Alta. ag minister denounces incident at U.S. Capitol

Jan 12, 2021

Devin Dreeshen worked on President Trump’s 2016 campaign

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

Alberta’s minister of agriculture and forestry has publicly denounced what transpired at the U.S. Capitol last week.

“Minister (Devin) Dreeshen denounces all forms of political violence, including what took place in Washington, D.C. (on Jan. 6),” Justin Laurence, Dreeshen’s press secretary, told Farms.com in an email. “Voters are the ultimate deciders and that must be respected by all. Minister Dreeshen is focused on the lives and livelihoods of all Albertans.”

Calls for the provincial ag minister to address the incident at the Capitol, where some of the president’s supporters breached security while a joint session of Congress worked to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the November presidential election, come as a result of Dreeshen’s involvement with the Trump campaign.

Dreeshen volunteered with the president’s campaign for eight months in 2016, traveling to 28 states and shadowing Ivanka Trump while she worked with volunteers and visited polling stations.

Working with the Trump campaign provided insight into the U.S. political process, he said.

“I couldn’t vote for (Trump), right, so to me it was, couldn’t vote for Hillary (Clinton) or for him, as a Canadian I just went down and participated in their election process,” Dreeshen told StarMetro Edmonton in July 2018.

Dreeshen also documented his time with the Trump campaign in 2016 in “Inside the Trump Campaign,” which he wrote for The Hill Times.

Devin Dreeshen at a Donald Trump election night event in New York City on November 8, 2016. (Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.