RJ Sigurdson, MLA for the constituency of Highwood, just south of Calgary, was sworn in Friday by Lt.-Gov. Salma Lakhani as Alberta’s new minister of agriculture and irrigation, replacing Nate Horner.

Horner, the MLA for Drumheller-Stettler since 2019 and the province’s ag minister since late 2021, was shuffled Friday to become Premier Danielle Smith’s new finance minister and president of Alberta Treasury Board. In that role, Horner replaces Jason Nixon, who in turn was named Friday as minister for seniors and community and social services.

Sigurdson also first came to the legislature in the 2019 election and was named last October as Smith’s parliamentary secretary for EMS reform. He easily held his seat in last month’s provincial election ahead of NDP challenger Jessica Hallam by a spread of 10,450 votes.

Before entering provincial politics, Sigurdson was a senior project/general manager with, and shareholder in, Avalanche Air Systems, a Calgary-area commercial HVAC and sheet metal contracting firm.

Sigurdson’s experience in the ag file includes growing up on a small family farm north of Cochrane and working on neighbouring farms in his teens.

READ MORE: Pre-election reports analyze Alberta’s ag issues

“I am so pleased to have this team working with me to deliver on the promises we made to Albertans during the election,” Smith said of the new 25-member cabinet in a release Friday. “These are not just our government’s priorities, they are Albertans’ priorities.”

Those priorities, the government said, include “continuing to grow and diversify the economy, keeping life affordable, reforming the health care system, tackling crime, providing help for those struggling and defending Alberta’s interests.”

Smith also announced a shuffle of deputy ministers Friday, but Jason Hale, a former MLA (2012-15) and rancher, remains as the province’s senior ag bureaucrat, a position he’s held since last October.

Among other cabinet posts of interest to farmers, former municipal affairs minister Rebecca Schulz becomes minister of environment and protected areas; Matt Jones, former minister for affordability and utilities, becomes minister of jobs, economy and trade; and Devin Dreeshen, a former ag minister, remains in his pre-election portfolio as minister of transportation and economic corridors. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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On a crop-by-crop basis, spring wheat was 96.1 per cent harvested, durum 95.4 per cent, barley 95.6 per cent, peas 98.6 per cent, and canola 91.7 per cent.

Average wheat yields were estimated at 46.9 bushels per acre, barley at 59.7 bushels, oats 78.1, canola 39.7 and peas 40.0. Overall, average yields were about four per cent off the five-year average but two per cent above the 10-year average.

Since the end of August, crop quality deteriorated due to wet conditions. Provincially, crop quality for all crops was below the 5-year averages, with the exception of malt barley and the top two grades of durum wheat and dry peas, which were above their 5-year averages. About 66 per cent of hard red spring wheat graded in the top two grades, with 18 per cent graded as feed quality. About 44 per cent of oats graded number 2 or better. Nearly 23 per cent of barley was eligible for malt and 60 per cent graded as number 1. Almost 68 per cent of harvested canola was graded as number 1, with 17 per cent graded as number 2. About 81 per cent of durum wheat and 83 per cent of dry peas graded in the top two grades, according to the report.

As a result of cool and wet weather conditions in September and the first half of October in most parts of the province, soil moisture reserves were close to normal at the end of October. However, in some parts of the Southern and Peace Regions, there were still pockets of relatively poor moisture reserves.

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The province announced Thursday it will cut the rental fees charged under its annual Water Pumping Program, through which producers, or groups of producers, can rent pipe and pumps to fill dugouts or other suitable catch basins from nearby water sources.

Until now, the going rate this year was $500 per day for rental of a pump ($200) and a trailer carrying a mile’s worth of six-inch aluminum pipe ($300). Where six-inch pipe wasn’t feasible, the going rate until now for a pump and a trailer load of eight-inch pipe was $1,000.

The program is used by between 400 and 1,400 clients each year, the province said Thursday. Its pumping season usually runs from April 1 to Oct. 31.

The 50 per cent fee reduction will apply to anyone who uses the program in the 2015-16 fiscal year, retroactive to April 1, the province said.

The program each year gives priority access to producers “experiencing water shortages for domestic and livestock use.”

The province’s environment ministry said Thursday it will also work with municipalities in dry areas to identify “additional” public lands for grazing purposes and allow temporary grazing or haying permits in “suitable locations.”

“It’s clear that many producers are facing challenges because of the dry conditions this year, and that’s why we are finding common-sense ways to help out farmers during these difficult times,” Ag Minister Oneil Carlier said in a release.

Saskatchewan, where crop and livestock producers are also fighting dry weather this year, recently opened up 90,000 acres of its Fish and Wildlife Development Fund (FWDF) grasslands for temporary grazing.

The Saskatchewan government last month also announced it will allow leaseholders of Crown land to sublet “excess grazing or hay resources” to other producers. — AGCanada.com Network

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Premier Rachel Notley on Sunday named Whitecourt-Ste. Anne MLA Oneil Carlier to the now-expanded portfolio, which takes over responsibility for forestry from the department of environment and sustainable resource development.

Including Notley and 11 ministers — down from 16 and three associates under Premier Jim Prentice — the new cabinet was described Sunday in a government release as “lean and efficient… firmly focused on solving the challenges that face Alberta.”

The new ministers, the government said, “will partner with Alberta’s job creators — in energy, forestry, agriculture, high-tech, tourism and small business — to grow and diversify our economy.”

Carlier is one of several rookie MLAs who rode Notley’s Orange Wave into the legislature in the May 5 election, unseating Prentice’s party whip and caucus chair George VanderBurg, who’d held the riding for the Tories since 2001.

Raised on a cattle and grain operation at Val Marie in southwestern Saskatchewan, Carlier worked as a geotechnical technician for AAFC’s Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration from 1981 to 2002.

At PFRA, he was involved in “construction quality control” on projects such as southern Alberta’s Bassano Dam rehabilitation project and Crawling Valley irrigation project, and was also involved in union affairs with the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

Carlier — who now lives with his wife near Darwell, north of Wabamun Lake — later served in Edmonton as a PSAC regional representative for units including staff with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Environment Canada.

Opposition

In the legislature, Carlier will face a relative veteran in provincial politics, Drumheller-Stettler MLA Rick Strankman, who Wildrose leader Brian Jean named on May 11 as the official opposition critic for agriculture.

Strankman, a grain grower at Altario, Alta., northwest of Kindersley, Sask., and a former treasurer of the Western Barley Growers Association, has held the riding for Wildrose since 2012, handling critic portfolios including skills training and labour, culture and tourism, jobs, and Service Alberta.

Outside Alberta, Strankman is also known for risking jail time for his part in cross-border protests trucking wheat into the U.S. in 1996, in violation of the former Canadian Wheat Board’s single marketing desk on wheat exports.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper pardoned Strankman and 12 others from the Farmers for Justice group in 2012, after deregulating the CWB single desk.

Pledges

The provincial NDP’s platform leading up to this month’s election included a handful of general pledges for the ag sector, such as a review of federal rail and transportation policies for their effect on Alberta farmers, and a push for “reliable, sufficient, and fairly priced rail service to markets.”

The party also promised to “strengthen landowners’ rights for fair compensation and due process” in issues relating to surface rights; to “stand up for farmers’ rights to save and sell their seed;” and to “work with small producers to eliminate barriers to local food production and marketing.”

Notley also pledged a “green retrofitting” loan program to help families, farms and small businesses reduce energy usage affordably, and to “strengthen environmental standards, inspection, monitoring and enforcement to protect Alberta’s water, land and air.”

The NDP has also promised to end Prentice’s “costly and ineffective” carbon capture and storage plan, and to reinvest funds budgeted for the program in 2015-16 into construction of public transit. — AGCanada.com Network

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Premier Jim Prentice on Saturday appointed Verlyn Olson, MLA for Wetaskiwin-Camrose since 2008 and the province’s ag and rural development minister since 2012, as both acting justice minister and solicitor general.

Prentice said his move follows having “asked for and received the resignation” of Calgary-Acadia MLA Jonathan Denis from the justice portfolio.

Prentice said Saturday he was “made aware this morning that legal proceedings have commenced between Jonathan Denis and his estranged wife.”

Denis, Prentice said, was asked to step down from the justice portfolio “given the involvement of the courts.” No further details were given on the nature of the court proceedings.

Olson had just recently returned from sick leave following islet cell transplant surgery, a treatment designed to reduce or eliminate the need for insulin injections in people with severe Type 1 diabetes.

The additional portfolio for Olson comes after the provincial legislature was dissolved on April 7, ahead of an election scheduled for May 5. — AGCanada.com Network

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