FLETCHER: Many shades of green — the evolution of Gregor Robertson

Tom Fletcher has covered BC politics and business as a journalist since 1984.VICTORIA – Gregor Robertson is feeling the heat, and it’s not just from the climate emergency he and his boss Mark Carney are quietly backing away from.Robertson got a blast this week from one of his former BC NDP colleagues, who reminded him of how he used to speak about environmental matters when he was a one-term MLA for Vancouver Fraserview from 2005 to 2008. Guy Gentner took to Facebook to roast Robertson for his government’s pursuit of a third pipeline from Alberta’s oil sands to a new supertanker port in Delta, BC.A former Delta city councillor and NDP MLA, Gentner dug back 20 years in the legislature archives for a post he titled “Gregor Robertson’s Angry Planet,” a play on Robertson’s early role as an executive of Happy Planet juice company.“The once aspiring environmental leader has changed his colours,” Gentner wrote, quoting Robertson’s speech that began by arguing Victoria’s unseasonably cold weather in November 2006 was a direct result of global warming.“Is this government intending to just let it ride?” Robertson sarcastically demanded of the BC Liberal government led by carbon tax pioneer Gordon Campbell. “Let’s go through all this oil and gas and coal, coalbed methane. Let’s pump it. Let’s crank it. Let’s sell it at a discount. That’s economic development. Forget the future generations.”.Robertson earned the nickname “Juice Man” when he rose to provincial politics. Known as an organic farmer due to a share he held in an Abbotsford farm, Robertson was co-founder of Happy Planet juice and smoothie maker in Vancouver.That business received early funding from Renewal Partners, a San Francisco-based venture fund led by Joel Solomon, who would go on to a prominent role in Robertson’s political career.A founding director of Tides Canada, a flow-through funder of billionaire charities to BC environmental causes, Solomon was joined by Robertson on the Tides Canada board from 2002 to 2004, before Robertson ran provincially. Solomon would later help bankroll Vision Vancouver, the municipal party that carried Robertson to three terms as mayor.Vision Vancouver enjoyed major financial support from condo developers, with a booming market powered in large part by Asian real estate investors. He was an early proponent of green construction, bicycle infrastructure, and in later years, the city’s empty homes tax to tackle the vacant properties held by investors as their value soared.Elected as MP in the 2025 vote that kept Carney’s fragile hold on the prime minister’s office, Robertson went directly into cabinet as minister of housing and infrastructure. Then the condo curse came back to bite him..In June, Robertson joined Carney and BC Premier David Eby in Vancouver to announce two major housing initiatives. The first is a transfer of $284 million from federal borrowing to BC to “reduce barriers to new construction.” This fund is to subsidize municipal governments to reduce development cost charges that pay for water, sewer, power, and other infrastructure, as new housing slows across the country due to high costs.The second has yet to be given a price tag or much detail. The “Canada-British Columbia Partnership on Condo Conversion” would have Robertson’s Build Canada Homes program and BC Housing, the province’s social housing provider, buy 2,200 unsold new condos and convert them to “affordable homes.”Carney was soon backing away from this plan, amid a roar of outrage from people priced out of the BC housing market. The government is bailing out condo developers who overbuilt and won’t reduce the price to sell them? Is the government using tax dollars to compete for purchasing housing?It was BC’s idea, Carney would say later. It would have been better to wait for more details before the feds rushed out an announcement, Eby admitted. The condos aren’t in Vancouver, but other places like the Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island, he added.Eby continues to defend the concept of expanding social housing quickly using homes that are already built, a refrain echoed by Robertson as he fielded more questions at a Vancouver event three weeks later.“I haven’t heard a public outcry,” Robertson told reporters. “I’ve heard a Conservative outcry, and I’ve heard some media follow the misinformation and cover it as such when there are no details that would support any of those allegations about this being a bailout. That’s not what this is.”Eby’s task is to provide those details or to change course.“If people hate it, that’s OK,” Eby said on June 25. “We don’t have to do it.”Tom Fletcher has covered BC politics and business as a journalist since 1984.tomfletcherbc@gmail.comX: @tomfletcherbc

FLETCHER: Many shades of green — the evolution of Gregor Robertson

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