverse communities
• Requiring the sale of all new light-duty cars and trucks in BC to be zero-emission vehicles by the year 2040, removing a major source of air pollution and climate change
• Established the Period Poverty Task Force to make it easier to access menstrual products
• Removed age restrictions on insulin-pump coverage, so that everyone who needs these devices to manage diabetes is able to live their lives to the fulles
• Requiring all new buildings in B.C. to be net-zero-energy ready by 2032, and all new government facilities to use 100% clean energy beginning 2022
• Invested in new buses to replace older, higher-emission buses, and meet the growing demand for public transit in BC
• Increasing staffing levels in long-term care homes to make sure seniors are getting the quality care they need and deserve
• Implemented education on sexual orientation and gender identity
• Modernized environmental assessment process to ensure that good projects that respect BC’s environment and the public are approved and that First Nations are involved meaningfully through the entire process
• Mandated better accountability, transparency and more detailed targets for climate action under a new Climate Change Accountability Act – the first of its kind in Canada – to make sure our province is on track for long-term emission reductions
• Made British Columbia the most transparent lobbying regime in Canada
• Helped ensure families across the country can celebrate together by moving Family Day to the third week in February
• Improving care for seniors, with more than $1 billion over three years for better primary care, home health, long-term care and assisted living
• Introduced legislation on single-use plastics
• Provided a $1,000 emergency benefit for workers displaced during the pandemic
• Established gender affirming surgery services
• Providing 5,000 jobs for youth and young adults in the growing tech sector, environment and natural resource fields through the StrongerBC Future Leaders Program
• Launched a class action lawsuit against opioid drug companies, whose marketing practices have had devastating impacts on the lives of thousands of British Columbians
• Helping people recover from 2021’s devastating floods and wildfires of last year and better protecting communities against future climate disasters
• Became the first Canadian province to fund on-reserve housing
• Launched a new BC Bus North service for people in northern BC communities after Greyhound ended service
• Made the most significant improvements to the Workers Compensation Act in more than two decades
• Over 80% of BC’s rarest and most ancient trees are now not threatened by logging after many were left vulnerable by the BC Liberals
• Bringing thousands of health-service workers back into the public system, after many were fired under the BC Liberals, providing better working conditions for them, better care for patients and a stronger health care system for all of us
• Cracked down on dirty money in BC casinos, real estate and other sectors
• Adding 600 training seats for nurses
• Became the first jurisdiction in Canada to require all public schools to provide students with equitable, stigma-free access to free menstrual products in school washrooms
• Significantly expanded the BC government’s efforts to communicate with British Columbians in multiple languages
• Brought back free bus passes for persons with disabilities receiving income assistance, after the program was cruelly scrapped by the BC Liberals
• Helping local communities accelerate actions to cut climate pollution
• Making it easier for thousands of students pay for tuition, books, and groceries with the BC Access Grant — an up-front needs-based grant of up to $4,000/year
• Accelerating record investments in building homes people can afford, with over 32,000 homes built or underway as part of a 10-year plan