Former B.C. premier John Horgan to join board of new coal business

Former B.C. premier John Horgan’s first job after officially resigning his seat in the B.C. legislature will be with a coal-producing business.

Horgan, who was premier from 2017 until November 2022, follows other former B.C. leaders in moving on to board positions in high profile industries and companies.

He will be joining the board of Elk Valley Resources, which is in the process of being spun off from Vancouver-based Teck Resources Ltd. and will focus on coal that is used to make steel.

Horgan was the B.C. NDP’s mining and energy critic before he was premier. He was the first B.C. NDP leader to win two terms and oversaw the province’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and its responses to the extreme heat wave and catastrophic floods in 2021.

Canadian author and University of B.C. climate justice professor Naomi Klein posted a comment on Twitter that she is “happy to be the knee to his jerk” after Horgan conceded in a media interview that there may be a “knee-jerk” reaction to his move to coal.

Horgan told The Globe and Mail that there’s a difference between coal used to make electricity and coal use for metallurgy and while there are better ways to generate electricity, there are not yet better ways to make steel. Horgan said he will be making sure the company is meeting its obligations to workers, to First Nations, to the environment and to shareholders, according to the Globe.

Former B.C. Liberal party premier Christy Clark, who led the province from March 2011 to July 2017, was appointed to a number of paid and volunteer board positions after she stepped down.

In 2019, she joined law firm Bennett Jones LLP as a senior adviser for its governmental affairs and public policy team. She later was the first Canadian to join Constellation Brands, an American alcohol beverage company eyeing the Canadian cannabis market. In 2020, she joined the board of AlaskCan LNG, which proposes to build an export terminal in Alaska and export B.C. natural gas to Asia.

Clark has also served on the board of Calgary-based cable and wireless company Shaw Communications Inc. since 2018. Her biography on the Shaw website says she volunteers her time as chair of the Advisory Board at McGill University’s School of Public Policy and as a member of the Canada-India Business Council.

Gordon Campbell moved from serving nearly a decade as premier of B.C., between June 2001 to March 2011, to become the High Commissioner to the United Kingdom in London until 2016. In 2016, he was appointed to the board of Laurentian Bank of Canada. He is currently a member of Vancouver-based Equinox Gold Corp.’s board.