John Barlow, MP for the southwestern Alberta riding of Foothills, was named Wednesday as the Conservatives’ “shadow minister” for agriculture, agri-food and food security.

Pierre Poilievre, who was named Sept. 10 as the official opposition party’s new leader, named Barlow to a shadow cabinet of 51 shadow ministers and 20 associate shadow ministers from a 118-member caucus.

Barlow — who in February announced his endorsement for Poilievre’s leadership bid — is no stranger to the agriculture file, having served as then-leader Andrew Scheer’s associate ag critic (2017-18) and lead ag critic (2019-20).

The party’s next leader, Erin O’Toole, dropped Barlow from the shadow cabinet in September 2020 — replacing him with southwestern Ontario MP Lianne Rood — but then brought Barlow back as ag critic last November.

(Rood is also in Poilievre’s shadow cabinet, as his critic for the feds’ regional development agencies operating in southern, central and eastern Ontario.)

Born in Regina, Barlow worked as a newspaper editor in southern Alberta before entering politics. He came to the Commons in 2014 in a byelection for the riding then known as Macleod, replacing Ted Menzies following the latter’s resignation in 2013, and has since been re-elected three times in what’s now Foothills.

Poilievre’s shadow cabinet also gives Barlow two associate shadow ministers for agriculture. One, Richard Lehoux, MP for the Quebec riding of Beauce, previously served as an associate ag critic for Scheer and deputy ag critic for O’Toole.

Lehoux, a dairy producer before entering federal politics, served as mayor (1998-2017) of Saint-Elzear, about 60 km south of Quebec City, as reeve (2000-17) for the regional county municipality (MRC) of Nouvelle-Beauce and as president (2014-17) of the Federation Quebecoise des municipalites (FQM).

The second new associate shadow minister is Warren Steinley, MP for the largely suburban riding of Regina-Lewvan, who until this week was the party’s critic for Prairie economic development and interprovincial trade.

Steinley, who grew up on a dairy and beef operation at Rush Lake, northeast of Swift Current, came to the Commons in 2019 off an eight-year run as a provincial MLA for the governing Saskatchewan Party. He previously served as an intern to the federal agriculture minister and later as director of research for the Saskatchewan Party caucus office.

Other appointees to Poilievre’s shadow cabinet of interest to farmers include B.C. MP Mark Strahl (transport, with associate critic Dan Muys), Quebec MP Gerard Deltell (environment, with associate critic Robert Kitchen), Ontario MP Michael Chong (foreign affairs), Ontario MP Kyle Seeback (international trade) and Edmonton MP Matt Jeneroux (supply chain issues).

Poilievre, in Wednesday’s release, pledged his shadow cabinet would fight tax hikes and “tackle the cost-of-living crisis so that young people can buy a home, families can afford nutritious food, and our seniors can retire with dignity.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Lianne Rood, the rookie MP for the riding of Lambton-Kent-Middlesex, was named Tuesday by fellow southern Ontario MP Erin O’Toole to replace southwestern Alberta MP John Barlow as the Conservatives’ shadow minister for agriculture.

Rood, who held the riding for the Conservatives in last October’s election following the retirement of former Commons ag committee chair Bev Shipley, had served since December last year as Barlow’s deputy critic on the ag file.

Rood, who studied criminology and sociology at the University of Windsor, is no stranger to federal ag policy, having worked as a political staffer for then-prime minister Stephen Harper’s government for six years.

After university she worked for Shipley, and later as a special assistant for then-agriculture minister Gerry Ritz, and for Saskatchewan MP David Anderson during his stint as parliamentary secretary for agriculture.

Rood is credited by the Conservatives as having helped at that time to develop Ritz’s Bill C-18, the Marketing Freedom for Grain Farmers Act, which in 2012 deregulated the Canadian Wheat Board’s single marketing desk for Prairie wheat and barley.

Rood was also raised on and continues to be involved in the operation of her family’s potato farm at Grand Bend, Ont., about 70 km northeast of Sarnia.

“The past several months have been difficult for all of Canada and the agriculture industry is no different,” Rood said in a release Tuesday. “Agriculture is vital to this country and our food security has to be a top priority.”

Rood had backed O’Toole in his campaign to replace Andrew Scheer as the federal Conservatives’ leader. Barlow, a supporter of runner-up Peter MacKay in last month’s leadership race, was dropped Tuesday from the Conservatives’ shadow cabinet.

Among other Conservative critic posts of interest to farmers, British Columbia MPs Tracy Gray and Dan Albas will handle the international trade and environment files, respectively; Ontario MPs Michael Chong and John Nater, foreign affairs and rural economic development, respectively; and Calgary MP Stephanie Kusie, transport.

Quebec MP Luc Berthold, who served as Conservative ag critic from 2017 to 2019 and had also backed MacKay’s leadership bid, was named Tuesday as O’Toole’s shadow minister for the Treasury Board. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Dominique Anglade, who was named last month as the Liberals’ new leader, on Tuesday appointed Jean Rousselle, MNA for the Laval-area riding of Vimont, as the party’s critic for public safety and for agriculture.

Rousselle, the Liberals’ critic for labour since October 2018 and for “integrity in public procurement” since last July, has held Vimont for the Liberals in three elections since 2012.

Before entering provincial politics, he worked as a police officer in Laval for 30 years, from 1976 to 2006.

During the Liberals’ previous stint in government, he served as parliamentary assistant for municipal affairs (2014-16, 2017-18) and for public security (2016-18). Previously, on the opposition benches, he was the Liberals’ critic for housing (2012-14) and, briefly in 2014, for sports and recreation.

As official opposition critic for agriculture, Rousselle replaces Marie Montpetit, who had also served since late 2018 as vice-chair of the assembly’s committee for agriculture, fisheries, energy and natural resources, and as critic for the environment.

Anglade on Tuesday shuffled Montpetit, the MNA for the Montreal riding of Maurice-Richard, to the health portfolio.

In the Quebec assembly, Rousselle will face Andre Lamontagne, the governing Coalition Avenir Quebec’s (CAQ) MNA for the southwestern riding of Johnson and the province’s minister of agriculture, fisheries and food since October 2018. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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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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David Anderson, MP for the southwestern Saskatchewan riding of Cypress Hills-Grasslands since 2000, announced Monday he won’t seek re-election on Oct. 21.

Anderson, 61, didn’t give a specific reason for his departure in his statement Monday, other than to say “the time has come to step down,” adding “it has been an honour to serve the people of southwest Saskatchewan and I know I will miss doing so in the future.”

Currently the secretary for human rights and religious freedom in the Conservatives’ shadow cabinet, Anderson said it’s “my expectation that Andrew Scheer and his caucus will form the next government of Canada and I give them my support and best wishes.”

Before entering federal politics, Anderson farmed at Frontier, Sask., about 170 km southwest of Swift Current.

First elected as a Canadian Alliance MP, Anderson was that party’s associate critic for agriculture, behind southern Manitoba MP Howard Hilstrom in the lead chair. He also served as critic for the CWB, a portfolio he also handled after the Alliance’s 2003 merger into the Conservatives.

During the Conservatives’ run in government under Stephen Harper, Anderson sat as parliamentary secretary for the CWB from 2006 to 2013, then as parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs from 2013 to 2015.

Following the Conservatives’ return to official Opposition in 2015, Anderson served briefly (2016-17) as the party’s lead agriculture critic under interim leader Rona Ambrose.

When the CWB’s single marketing desk for Prairie wheat and barley was deregulated in 2012, Harper hailed Anderson in a speech as having “long fought hard for marketing freedom for his fellow farmers.”

Harper also credited Anderson with spearheading the move for formal pardons for Prairie farmers charged with violating the federal CWB Act. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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John Barlow, MP for the southwestern Alberta riding of Foothills, was appointed Friday as lead shadow minister for employment, workforce development and labour by party leader Andrew Scheer.

In a post on Facebook, Scheer said Barlow “will push the Liberals to make sure Canada’s workforce is competitive and ready to prosper in the next generation economy.”

“I look forward to the coming year standing up for the rights of hard-working Canadians and those striving to enter the workforce,” Barlow said in a separate post.

Barlow, elected in 2015, had served as associate ag critic since August last year, backstopping the party’s lead agriculture critic, Quebec MP Luc Berthold, who remains in that post.

A spokesperson for Scheer’s office said Tuesday there are plans to appoint a new deputy shadow minister for agriculture. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Wab Kinew, who was elected Saturday as the leader of the opposition New Democrats, on Thursday named James Allum, the MLA for the Winnipeg riding of Fort Garry-Riverview, as the critic for agriculture.

Allum will also continue to handle the critic files for finance and for growth, enterprise and trade in Kinew’s shadow cabinet.

Kinew on Thursday named former premier Greg Selinger, the MLA for the Winnipeg riding of St. Boniface, as deputy ag critic, as well as deputy critic for environment and climate change behind Wolseley MLA Rob Altemeyer.

Allum, first elected to the legislature in 2011, served in Selinger’s administration for two stints as minister of education and advanced learning (2013-14, 2015-16) and for a six-month period in 2014-15 as minister of justice.

Before entering provincial politics, Allum worked for the City of Winnipeg, where his last post was as manager of aboriginal initiatives in the office of the city’s chief administrative officer.

As agriculture critic, Allum replaces Mohinder Saran, the MLA for the Winnipeg riding of The Maples. Saran, who was tapped as the ag critic in May 2016, was kicked out of the NDP caucus in January and now sits as an independent. — AGCanada.com Network

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The MP for the western Saskatchewan riding of Battlefords-Lloydminster since 1997, Ritz announced via Twitter Thursday morning that he “will not be returning to my seat in the House of Commons this fall.” The Commons resumes sitting Sept. 18.

Ritz, who turned 66 earlier this month, didn’t give a specific reason for his departure in his brief statement. In an interview with the Manitoba Co-operator’s Allan Dawson after the 2015 election, Ritz said his wife didn’t want him to run again, but he had unfinished business on the ag file.

In Thursday’s statement, he thanked his constituents, colleagues in both the House and Senate, the civil service and staff with whom he worked as an MP and as agriculture minister.

“They have all proved themselves to be exceptional people, with the best interest of our great country Canada at heart,” he wrote.

Fellow Saskatchewan Tory MP Randy Hoback thanked Ritz via Twitter on Thursday, replying that Ritz “made being a farmer profitable and cool.” B.C. Tory MP Dan Albas tweeted that the party will miss Ritz’s “stand-up get-it-done style” in caucus.

Ritz, who lives at Brightsand Lake, about 125 km north of North Battleford, most recently served as the Conservatives’ critic for international trade under interim Tory leader Rona Ambrose. He was not on the shadow cabinet roster announced Wednesday by the party’s new leader, fellow Saskatchewan MP Andrew Scheer.

A farmer, general contractor and newspaper publisher, Ritz’s career in federal politics dates back to before the 1993 federal election, when he served as campaign manager for Elwin Hermanson, the Reform Party MP for what was then Kindersley-Lloydminster.

After the 1993 election, Ritz served as constituency co-ordinator for Hermanson. As ag minister, Ritz appointed Hermanson in 2008 to a stint as chief commissioner for the Canadian Grain Commission.

After Hermanson departed for provincial politics, Ritz ran for federal office himself, replacing Hermanson as the Reform Party MP in the 1997 election. He ran successfully under the Canadian Alliance banner in 2000 and has been the Conservative MP since 2004.

Before Harper’s Tories won government in 2006, Ritz served as the associate finance critic (1997-2000), then as associate ag critic (2000-02), deputy whip, (2001-02), public works critic (2002-03) and lead ag critic (2003-04).

After Ritz replaced Chuck Strahl as the Tories’ minister for agriculture and the Canadian Wheat Board in 2007, he oversaw a long-time Tory policy goal through to completion, leading the deregulation of the CWB’s single marketing desk for Prairie wheat and barley and the privatization of the CWB into what’s now G3 Canada.

Elsewhere on the long list of Ritz’s impacts on Canada’s ag sector, he was one of the point men in the federal response against the U.S. government’s mandatory country-of-origin labelling (COOL) law, leading to the law’s eventual repeal on beef and pork in late 2015 following years of challenges and appeals at the World Trade Organization.

Ritz, as ag minister, also helped spearhead the federal response to a massive rail freight backlog on Prairie grain, legislating mandatory minimum grain handles and expanded interswitching on Canada’s Big Two railways in 2014.

He also oversaw the government’s construction of the Growing Forward ag policy funding framework (2008-13) and its successor, GF2 (2013-18). GF and GF2, jointly funded by the federal, provincial and territorial governments, both evolved from the previous Liberal government’s repackaging of agriculture supports and risk management programming into the Agriculture Policy Framework (APF) in 2003. –– AGCanada.com Network

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Andrew Scheer, elected in May as the Tories’ new leader, on Wednesday announced his first shadow cabinet with Luc Berthold, the MP for Megantic-L’Erable, as agriculture and agri-food critic and John Barlow, MP for the southwestern Alberta riding of Foothills, as associate ag critic.

When the House of Commons resumes sitting Sept. 18, Berthold replaces southwestern Saskatchewan MP David Anderson as agriculture critic.

Neither Anderson nor Gerry Ritz — a fellow Saskatchewan MP and the Tories’ last agriculture minister in Stephen Harper’s government — were named to Scheer’s shadow cabinet Wednesday. Chris Warkentin, the ag critic before Anderson, remains in his post as deputy opposition House leader and question period co-ordinator.

Berthold, a leadership coach and trainer since 2013, came into federal politics in the October 2015 election, winning the seat held since 2006 by Christian Paradis, a Tory cabinet minister — including a stint as minister of state for agriculture — who opted not to run again.

Berthold, whose riding includes the communities of Thetford Mines and Lac Megantic, served as an assistant critic for infrastructure and communities and, from last October until now, as an assistant critic for transport and rail safety.

Before entering politics Berthold worked as a reporter for Thetford Mines radio station CKLD (now Passion 105.5) and as an editor for the community’s Courrier Frontenac newspaper before becoming a press attache for provincial Liberal MNA Nathalie Normandeau.

After the Quebec Liberals regained government in 2003, Berthold gradually levelled up to interim communications director for the party. He also entered local politics in 2006 when he was elected mayor of Thetford Mines, a post from which he stepped down in 2013.

Barlow, the new associate ag critic, grew up in the Regina area and also worked as a journalist and editor, at Alberta newspapers including the High River Times and the Okotoks Western Wheel.

Barlow later became senior editor for the southern Alberta region for Great West Newspapers (a joint venture between Jamison Newspapers and Glacier Media, owner of this website) before entering federal politics in June 2014, winning a byelection to replace retiring Tory MP Ted Menzies in what was then the Macleod riding.

Barlow held the riding, now renamed Foothills, for the Tories in 2015 and served from last October until now as the party’s critic for interprovincial trade. He also served as vice-chair for the Commons standing committee on natural resources.

Describing the overall critics’ cabinet as “united, energized and diverse,” Scheer said Wednesday the party will “arrive in Ottawa in the fall with one clear message to Canadians: that we are ready to form the next government of Canada.”

Among other portfolios of interest to farmers, Ontario MP Dean Allison will be Scheer’s critic for international trade; Saskatchewan MP Kelly Block, for transport; Abbotsford MP Ed Fast, environment and climate change; and British Columbia MP Dan Albas, for small business. — AGCanada.com Network

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NDP leader Tom Mulcair on Thursday announced Ruth Ellen Brosseau, the MP for the central Quebec riding of Berthier–Maskinonge since 2011, as the party’s critic for agriculture and agri-food, replacing defeated Niagara-area MP Malcolm Allen.

Brosseau, now 31, was among the crop of rookie Quebec MPs the party brought forward in 2012 to develop their chops in critic and deputy critic portfolios, after they’d rode an orange wave into official Opposition in the 2011 election.

An assistant manager at a Carleton University campus pub in Ottawa before the 2011 election, Brosseau as a candidate gained brief national notoriety that year for sticking to her pre-election plans for a Vegas vacation in the middle of the campaign.

She’d been viewed as a “parachute” candidate — a longshot dropped into Berthier–Maskinonge to keep the NDP on the ballot there against a Bloc Quebecois incumbent — and was also ribbed after the election for having limited French, at the time, in a solidly francophone riding.

Working with Allen on the agriculture file, however, Brosseau devoted time to the development of a Canadian food strategy, a prominent NDP initiative. She also served as vice-chair of the Commons standing committee on agriculture and agri-food for just over a year starting in February 2014.

As deputy ag critic, Brosseau also took point on issues facing the agrifood industry such as farms’ and processors’ access to temporary foreign workers, compensation for dairy producers following the signing of the Canada/EU free trade agreement, and food waste.

With the NDP now returned to second-opposition status, Mulcair has also brought forward rookies to serve on critic files of interest to farmers, including Tracey Ramsey, MP for the southern Ontario riding of Essex and, pre-election, a Ford employee, as trade critic.

Other critics on files of interest to farmers include Christine Moore, the MP for Abitibi–Temiscamingue since 2011, handling rural affairs, and Linda Duncan, an Edmonton MP since 2008, handling the transport portfolio. — AGCanada.com Network

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