The Conservative government’s agriculture team in the House of Commons had a new face as Parliament reconvened Oct. 16 to start a new session.
Last week, prime minister Stephen Harper appointed two-term eastern Ontario MP Guy Lauzon as parliamentary secretary to agriculture minister Gerry Ritz. He represents a largely rural riding south of Ottawa.
Former agriculture parliamentary secretary David Anderson from southwestern Saskatchewan was shuffled to the natural resources portfolio, although he retained responsibility as parliamentary secretary for the Canadian Wheat Board.
Appointment of Saskatchewan MP Ritz as minister in August forced the prime minister to shuffle Anderson, because he represents the same province as the new minister.
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Harper had to find balance by giving Ritz a parliamentary assistant from another region.
Ontario is Canada’s largest agricultural province. The Ontario Federation of Agriculture is one of Canada’s most effective farm lobbies and rural Ontario seats are key to government strategies to win a majority in the next election.
Meanwhile, Harper’s shuffle of parliamentary secretaries also produced a promotion for southern Alberta MP Ted Menzies.
He was moved from the international trade file to the more prestigious post of parliamentary secretary to the finance minister with the job of answering economic questions in the House of Commons when finance minister Jim Flaherty is not there.
Southern Manitoba Conservative Brian Pallister was appointed parliamentary secretary on trade issues.
Lauzon, a 63-year-old retired federal employee and entrepreneur, was first elected in 2004. Half of his riding’s 100,000 residents live in the industrial city of Cornwall and the rest are scattered in villages and farms throughout the large riding that borders on Quebec in the east and runs along the St. Lawrence Seaway and to the United States in the south.
Supply management is a major part of his farm sector, although livestock and grain and oilseed producers also are part of the local industry.
One of Lauzon’s private sector jobs before he became an MP was general manager for a soybean processing plant, Tri-County Protein Corp. in Winchester, Ont.
He now will become a member of the Commons agriculture committee, defending and promoting Conservative agricultural policies.
Although he has not been a major parliamentary voice on agricultural issues in the past three years, Lauzon said that as a border MP with farm constituents, BSE and access for Canadian cattle to the American market have been major issues for him.
