Prince Edward Island’s former agriculture minister is again its current ag minister, in a post-election cabinet shuffle by returning Premier Dennis King.
Bloyce Thompson, MLA for the district of Stanhope-Marshfield since 2019 and ag minister from 2019 until last summer, was again appointed April 14 as King’s minister of agriculture, justice and public safety and attorney general.
King’s shuffle also decouples what was until now the ministry of agriculture and land. The latter file now goes to a “realigned” department of housing, land and communities, to be led by Rob Lantz, the rookie Progressive Conservative MLA for Charlottetown-Brighton.
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The new housing, land and communities department is expected to be “working closely with municipalities on developing a provincewide land-use plan” for Prince Edward Island, the government said in a release.
Thompson, a third-generation dairy farmer and former board member with Dairy Farmers of P.E.I., was first named ag minister as a rookie MLA following the April 2019 provincial election, in which he unseated incumbent premier Wade MacLauchlan.
King last July had shuffled Thompson over to the economic growth, tourism and culture portfolios, and replaced him on the agriculture and land, justice and public safety files with then-finance minister Darlene Compton.
Compton, who’d been the province’s first female ag minister, has been shuffled out of cabinet in King’s April 14 announcement. Thompson also becomes deputy premier, a role Compton had held since 2019.
“This team is a mix of experience and new perspectives, geographically represents our island, and has a record number of women serving as members of executive council,” King said in his release.
Both Thompson and Compton easily won their ridings in the April 3 provincial election. Thompson held his constituency of Stanhope-Marshfield with 2209 votes, a spread of 1,643 votes over his lone challenger, NDP candidate Marian White.
New deputy
Separately on April 14, King also announced changes to the senior civil service, including the formal appointment of Brian Matheson as deputy minister of agriculture, effective April 17.
Having already served as acting deputy minister of agriculture and land since 2019, Matheson has been with the provincial ag department for about three decades, most recently as director of policy and agriculture resources since 2015.
Matheson has taken part in national policy and regulatory discussions and negotiations at the federal/provincial/territorial table over the past five years as part of his policy and regulatory responsibilities, the province noted.
As the province’s seniormost ag bureaucrat, Matheson replaces Laurie Loane, who left the deputy minister post in 2019 to return to her previous job as executive director of the P.E.I. Agriculture Sector Council. — Glacier FarmMedia Network
