Friday, March 29, 2019
by Mary P Brooke ~ West Shore Voice News
A fan of fantasy fiction, Premier John Horgan regretted not being able to get to the 2nd Annual Capital City ComicCon at the Victoria Convention Centre last weekend.
But this week after the formal part of welcoming the World Rugby Webb Ellis Cup to Victoria on the lawn of the legislature, there was a moment to discuss inspiration from the Star Trek series.
“It took until the 24th century to achieve gender equity in society,” muses Horgan, referring not only to the Star Trek science fiction TV and movie series, but specifically to how his favourite Star Trek captain is Captain Kathryn Janeway from Star Trek Voyager (172 episodes from January 1995 through May 2001) starring actress Kate Mulgrew in the lead role.
“Janeway is a strong female role model,” says Horgan, who was raised by his mother and his sister. Now as Premier, Horgan established a gender-equity cabinet right from the start.
“I worked with Carole James as my first leader as an elected representative,” Horgan told West Shore Voice News, with a few members of the public alongside being curious at the conversation about Star Trek and agreeing it was important for the insights.
“In Star Trek, anything is possible. The first interracial kiss on TV, and people from different races and cultures all working together for a common purpose,” Horgan said. “To have a female captain in a strong traditional male position was something that was long overdue. It took until the 24th century to have that happen — on television. But now we’re seeing it in everything that we do,” he mused.
Actress Mulgrew @TheKateMulgrew followed Horgan on Twitter recently. “I thanked her for the follow. And she said that in my good judgement — by picking her — I would have a positive future in Starfleet,” he said with a chuckle.
While Mulgrew has over 101,000 followers on Twitter, she only follows 153 people. So Horgan is in good company there, including TV comedians Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Jimmy Fallon. A few weeks ago at a literacy event at an elementary school in the west shore here on Vancouver Island, Horgan said if he hadn’t chosen politics for a career he might have been a comedian. On the political side, Mulgrew also follows Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren and Nancy Pelosi. And of course she follows fellow Trekkie captain actor @WilliamShatner.
Another strong female role from the Star Trek series – Deanna Troi in the Star Trek – The Next Generation series — was played by actress Marina Sirtis who did make it to ComicCon on March 23 in Victoria. To several hundred fans in the audience at the Victoria Conference Centre she pitched for women, looking good in casual wear: “I didn’t wear these thigh-high boots to sit in a chair,” she said. “Ladies, this is 64, don’t let anyone tell you how to be.”
Mulgrew, now 63, in an interview in 2015 said she had worked 18-hour days for seven years while guiding the Voyager starship and also raising two children. “I did it all without a hitch,” she said, and in four-inch heels. “We’re capable of much more than we think we are,” said Mulgrew. That interview has had 69,400 views online.
Premier John Horgan, who often talks of his glibness being from his Irish roots, also demonstrates in his political views an empathetic approach. Mulgrew calls empathy “the Irish thing”.