If she had a fan club, Dr. Bonnie Henry would have a sore hand from autographing photos.
She has steered the province with unbridled authenticity through the first of many COVID-19 phases. It has been chilling at times, relieving on occasion, enlightening throughout. Henry has been the brave parent running down the road with hands upon us as we tried in no small terror to pedal fast enough and find our balance on the unfamiliar way forward. Now it is coming time for her to let us ride on our own a bit, albeit with training wheels, on quieter roads, with her still within reach, ready with the bandages for the inevitable skinned knees and elbows and tears.
The hundreds of tragedies in British Columbia from the pandemic might be thousands without her wise counsel. But if we don’t start back at our jobs and regain that part of our identities in short order, who is to say that the toll on our mental health wouldn’t add far too much to what has been taken physically – trauma atop the economic ravage?
Dr. Henry should not bow out – please, please, no – but her magic in mitigating the pandemic’s most wicked impact soon should be conjoined with someone similarly trusted to do the right thing in slowly, surely guiding the reopening of businesses and workplaces.
We will need another leader to speak clearly, responsibly, cautiously and sternly – a business twin for our medical guru – and that person’s words and directions will matter every bit as much on our economy as Henry’s have on our health.
This next phase requires a different maestro and mandate.
The trouble with any freedom is how it is used. As Thomas Friedman of the New York Times said of the reopening, we won’t be going from a splint on our leg to sprinting. We will be on crutches, with a cane, then walking, then trotting our way back to however close we can to our old selves. Try convincing everyone of that.
Any yellow light on this rugged recovery road could easily be interpreted as a starting flag for Formula One. It will take a firm hand to consolidate social trust while the better balance sheets start to rekindle. There is, after all, no vaccine or cure or certainty we won’t be clobbered by a second wave this fall.
I have only gained respect for the prime minister and premier during the pandemic. But just as how Henry oozes credibility with her experience fighting disease, so must we have someone leading this next phase with credibility fighting financial maladies. As with her complex public health calculations, this person must grasp byzantine business systems.
This is not a role for a politician, per se, but it becomes a political role. The provincial cabinet isn’t replete with business familiarity, to put it politely, so it would be wise to go outside the tent and add whoever is chosen to the cabinet as a minister of economic recovery. Recovery will require several billions over several years, so it needs more than a figurehead.
You’re probably suspecting I’m going to nominate Glen Clark, former BC NDP premier and current right hand to magnate Jimmy Pattison – or Pattison himself, rescuer of Expo 86. Either would fit, but this is a longer-term task neither could spare from the Jim Pattison Group, itself integral to recovery. But you get the picture and realize the possible subjects in the portrait are few in name: Taylor, Emerson, Kerr, Beaty, Podmore, some others, capable of collaborating and instilling optimism, heavyweights on speed-dial, sophisticated and sound to tell the truth of the risks from breaking the back of the economic crisis before breaking the back of the health crisis.
Recovery is difficult. We were slowing as an economy pre-pandemic. We depend on traditional energy as the fuel of productivity, yet our prevailing governments want this episode to serve as an opportunity to pivot toward cleaner technologies. We carry personal debt that won’t lighten these next months. A new mountain of national debt may never be repaid. Our psyches are fraught with confidence issues.
In our uncertainty we need a Bonnie Henry, Economy Edition. •
Kirk LaPointe is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Business in Vancouver and the vice-president, editorial, of Glacier Media.
