VICTORIA – British Columbia’s NDP Leader John Horgan says cataract surgery cleared his blurry vision this year while his party sharpened its focus on attacking the Liberal government’s weaknesses.

“I was watching hockey and I couldn’t see the puck,” he said in a year-end interview with The Canadian Press.

Horgan said his party scored major points in the legislature by exposing the government’s lapses in child protection and its practice of deleting potentially sensitive emails involving the investigation of missing and murdered women along the so-called Highway of Tears.

“People say to me they are more aware of the shortcomings of the Clark government than they were a year ago,” Horgan said. “I characterize that as success on our part.”

The NDP focused attention on the death of 18-year-old Alex Gervais, who fell from a hotel window in Abbotsford last September while in the care of the Children’s Ministry. The teen’s death while he was housed alone prompted reviews by the government and B.C.’s independent children’s representative, who has said Gervais likely took his own life.

Horgan said the NDP will continue its calls for the resignation of Children’s Minister Stephanie Cadieux over that case.

“There needs to be new eyes,” Horgan said.

He noted Premier Christy Clark’s order in October that all cabinet ministers and political staff save emails came after a stinging report by the province’s information and privacy commissioner and the NDP’s pursuit of documents through freedom of information requests.

Elizabeth Denham’s report highlighted negligent searches for records, the government’s failure to keep adequate email records, a failure to document searches and the wilful destruction of records.

She identified major information failures in the premier’s office and two of her government ministries.

The issue came to light when government whistleblower Tim Duncan said his supervisor in the Transportation Ministry deleted emails involving the Highways of Tears investigation.

Horgan said Duncan approached the NDP, but he was sent to the privacy commissioner when Opposition requests for documents yielded nothing.

Denham’s report called on the government to document key decisions.

“We exposed this triple-delete scandal not just by happenstance, but by asking for information we knew existed,” Horgan said. “I had always known that good research will get you good results but it seems to be the gift that kept on giving. The government, this year, has had a bad year.”

Horgan said support for public education will become one of the major issues for his party during the coming year and leading up to the May 2017 election campaign.

He said he will continue to support energy alternatives to the Liberals’ $9-billion Site C hydroelectric dam but refused to say if he would halt the project already underway or continue building if he wins the election.

The Peace River dam is an example of the government’s 1950s thinking at the expense of modern-day energy solutions, Horgan said.

He said Crown-owned BC Hydro is projecting reduced power needs, but Clark is pushing ahead with Site C.

“The rush is she wants to get her picture taken with some people wearing hard hats. That is not a good enough reason to spend $9 billion.”

Energy Minister Bill Bennett called Horgan’s plans “asinine,” but the NDP leader said voters are offering their support.

Horgan said photos he posted on Facebook of his visit to a solar power project at the T’Sou-ke Nation in his Victoria-area riding have generated almost 50,000 responses, the most of anything he’s posted since becoming NDP leader in the spring of 2014.

“People understand,” he said. “This (solar project) is on rainy Vancouver Island. Imagine what we can do in Penticton.”