Rachel Notley, leader of the province’s opposition New Democrats, on Monday announced her shadow cabinet and named Lorne Dach, MLA for Edmonton-McClung, as the party’s ag critic.

Dach came to the legislature in the 2015 election with a political science degree and about 30 years’ experience as a real estate broker.

Before entering provincial politics Dach also served on the board of homeEd, the city’s non-profit housing corporation, and as a volunteer probation officer with the Alberta solicitor general’s court intake unit.

During the NDP’s term in government, Dach served as deputy chair of the standing committee on public accounts and deputy chair of the standing committee on legislative offices.

In the province’s April 16 election, Dach held his west Edmonton riding by a margin of over 1,400 votes against United Conservative challenger Laurie Mozeson — and by over 4,400 votes against Alberta Party leader and former Edmonton mayor Stephen Mandel.

As ag critic, Dach will face Innisfail-Sylvan Lake MLA Devin Dreeshen, who Premier Jason Kenney named April 30 as agriculture and forestry minister, when the legislature reconvenes May 21.

Other shadow cabinet appointments relevant to the agriculture file include Edmonton MLAs Marlin Schmidt as environment critic, Rod Loyola as transportation critic and Thomas Dang as infrastructure critic, and Calgary MLA Joe Ceci as municipal affairs critic. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Jason Kenney, sworn in Tuesday as premier, named Devin Dreeshen, the MLA for Innisfail-Sylvan Lake since last July, to handle the ag and forestry file.

Dreeshen came to the UCP’s opposition benches in a byelection following the resignation of UCP MLA Don MacIntyre and was named the opposition critic for trade. In the April 16 general election, Dreeshen easily won re-election by a spread of over 15,000 votes against NDP challenger Robyn O’Brien.

Dreeshen, the son of federal Conservative MP Earl Dreeshen, is today billed as a fifth-generation owner of the family’s farm near Pine Lake, about 30 km southeast of Red Deer.

He studied economics and political science at the University of Alberta, then served briefly as a legislative assistant in the provincial transportation and infrastructure ministry, before working from 2008 to 2015 in the office of then-federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz.

Dreeshen worked for Ritz in “issues management” and as a policy advisor on matters of grain transportation and international trade, particularly on the former Conservative government’s deregulation of Prairie wheat and barley marketing.

After the federal Conservatives’ defeat in 2015, Dreeshen returned to Alberta and joined the board of the pro-deregulation farmer group the Western Canadian Wheat Growers in 2016, serving there as a director up until his run in the 2018 provincial byelection.

According to his biography on the UCP caucus website, he then also hung out his shingle as a consultant advising ag sector stakeholders on trade issues.

Dreeshen was also documented as having worked for several months in 2016 in the U.S. as a volunteer on the election campaign of President Donald Trump. That stint isn’t mentioned in Dreeshen’s MLA biography but his byline appears on a November 2016 article for the Ottawa-based Hill Times describing his travels on the Trump campaign’s behalf.

Asked later about the experience by an Edmonton reporter for the Toronto Star, Dreeshen said he “met a lot of really great people and I think that those contacts now, as an MLA, will just serve me better to reach out and they’re our largest trading partner.”

The Wheat Growers’ current Alberta vice-president, Stephen Vandervalk, hailed Dreeshen’s appointment Tuesday as ag minister, saying it’s “appropriate that as we anticipate improvements to agriculture policy in Alberta, that we have an active farmer in the role of minister.”

Team Alberta, representing the province’s wheat, barley, pulse and canola grower commissions, said Tuesday it’s “eager to work with the new minister, the department of agriculture and forestry and the Agriculture Financial Services Corporation (AFSC) on matters that impact Alberta farmers.”

The provincial legislative assembly is scheduled to reconvene May 21.

Top bureaucrat remains

Kenney on Tuesday also announced the new members of the provincial deputy ministers’ council, which consists of the chief public servant for each provincial ministry.

Andre Corbould, who then-premier Rachel Notley named in March last year as deputy minister for agriculture and forestry, remains in that position as the ag ministry’s top bureaucrat.

Kenney’s other cabinet appointments Tuesday included Travis Toews, the rookie MLA for Grande Prairie-Wapiti, a cattle rancher and former president (2010-12) of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, as minister of finance.

Among other portfolios of interest to farmers, rookie Calgary MLA Tanya Fir has been named as the new minister for economic development, trade and tourism; Jason Nixon, MLA for Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre since 2015 and former opposition house leader, as environment minister; and Ric McIver, a Calgary MLA since 2012, as transportation minister, a re-appointment to that file.

As ag minister, Dreeshen will replace the New Democrats’ Oneil Carlier, who was defeated April 16 in his riding of Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland by UCP challenger Shane Getson. The NDP’s shadow cabinet hasn’t yet been announced. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Oneil Carlier, the provincial NDP government’s minister of agriculture and forestry since May 2015 and deputy government house leader since February 2016, was unseated in his riding of Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland by UCP challenger Shane Getson, an energy project consultant and civil engineering technologist.

With 90 of 92 polls reporting, Getson was well ahead in the vote count, drawing 13,684 votes to Carlier’s 4,883.

With 7,148 of 7,328 polls reporting so far provincewide, the UCP was elected or leading in 63 of 87 ridings with 55.1 per cent of the popular vote, followed by the NDP in 24 ridings with 32.2 per cent of the popular vote.

Kenney, uniting the province’s Progressive Conservatives and Wildrose Party under the UCP banner, took the party to a decisive majority government, up from a combined 31 seats in 2015. The provincial Liberals lost their lone riding, Calgary Mountain View, to the NDP.

The UCP on Tuesday night was also the clear winner in the province’s rural ridings, elected or leading in all constituencies outside major cities.

With no shortage of rural MLAs, the UCP has several possible candidates to take over from Carlier on the agriculture file — even without former UCP agriculture critic Rick Strankman, who left the party in January to sit as an independent after he was denied the UCP nomination as its 2019 candidate for Drumheller-Stettler.

Strankman ran in that riding as an independent on Tuesday but placed a distant second behind the UCP’s chosen candidate, rancher Nate Horner, by a spread of over 14,000 votes with 99 of 102 polls reporting.

Other high-profile possibilities for the ag portfolio could include:

• rancher and former Canadian Cattlemen’s Association president Travis Toews, who won the riding of Grande Prairie-Wapiti over NDP challenger Shannon Dunfield;
• UCP finance critic Drew Barnes, who held his riding of Cypress-Medicine Hat over NDP challenger Peter Mueller; and
• infrastructure critic Glenn van Dijken, a grain grower, who held his riding of Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock over NDP challenger Therese Taschuk.

On the agriculture file, the UCP’s platform includes a pledge to introduce what it calls the Farm Freedom and Safety Act, to repeal and replace the NDP’s Bill 6, its Enhanced Protection for Farm and Ranch Workers Act.

The UCP, in its platform, pledges to “immediately launch comprehensive consultations with farmers, ranchers, agriculture workers and others on how best to balance the unique economic pressures of farming with the need for a common-sense, flexible farm safety regime,” but also to “ensure basic safety standards.”

It would require employers to maintain workplace insurance for farm workers, but allow employers to choose whether to buy insurance from the market or from the Workers’ Compensation Board, “as long as basic standards of coverage are met for such things as medical and return-to-work support services, and protection against loss of income.”

The UCP said it would also exempt small farms from employment legislation, defining “small” as farms with three or fewer employees over a “substantial period” of the year, not including family members.

On other ag-related files, the UCP said it will “streamline” the province’s crop insurance and farm lending agency, the Agriculture Financial Services Corporation (AFSC), to “improve services and responsiveness to farmers.”

It also pledged to “ensure that farmers, not government, set key agriculture research priorities” and to consult on future land sales “in order to replace good agricultural land lost to urban expansion.” –– Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Premier Rachel Notley on Tuesday put through an order in council appointing Andre Corbould as Alberta’s deputy minister of agriculture and forestry effective Wednesday, replacing Beverly Yee.

Corbould, the province’s deputy minister for environment and parks since February 2016, previously served the same role in ministries including jobs, skills, training and labour; transportation; and municipal affairs, and as chief assistant deputy minister for the southern Alberta flood recovery task force.

According to his biography as a director with the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute, Corbould, a fellow in the Canadian Academy of Engineers, studied civil engineering at the Royal Military College of Canada and also has master’s degrees in management and in defence management and policy.

Reaching the rank of brigadier general during his career in the Forces, Corbould did tours in Iraq, Kuwait, Bosnia, East Timor and Afghanistan, the latter including a stint as deputy commanding general of the U.S. Army 10th Mountain Division.

Domestic operations in which Corbould took part during his career in the Forces included the 1997 flood in Manitoba’s Red River Valley, the Swiss Air recovery mission in 1998, and commanding security operations during the Olympics in 2010.

Yee, the deputy minister for agriculture and forestry since October 2015, moves over to become deputy minister for intergovernmental relations, also effective Wednesday through the same order in council. — AGCanada.com Network

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Beverly Yee was named Thursday as the new deputy minister for agriculture and forestry, replacing Jason Krips.

Yee, who has worked for the province since 1994, has held several executive management positions, the province said. Her most recent posting was as assistant deputy minister for municipal affairs, in the ministry’s Municipal Assessment and Grants division.

Krips moves to become the deputy minister in the province’s new ministry of economic development and trade, which Premier Rachel Notley announced separately Thursday. Edmonton MLA Deron Bilous is the new ministry’s minister. — AGCanada.com Network

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