Popham back as ag minister

What’s old is new again with Premier David Eby’s choice of Saanich South MLA Lana Popham as agriculture minister.

Popham returns to a role from which Eby shuffled her in December 2022 in favour of Pam Alexis, who lost her seat in October’s provincial election.

Popham’s efforts to cultivate connections during her first term as agriculture minister won her friends across the Fraser Valley in the wake of the atmospheric river events that flooded Sumas Prairie in 2021, though she came under fire elsewhere in the province for the speed of government’s response to the disaster.

Popham saw her first term as something of a golden age for agriculture thanks to a high level of public interest in the food supply and farming driven by the pandemic and the successive environmental disasters that provided the backdrop for her term, including record-setting wildfires, drought and flooding.

But she also acknowledged that she, like many of her cabinet colleagues, represented urban ridings divorced from rural concerns.

This is why the appointment of Vernon-Monashee MLA Harwinder Sandhu as parliamentary secretary for agriculture was hailed in some quarters as promising a balanced approach to agricultural policy in the new government.

BC Potato and Vegetable Association president Bill Zylmans is optimistic, however.

“I’ve got a minister I’ve worked with in the past,” he said, emphasizing the continuity possible.

This wasn’t the case with Alexis, who admitted she had much to learn about the sector despite representing the Mission-Abbotsford riding, one of the most agriculturally productive ridings in the country.

Popham’s counterpart in the Opposition benches is Delta South MLA Ian Paton, shadow minister of agriculture for the BC Conservatives.

Also of interest to farmers is the appointment of Sunshine Coast MLA Randene Neill to Water, Land and Resource Stewardship, where she’ll be overseeing groundwater licensing. Langford-Juan de Fuca MLA Ravi Parmar will oversee Forests, a role of particular interest to ranchers.

While detailed mandate letters have yet to be issued, the new cabinet has been instructed to focus on reducing costs for families, strengthening health care, making communities safer and building a clean economy.

“They expect us to focus on the challenges they worry about at the kitchen table,” Eby told the newly appointed cabinet, without once mentioning the food served on those tables.