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The oil and gas commission already monitors both concerns. Horgan believes it is necessary to do more.

“I want a science-based approach,” he told me last week on Voice of B.C. on Shaw TV. “Let’s make sure that we know everything we can possibly learn about what this activity is doing to the land, to the water. And over time, we’ll have to make decisions based on that.”

But New Democrats won’t be calling for a moratorium on fracking because it would entail shutting off the taps for domestic consumption as well as for exports.

“There’s a million people who are cooking and heating their homes in the Lower Mainland with gas, and it’s fracked gas,” says Horgan. “So we have to come to terms with that.”

He’s also got to proceed carefully in his opposition to Medical Service Plan premiums, which bring in $2.5 billion for the treasury every year. Horgan vows to phase them out over a four-year budget cycle. “It’s got to $2.5 billion in decades. You’re not going to get rid of it one fell swoop.”

He’d roll the premiums into the provincial income tax, ensuring that people with more taxable income will pay more.

“A progressive system is the way to go,” says Horgan. “I think British Columbians have come to the conclusion that it’s not fair that someone making $400,000 a year pays the same amount as someone who makes $40,000 a year.”

The changeover will be complicated because many working people – particularly trade union members – have their premiums covered by their employer.