Prime minster Stephen Harper has announced a major changing of the senior guard in Agriculture Canada.
Effective Sept. 17, deputy minister John Knubley will move to Industry Canada as deputy minister, replaced by former senior Agriculture Canada policy and trade official Suzanne Vinet.
Knubley, in the most senior Agriculture Canada post for three years, oversaw major policy changes dictated by the Conservative government.
He was a key point person during the preparations to end the CWB monopoly Aug. 1 and co-chaired an industry-government committee set up to plan a grain sector future without the 70-year-old marketing institution.
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He defended the legislation during parliamentary hearings.
He also has been leading federal-provincial negotiations to create the next five-year farm policy program, which will include sharp reductions in farm income support programs.
In fact, Knubley’s last week as Agriculture Canada deputy minister ending Sept. 14 will include work at the federal-provincial ministers’ meeting in Whitehorse, where the Growing Forward 2 framework is to be signed, signaling the program launch April 1, 2013.
And he has overseen the department during a period of sharp budget, personnel and program cuts.
As deputy minister, Knubley was active and available to the industry but otherwise kept a low public profile, refusing all interview requests by insisting that minister Gerry Ritz spoke for the department and he was simply there as support.
“I would say that he was there during a very crucial time in the department when he has his marching orders from the politicians and worked hard to deliver,” Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Ron Bonnett said.
“He had to manoeuvre the wheat board change through and he has a timeline to put the next ag policy through that had both a timeline and suddenly a demand that serious money be saved.”
Vinet comes into the agriculture department as no stranger.
She worked at the department from 1984 to 2002 in various positions, ending as director general of international trade policy during the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle and Doha that eventually launched the current round of WTO negotiations.
She then moved to the trade department before returning to Agriculture Canada as assistant deputy minister for the strategic policy branch.
Since 2007, she has been a senior official at the health and transportation departments and is currently president of the Economic Development Agency for Quebec.
“Given the government’s emphasis on trade as agriculture policy, I guess it is no surprise that with her trade background, Vinet is the new deputy,” said Bonnett.
