Saturday May 24, 2025 | LANGFORD, BC
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
The new Royal Roads University campus located in the heart of Langford now bears the name of the late John Horgan: RRU Langford = John Horgan Campus.
Horgan was a long-time resident of Langford, the area’s member of parliament, and this province’s premier.
“John was a tireless champion for expanding access to post-secondary education in this community,” said Dr. Philip Steenkamp, President and Vice-Chancellor of Royal Roads University, yesterday.
“He would be thrilled to see us welcoming students here this fall and supporting them through life changing education,” said Steenkamp who hosted a naming event at the campus outdoors on Friday.
Attending the event were Premier David Eby, Post-Secondary and Future Skills Minister Anne Kang, and representatives of the City of Langford including Mayor Scott Goodmanson and Councillors Lillian Szpak and Mary Wagner.
Located at the corner of Goldstream Avenue and Peatt Road — right across the street from the old building where the old John Horgan MLA constituency office once operated — the new campus will bring a new economic and cultural vibrancy to the downtown core of Langford.
The new campus also literally puts a fresh face on the Royal Roads University brand that has built its profile on the grandeur of the old former military college location tucked away amidst forest at the oceanside in Colwood.
The campus will be known as the John Horgan Campus in addition to Royal Roads University Langford. The opening had originally been scheduled for September 2024 but construction delays — largely related to supply chain and contractor availability — postponed the opening to September 2025.
Opening September 2025:
The first undergard students will be welcomed to the new Royal Roads Langford campus in September 2025 for a new undergrad program in the west shore.
Since 2008 it was the goal of the local Sooke School District SD62 to see more options for their students close to home. That was towad removing some of the cost barriers of travelling afar to post-secondary and thereby boost their grad transition rates to post-secondary.
Until now, the Royal Roads University student base has been largely for Masters and other post-graduate level programs including a large contingent of international students. Royal Roads also recently opened a satellite campus in Dubai, UAE.
Driven by the role of education:
John Horgan as a politician had a lifelong commitment to education.
Horgan’s track record for education in the west shore includes his strong stacking of the Sooke School District (SD62) board with NDP supporters, including now Minister of Forests Ravi Parmar who served as the SD62 Board Chair for nearly 10 years.
Steenkamp has recounted that Horgan had asked him to start thinking about expanding Royal Roads beyond Colwood shortly after he became the university’s president in 2019, Steenkamp said.
“He said to me, in his usual blunt way — you need to get out of your castle and out from behind those walls and be part of the community. So here we are,” Steenkamp said to the audience yesterday.
Now MLA for Langford-Highlands, Ravi Parmar said: “I hope that 100 years from now, when future generations walk through these doors, they’ll understand that this campus is a living legacy of his belief in the power of education to change lives.”
MLA for a diverse region:
Horgan was MLA for a wide swath of the west shore region starting in 2005 right up to 2023.
The riding name that for a long time was named Juan de Fuca (and before that Malahat-Juan de Fuca) was finally renamed as Langford-Juan de Fuca, which Horgan — at the time — had painfully mused ‘do we have to talk about the Langford part’. Though by the last year of his life he reclaimed the Langford brand, seeking to be remembered as “John from Langford”.
Horgan had built the strongest base of his NDP political support in the Sooke and Juan de Fuca areas, finding more opposition than not in the Langford area where all local and regional politics was coloured by the business-first approach of long-time Langford Mayor Stew Young.
For Horgan, politics was about doing the best for people.
Horgan owed his political career to the support of the Sooke region, which lately seems to becoming erased from his legacy.
Many of his proud moments in the Langford-Juan de Fuca riding were local to Sooke including an outdoor community sport box for lacrosse that was finally completed in 2022 as well as maneuvering some creative funding along with then Health Minister Adrian Dix to sustain the privately-owned medical clinic in Sooke. Horgan’s last official announcement in Sooke in March 2023 was to announce the location of a new Sooke medical clinic on Wadams Way next to the new library.
Over the years Horgan attended the annual Sooke Fine Arts Show opening events, staying many hours to chat with everyone.
Upon stepping back from being MLA, Horgan was emphatic about promoting his legacy as “John from Langford”, the town where he raised his family along with his wife Ellie — as if to reclaim a territory that for him was truly home.
John Horgan’s family had a hard time sharing him with the public, where his talents and desires did shine. This caused wear-and-tear on Horgan over the years. even apparently promising his family at Thanksgiving 2013 that he would not seek the BC NDP leadership, only to do just that by spring 2014.
At his memorial, one of his sons defiantly said he would keep his treasured moments with his father to himself — which of course he should — but it was evidence of the impact that politics had on the family.
Horgan used his personable style of relating to people one-on-one as his door-opener for engaging a wide range of people in his causes, regardless of their political stripe.
Horgan passed away on November 12, 2024 from cancer, after travelling back to Canada for hospice care at the Jubilee Hospital following some time as Canada’s Ambassador to Germany in the last year of his life.
A well-attended public memorial for John Horgan was held at the Q Centre in Colwood on December 15, 2024. Since then several things have been named in his honour including the Greater Victoria Sports Awards Legacy Award.
Horgan served as BC NDP Leader from May 2014 and became Premier in 2017, serving in that role for five years before stepping down for health reasons in March 2022. In that time he dealt with the wide-reaching impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Long in the wings was David Eby who served as Attorney General in Horgan’s government while raising his young family. David Eby was sworn-in as the next NDP Premier in November 2022.
Eby’s remarks:
“Education is so important for the future of our province, said Premier David Eby at the May 23 announcement.
“And we know that British Columbia is going to be the engine of opportunity for Canada, for Canada’s economy,. Part of our commitment to being that engine and driving that economic growth and fulfilling that responsibility for the entire country means ensuring that people have the skills and training that they need to be successful,” said Eby.
“And that’s why I’m so excited to be here for today’s announcement here in Langford. This new building is going to benefit students in the community for generations to come. This is just the first building on a full campus here,” he said at the sunny Friday outdoor event.
“It is my great pleasure and my honour to be able to announce that the new site at Royal Roads University Langford will be known as the John Horgan campus,” said Eby to a round of applause from those gathered.
Eby said that John Horgan — through his passion for the importance of education — set the foundations for generations of young people to come as a result of Horgan’s work in the education realm. Eby called Horgan “a remarkable champion of education”.
Eby said that the role of education in John Horgan’s own life story set him on the path to becoming one of BC’s great Premiers.
Combination of programming:
In addition to Royal Roads classes leading to Certificate, Diploma and Bachelor level completions, the campus will host students from the University of Victoria, Camosun College and the Justice Institute of British Columbia as well as adult upgrading programs through Sooke School District 62.
After a year of construction delays caused by issues with labour and building materials, the John Horgan Campus is expected to welcome 600 students starting September 2 and expand to accommodate 1,300 full-time students by 2035.
Senior fellow at RRU:
In November 2023, then Ambassador John Horgan was named a Royal Roads University Senior Fellow.
It was said at the time: “Horgan brings a wealth of public service leadership experience to his role” .
“His recent work navigating the COVID-19 pandemic, extreme climate events and economic growth will be invaluable in mentoring students and collaborating with faculty,” it was stated by Royal Roads.
Horgan Scholarship:
Royal Roads is establishing The John Horgan Entrance Award. It will provide up to $5,000 in financial support to new undergraduates attending Royal Roads University at the new campus.
Steenkamp is personally matching the first $25,000 in donations made in support of the award, with local philanthropist Andrew Beckerman matching the next $12,500 in donations.
The fundraiser will aim to raise $1 million by August 7, to demarcate John Horgan’s birthdate (born August 7, 1959).
===== ABOUT THE WRITER:
Mary P Brooke has covered politics of the west shore of Greater Victoria since 2008, including publishing a weekly newspaper in Horgan’s riding from 2011 to 2020, shifting to daily online in 2020 (to present).
For this effort (and her community contributions in many other ways) Mary P Brooke was awarded a King Charles III Coronation Medal in 2025 and also in 2023 was nominated for the Jack Webster Foundation Shelley Frailic award that recognizes a woman journalist’s contribution to her community. Ms Brooke wrote the Writing for Business and Journalism Program 36-week curriculum for the Western Academy of Photography in 1991. She won in the McGeachy Prize in Journalism at the University of Saskatchewan in 1981.
Ms Brooke made a point of following Horgan’s political career in the region not only for the news stream but for documenting the trajectory of one of BC’s most influential politicians.
===== RELATED:
- Pacific Economic Development Canada issues $677,800 to Royal Roads (March 18, 2025)
- New Royal Roads undergrad programs: parent webinar Feb 11, student open house Mar 1 (February 10, 2025)
- Royal Roads University launches phased undergrad programs at Langford & Colwood campuses (February 4, 2025)
- Horgan keeps one foot in the west shore (November 23, 2023)
- Horgan in Sooke for his last constituency speech, announces big health-care prize (March 18, 2023)
- Foundational day for Royal Roads West Shore campus (February 1, 2023)
- Post-secondary education expanding for students on the Westshore (August 1, 2022)
- NEWS SECTIONS: POST SECONDARY EDUCATION | SOUTH VANCOUVER ISLAND