For all the pent-up excitement released at the cabinet swearing-in Tuesday, there was no overlooking how Premier John Horgan handed out some hugely difficult assignments to the first NDP ministers to hold office in 16 years.
None greater than the one given to Judy Darcy, as Horgan conceded in talking to reporters for his first media conference as premier. It falls to Darcy to establish the stand-alone ministry of mental health and addiction services that the New Democrats promised. It means pulling together programs and clients spread over a half dozen ministries and agencies, never an easy task amid bureaucratic resistance and organizational siloing at the best of times.
At the same time, she needs to address the immediate challenge of out-of-control abuse of opioids, in effect creating a ministry to manage a crisis in the midst of a crisis.
The New Westminster MLA has been in the spotlight before, as national president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees and business manager of the Hospital Employees' Union here in B.C. But not the way she will be in the weeks and months ahead.
She'll have plenty of company around the cabinet table in that regard, starting with her colleague Selina Robinson, MLA for Coquitlam-Maillardville. In appointing Darcy to oversee the new ministry of mental health and addictions, Horgan bypassed Robinson, lately opposition critic for those issues.
But the fallback assignment was scarcely less demanding. Robinson, the former city councillor and therapist is the new minister of municipal affairs and - ahem - housing. No topic loomed larger than housing affordability in the NDP's successful undermining of support for the B.C. Liberals in and around Metro Vancouver over the past two years.
To Robinson now falls the job of doing something about it, amid evidence that the considerable dollars and efforts expended so far have barely dented the problem.
Gone from the file is David Eby, the Vancouver-Point Grey MLA who committed much damage and more than a little mischief in his time as housing critic against the B.C. Liberals.
Eby is the new attorney-general and also inherits responsibility for the troubled Insurance Corp. of B.C. His inbox already includes a draft report on options for addressing the soaring cost of auto insurance, including remedies to curb claims and cap settlements.
But given Eby's history of aggressive legal, social, political activism, his biggest challenge as attorney-general could be showing a measure of balance and fairness.
Horgan took a provocative approach to addressing the NDP's underrepresentation in the North and Interior, appointing three MLAs from those regions to some of the toughest portfolios at the cabinet table.
Kootenay West's Katrine Conroy is the new minister of children and family development, readily the cabinet post with the most depressing storylines: taking kids into custody and breaking up families. Not taking them and running the risk of repeat abuse. Watching them age out of the system and go out into the real world with not nearly enough support.
The New Democrats have ably dramatized all the failings of the existing system under the B.C. Liberals over the years. As minister responsible, Conroy will have a hard time living up to the expectations that she and her colleagues have raised.
Conroy's next-door-neighbour on the electoral map, Nelson-Creston MLA Michelle Mungall, has been an opposition critic on a range of social issues in recent years.
Now she is the new minister of energy, mines and petroleum resources, three of the big-ticket sectors on the resource side of the provincial economy.
The government-supplied resume described Mungall as a former city councillor, community activist and manager for a non-profit, without indicating any particular expertise in the energy, mines and petroleum industry.
But perhaps she is expected to lean heavily on the boss. Horgan built up considerable knowledge on those files during his years as an opposition critic for energy and mines.
Mungall also inherits responsibility for B.C. Hydro.
The other big resource industry portfolio, forests and lands, was assigned to Stikine MLA Doug Donaldson, the lone New Democrat representing a riding in the northern Interior.
He's worked in the forestry industry, including as a consulting biologist, and in other industries in the Northwest, giving him a bit of a head start in understanding the complexities of the industry.
But he'll preside over the NDP's ambitious promises to boost employment and value-added production in the industry, while restoring inventories and the overall health of the resource.
The foregoing shouldn't be taken as anything more than a starter set of the major challenges facing the government.
