Agriculture Minister Lana Popham loves hazelnuts. “Anyone who knows me knows I’m nuts about hazelnuts!” she posted on social media in January.
“Did you know? They are an ideal crop for certain regions and work well in a small plot.”
Popham is equally enthusiastic about B.C. tree-fruit crops, a sector to which she directed $5 million last month. Around Christmas, naturally, she promoted B.C. turkeys. “Buy a B.C. turkey and support your local farmer.”
Her social-media feeds amount to a promotional blitz covering just about every edible product grown in this province. Wine, carrots, B.C. golden beets, Russian red garlic, craft beer, Island cranberries, Brussels sprouts, pumpkins.
The mouth-watering Twitter feed is just what you’d expect from someone heading a commercially oriented ministry aimed at promoting cash crops.
But there’s one gaping hole in her list of enthusiastic endorsements, and it’s the single most valuable food export in B.C. — farmed salmon. That’s because she is an ardent critic of salmon farms, and has been for years.
Popham’s appointment last summer as agriculture minister put her — and B.C. — in an unusual position. The minister responsible for agriculture is completely opposed to one of the most valuable crops in B.C. Specifically, she wants to shut down open-net fish farming in coastal waters, which would dramatically change the industry and almost certainly drastically curtail it.
There aren’t many cabinet ministers who have taken on their portfolios carrying such critical views of a sector that plays such a major role in it. But everybody went into this arrangement with their eyes wide open, so there shouldn’t be any surprises about how it’s working out.
She was a natural pick for Agriculture. She had been designated critic for that portfolio for years in opposition, she has a personal background in agriculture and she’s got a flair for promotion. But she also had a strong record as a critic of fish farms who wasn’t shy about attending rallies against the industry. She held to those views after she was given charge of the ministry, and within three months the clash between beliefs and responsibilities showed up.
Popham as minister served notice on Marine Harvest, a foreign-owned company, that its fish-farm tenures in the Broughton Archipelago were problematic to the new government. The letter, which warned against plans to restock one of the farms at a critical time during First Nations protests and negotiations, was read as a direct threat to the company’s long-standing operations. Controversy ensued and Premier John Horgan had to take over management of the issue in the house.
It resurfaced this week with the release of dozens of pages of background documentation to Postmedia’s Rob Shaw. Mostly, they illustrate a lot of preoccupation by multiple officials over the exact wording and tone of the letter. The intent was to warn the firm about the implications of restocking pens while sensitive negotiations with concerned First Nations were starting.
Early drafts were signed by the deputy minister, not Popham. But eventually, the warning letter to one of the biggest agriculture firms in B.C. was signed by an agriculture minister who is opposed to its business.
It was sent despite the fact that tenure approval has almost nothing to do with her ministry. It’s the responsibility of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations.
One of the documents released was Marine Harvest’s reply, delivered the next day. It pointedly noted that she hadn’t asked protesters who had been occupying one of the sites to leave, and expressed disappointment.
Eleven tenures expire this June. They have been routinely approved for years just on their technical merits, by a designated official, not a politician. That might or might not be the case this time around, but there has been a lot of politics leading up to the call. It’s unusual to see a minister so opposed to such a key sector of her responsibilities. The tenure decision will show how the government as a whole feels about it.
Whatever the Forests Ministry decides, don’t wait to see Popham post a selfie showing her chowing down on a delicious farmed-salmon fillet. They’re worth a half-billion dollars a year to B.C., but they’re not on her endorsement list.
