10. Christy Clark

B.C. Premier

Age: 50 | 2014: #2It hasn’t exactly been a banner year for the premier. Her support for LNG and the infrastructure needed to get it to market has been dealt a blow by the drop in energy prices, which may be dragging the country into recession. Putting the region’s transit future to a referendum—thus allowing voters to nix tax increases for improved mass transit—has, say critics, doomed the Lower Mainland to a congested, automotive future. The plan to close the Burrard Bridge for downward dog day, cancelled due to public ridicule, was a PR disaster, as were a number of her  tone-deaf tweets.The list of political sins goes on: the firing of Ministry of Health workers (one of whom committed suicide) and government claims of an RCMP investigation that never existed; tardy response to the summer’s forest fires; the Site C dam controversy; a disappointing attempt to update B.C.’s liquor laws; insensitive treatment of First Nations; the unexplained disappearance of 30 years’ worth of education records; an Abbotsford teen who fell to his death through the cracks in the provincial child-care system; even Arvind Gupta’s messy departure from the president’s office at UBC (the board is stacked with provincial appointees)—all attest to a government with a knack for getting it wrong.That said, B.C., compared to other provinces, is in sound financial shape. And Christy Clark may be down, but that doesn’t mean she’s out, as she showed a couple of years ago in the last election, when the NDP were riding high and it was assumed the Liberals didn’t stand a chance.

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