After the caucus coup that felled NDP Leader Carole James last December, attention quickly shifted to potential successors. Mike Farnworth's name was on most everyone's list.
Since arriving on the provincial scene in 1991, the MLA from Port Coquitlam-Burke Mountain had crafted an enviable political résumé. He served in various cabinet posts during the late 1990s, often being sent in to clean up messes left by others. He would be a victim of the great Liberal landslide in 2001, but returned to the provincial scene in 2005 and became one of Ms. James's chief lieutenants. He was named NDP House leader and was easily the party's most able communicator.
That Mr. Farnworth is gay isn't entirely a secret. But he is an intensely private person and even reporters who have known him since he first arrived in Victoria know very little about his life beyond the confines of the legislature. He certainly isn't open about his sexuality in the way, say, that gay Liberal MLA Lorne Mayencourt was during his time in government.
So when it came to pondering the many factors a potential leadership candidate has to consider before taking the plunge, one that Mr. Farnworth had to mull was the intrusion into his private life his candidacy would trigger. He was also aware of the questions his candidacy would prompt, among them: Is B.C. ready for an openly gay party leader and potential premier?
He has to win his party's leadership first, of course, but he has an excellent chance of doing that. It should also be acknowledged that NDP leadership candidate Nicholas Simons is also gay but few give him any realistic shot at winning. Gays are no strangers to politics today but gay leaders are. There has been at least one gay premier in Canada, although New Brunswick's Richard Hatfield remained in the closet throughout his career. No openly gay person has ever been elected premier.
While B.C. is widely considered progressive-minded, home of the first openly gay MP in Canada, Svend Robinson, and a jurisdiction where the ascension of a gay premier would seem mostly likely, not everyone is convinced that the province is as open-minded as many perceive it to be.
Dave Brindle, a gay broadcaster, journalist and writer living in Lund, B.C., says he often received calls when hosting his radio show in Vancouver from listeners who voice their disdain for his sexual orientation. And this, he said, was in a so-called gay-friendly city.
"So the idea of an openly gay leader of one of the province's political parties, let alone a gay premier, is certainly not going to be welcome," Mr. Brindle said.
"When you look outside of the urban centres to some of the areas where the NDP draws some of its traditional support – the tough, union-strong mining and mill towns of the Interior and the Coast, it's going to be a tough sell. Union members aren't just teachers and government workers, who might be more progressive in accepting a gay leader. There are rednecks in the union."
Beyond that, Mr. Brindle said, there are some people within certain ethnic groups, particularly the Indo and Chinese community, who are not accepting of a gay lifestyle. He wonders if NDP supporters within these groups can embrace a gay leader.
While Mr. Mayencourt thinks people's attitudes towards gays have evolved to the point that a person's sexual orientation isn't much of a factor in politics, the former Liberal MLA agrees that it stubbornly remains an issue within certain cultural groups.
"Absolutely," he said. "So the issue will be whether the Indo-Canadian community and the Chinese community can look past this. I think they can. I hope so anyway. Once in a while I still hear on Chinese radio some unflattering comments based on sexual orientation and such but overall I don't think people care all that much."
You would expect Spencer Chandra Hebert, an openly gay NDP MLA who represents the riding with the greatest number of gay residents in it, to tilt toward the view that sexual orientation is a non-story in 2011. But he doesn't.
"It shouldn't be an issue today but it is," he said. "Yesterday retrieving messages on my constituency phone someone left a message full of homophobic slurs, things like fag and that and saying that we are worthless people. I was walking down the street holding hands with my partner and someone we passed decided to cross themselves like we were vampires, like they were visibly trying to ward us off. So that attitude still exists."
Still, he thinks there are far more people in the province for whom a person's sexual orientation, even that of a potential premier, isn't a concern.
Mike Farnworth is aware of all this. He knows there are British Columbians who, for any number of reasons, can't accept gays. There really isn't much he can do about that, he told me. He certainly isn't going to spend energy trying to change their minds.
It's ironic because Mr. Farnworth so obviously defies the old, outdated stereotype that some still have about gay men. He portrays an image of a somewhat tough, rugged guy whose big issue the past couple of years has been cracking down on crime. He lives in the suburbs with his partner of 22 years, Doug, and not in downtown Vancouver.
Mr. Farnworth said he's never hidden the fact he's gay, as some in the gay community have suggested, just he's never felt it was something he needed to trumpet. He's never defined himself by his sexual persuasion. He's never been a proponent of identity politics.
Whom he sleeps with at night shouldn't matter to a voter. What he does on their behalf should. We may soon get to see if that is true.
Gary Mason