Rich Coleman: Aldergrove's MLA for 24 years

Before Victoria, there was a community centre. In the 1980s Rich Coleman was in the Aldergrove Kinsmen Club, and his Legislative Assembly biography credits him with overseeing the volunteer fundraising and construction of the Aldergrove Kinsmen Community Centre, which held a preschool, library, gym space and meeting rooms. Langley named him its Volunteer of the Year in 1988. Eight years later he was Aldergrove’s MLA, and he kept a Langley seat for six straight elections.

Before politics

Wikipedia says Coleman was born in Nelson and finished high school in Penticton in 1971. The Legislature’s member biographies describe him as a former RCMP officer and security specialist who later ran a real estate management and consulting company. His community record, also from those biographies, reads like a Fraser Valley service club roll: governor of the BC Kinsmen, president of the Aldergrove Chamber of Commerce, director of several volunteer boards, and a life member of the Kinsmen. His 2001 biography says he and his wife lived in Aldergrove.

He holds Rotary’s Paul Harris Fellowship and the Kinsmen’s Hal Rogers Fellowship; the Legislature notes he was only the second person to receive the Hal Rogers honour after the Kin founder himself. He also received the Canada 125 Medal and, in 2003, the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal.

In office, year by year

• 1996 Elected MLA for Fort Langley-Aldergrove. In opposition until 2001 he was housing critic, deputy forests critic and caucus whip.
• 2001 Re-elected. Named Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General on June 5, 2001.
• 2005 Re-elected. Minister of Forests and Range and Minister Responsible for Housing from June 16, 2005.
• 2008 Minister of Housing and Social Development from June 23, 2008 to October 25, 2010. He also covered Public Safety again from April 27 to June 10, 2009.
• 2010 Back to Public Safety and Solicitor General (plus Housing) from October 25. On December 1 he told reporters he would not run to succeed Gordon Campbell as party leader, saying, as CBC put it, that he did not want to take time away from his family.
• 2011 Minister of Energy and Mines and Minister Responsible for Housing in Christy Clark's first cabinet (March 14).
• 2012 Deputy Premier from September 5, 2012, and Minister of Energy, Mines and Natural Gas.
• 2013 Re-elected for a fifth term. Minister of Natural Gas Development and Housing, still deputy premier.
• 2017 Elected in the new Langley East riding. Back to Energy and Mines and deputy premier from June 12 until the government changed on July 18. Interim party leader and Leader of the Opposition from August 2017.
• 2018 Handed the leadership to Andrew Wilkinson in February.
• 2020 On February 29 he announced he would not run again. The date, CBC reported, marked 24 years since his first nomination.

The dates above come from the Legislative Library’s cabinet lists. The Legislature also records that he vice-chaired the cabinet working group on liquefied natural gas, sat on Treasury Board, and served as BC’s military liaison with the Canadian Armed Forces.

The record, as reported

Most of what Coleman is remembered for in Victoria sits in housing and energy, the two files he held longest. His years as the minister responsible for gaming were examined after he left office. The Commission of Inquiry into Money Laundering in British Columbia, in its June 2022 final report, found that by 2010 he knew of warnings that casinos were being used to launder money and had arranged an independent review of anti-money-laundering measures, and concluded that “more could have been done” by him and a later minister. In 2020, CBC reported Coleman’s position that the government had done “everything we could” on the issue.

After the Legislature

Langley East went to the NDP’s Megan Dykeman in 2020; Global News noted Coleman had held the seat and its predecessor since 1996 and won it by more than 7,500 votes in 2017.

In 2022 he ran for mayor of the Township of Langley after Jack Froese retired. Eric Woodward won, and CBC’s results coverage described Coleman as the former cabinet minister who did not win the mayor’s chair.

Related pages

• Langley in public life
• Langley’s MLAs today
• Aldergrove guide

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