It’s back to the future for Alberta’s new agriculture minister. Doug Horner is the son of former Alberta agriculture minister Hugh Horner.
Horner said watching his father as deputy premier and agriculture minister in the 1970s gave him an appreciation and love for rural Alberta.
“It is one of the pillars of our province and we need to maintain it and reinvigorate and make it the best it can possibly be,” said Horner, who got his dream cabinet job.
“If I were to choose, this is the one I would want.”
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Horner was appointed agriculture minister after the former minister, Shirley McClellan, was moved to finance following the provincial election Nov. 22 that saw the Progressive Conservatives re-elected.
Hugh Horner was the first agriculture minister appointed when the Progressive Conservatives came to power in 1971.
Over the next few weeks Doug Horner said his job is to listen to the agriculture industry talk about key issues.
“We need to make sure the people who have good ideas and solutions to problems get my ear,” said Horner, who believes a focus for his department is to reinvigorate the agriculture industry in Alberta.
“We have such huge potential in rural Alberta and we need to capitalize on that and move forward with that.
“It’s my job to go out there first and listen to make sure we’re on the right track,” said Horner who lives in Sturgeon County, northwest of Edmonton.
Horner said it’s also important that the Alberta government continue to support the initiative of groups that want to build packing plants to help develop the value-added industry in the livestock industry.
“I’m very keen on the one that’s in my back yard,” he said, referring to the Rancher’s Own packing plant outside Edmonton.
“I think it’s a good plan. I’m hopeful they can get it off the ground as soon as possible because that’s a cow-bull type operation and that’s what we need.”
Horner isn’t willing to support the myriad of proposed plants at any cost. Any plant must be built with a long-term vision and solid markets, as was his family’s oat and barley processing plant, Westglen Milling, in Barrhead.
“Anytime government comes in and builds something, you’re going to be paying for that for a long, long time if it wasn’t done properly. We need to make sure these plants are going to be here for the long-term viability of the beef industry.”
Horner will continue the work of previous agriculture ministers to increase grain marketing options available through the Canadian Wheat Board.
He said his family was involved in encouraging former federal agriculture minister Charlie Mayer to remove oats from the board.
“If that hadn’t happened, the oat and barley processing facility and the oat and barley industry in Western Canada would not be as big as it is.
“Choice is something that I’m very keen on because our producers want it and it’s going to help our value-added industry. Certainly it is one of the priorities that we have,” said Horner, a former vice-chair of the Alberta Grain Commission.
“Even just having barley come off the board would be a huge step forward.”
