Alexis, the minister of agriculture and food for David Eby’s New Democrats since late 2022, was defeated in her constituency of Abbotsford-Mission in Saturday night’s election by Conservative challenger Reann Gasper, by a spread of almost 2,700 votes.

If the initial vote count holds, Eby’s NDP will be in a minority government position with just 46 of 93 seats, while John Rustad’s Conservatives captured 45 and Sonia Furstenau’s Greens won two. (Furstenau also lost her own seat, in the riding of Victoria-Beacon Hill.)

Elections BC said Sunday it will conduct a final count from Oct. 26 to 28, at which time official recounts will also take place for two ridings (Juan de Fuca-Malahat and Surrey City Centre) where the spread between the top two candidates in the initial count was smaller than 100 votes.

Alexis, a former mayor (2018-2020) for the Fraser Valley city of Mission, was a rookie MLA when she was named to cabinet in 2022, as Eby replaced John Horgan in the premier’s chair.

As ag minister she replaced Saanich South MLA Lana Popham, who’d handled the ag file since the NDP regained government in 2017.

Popham, who was Eby’s incumbent minister for tourism, arts, culture and sport heading into Saturday’s election, held her seat by a spread of almost 4,900 votes over Conservative challenger Adam Kubel.

The post B.C.’s ag minister downed in fraught election appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Premier David Eby, who assumed the post last month following John Horgan’s resignation, on Wednesday shuffled the provincial cabinet and named Abbotsford-Mission MLA Pam Alexis to handle the ag and food portfolio.

As ag minister, Alexis replaces Saanich South MLA Lana Popham, who had handled the file since 2017. Popham was shuffled Wednesday to the tourism, arts, culture and sport file.

A teacher by profession, Alexis has previously served as a vice-president for the Mission Chamber of Commerce and for the B.C. Winter Games. After a stint as a school trustee (2005-11), she served as a councilor (2014-18) and mayor (2018-20) for the city of Mission.

She moved into provincial politics with the 2020 election, in which she unseated Liberal incumbent Simon Gibson, whose party had held the Abbotsford-Mission riding since its formation in 2009.

“I am thrilled to get started, rolling up my sleeves now,” Alexis, a first-time cabinet minister, said Wednesday on Facebook, adding that having an agriculture minister in the Fraser Valley “will resonate with local residents.”

Relative to its land base, the Fraser Valley plays a significantly outsized role in B.C. agriculture, representing almost a third of the province’s farms and over a third of the province’s gross farm receipts. It also has over a third of the province’s poultry and egg farms and over half of the province’s dairy farms.

Eby’s other cabinet appointments of interest to farmers include:

• North Vancouver-Lonsdale MLA Bowinn Ma, leading a new ministry of emergency management and climate readiness;
• Vancouver-Fairview MLA George Heyman, returning as minister for environment and climate change strategy;
• Surrey-Fleetwood MLA Jagrup Brar, as minister of state for trade;
• Stikine MLA Nathan Cullen, formerly minister of state for lands and natural resource operations, now minister of water, land and resource stewardship (fisheries);
• Parksville-Qualicum MLA and farmer/businessman Adam Walker, formerly parliamentary secretary for the new economy, now parliamentary secretary for sustainable economy; and
• Boundary-Similkameen MLA Roly Russell, returning as parliamentary secretary for rural development.

B.C.’s ag sector, and the Fraser Valley’s in particular, is still recovering from last fall’s destructive floods, which Eby, in his mandate letter to Alexis on Wednesday, described as the largest agricultural disaster in the province’s history.

The province — and again, the Fraser Valley in particular — has also been battered by outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza in its poultry and egg sectors this year.

The province has seen 75 outbreaks of high-path avian flu in domestic birds (poultry and non-poultry) so far in 2022, affecting an estimated 1.18 million birds in total. That count includes 46 outbreaks on commercial poultry operations in the past four weeks alone.

Eby’s mandate letter to Alexis calls for her to continue to work on recommendations of the provincial Food Security Task Force to “make B.C. a leader in agricultural innovation, resilience and food security in the face of emerging challenges of supply chain disruption, global inflation, rising costs and the impacts of climate change.”

The letter also calls for her to “support the resilience of B.C.’s food system through an emergency preparedness strategy for food security,” working with the emergency management and climate readiness ministry.

It also calls on Alexis to “work with industry to identify agricultural best practices that reduce carbon pollution and support their adoption across the sector.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Former Mission, B.C. mayor named province’s ag minister appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.