THE BC Liberals on Tuesday said that after disregarding his own government’s warnings, Premier John Horgan said “fatalities are a part of life” when asked about the deaths of nearly 600 British Columbians during this summer’s heat wave.
John Horgan’s inconsistent heat wave statements:
- Everybody knew:
“The public was acutely aware that we had a heat problem, and we were doing our best to try to break through all of the other noise to encourage people to take steps to protect themselves.”
“…It was apparent to everyone who walked out doors that we were in an unprecedented heat wave, and again, there’s a level of personal responsibility.”
“…Fatalities are a part of life — and the consequences of those fatalities are examined by officials that we put in place as a society to make sure we’re getting the best information possible.”
- Nobody knew:
“We were unfamiliar with this. We didn’t know what to expect. …we thought, well, it’s June, we’re almost into the summer we did what normal human beings would do, we tried to absorb information that was foreign to us and continue on in our regular patterns.”
“It was [the] convergence of a whole host of issues at the same time without any doubt. Again, we were a bit jolly on Tuesday, I have to say. …we were a bit giddy at the prospect of saying goodbye to the emergency and, and stepping, of course, into the third step of our restart plan. And the prospect of hotter weather. Again, we didn’t think of it as catastrophic, hotter weather, we thought of it as hotter weather and I don’t think there are too many people that didn’t.”