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“The lieutenant-governor had ‘retired’ — what did that mean?” Horgan wondered in an interview. “We really had no idea what was going on or what was going to happen.”

But then the phone rang. It was an official at Government House, asking Horgan to attend an immediate meeting with Guichon.

And that’s where she popped the question.

“She asked me, ‘Would you like to be premier?’” Horgan said. “That’s a moment you don’t soon forget.”

It was the triggering event that led to the official downfall of Clark’s government, ending 16 years of Liberal rule in British Columbia.

John Joseph Horgan became the 36th premier of the province, pretty amazing for a guy who got the job after winning the NDP leadership by default when nobody else wanted it.

Weaver made it possible, rejecting Clark’s desperate overtures and opting instead to prop up Horgan’s minority NDP government in an historic power-sharing agreement.

And the history just kept unfolding after that, from Clark’s resignation — prompting an ongoing Liberal leadership race — to Horgan’s momentous decision on the Site C dam, the biggest and most expensive public mega-project in the province’s history.

An extraordinary year, to be sure.

It was one that started out looking good for Christy Clark.

THE LIBERALS’ DRIVE FOR FIVE: The year began with the Liberals seemingly in control of their own destiny and poised to win a fifth-consecutive election.

The economy was rolling. The government balanced five budgets in a row, an achievement unmatched elsewhere in Canada. And Clark always seemed at her best in campaign mode, something she proved in an upset election victory just four years earlier.