Bloyce Thompson isn’t the first premier to hold both titles
Prince Edward Island’s minister of agriculture is also the province’s newest premier.
Bloyce Thompson, who also held the justice file and was the deputy premier, was sworn in as the province’s 35th premier on Dec. 12 after former premier Rob Lantz resigned to seek the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Prince Edward Island.
Thompson’s plate also includes the intergovernmental affairs and Indigenous relations files.
But he doesn’t want the job permanently.
Thompson is prepared to govern on an interim basis.
“No, I’m happy for doing it for 60 days and I’m still busy as a dairy farmer … I still have a dairy farm to run but to do it full time would be more challenging for me,” Thompson told The Guardian.
The Progressive Conservative Party will host a leadership convention on Feb. 7.
Thompson isn’t the only premier to shoulder ag responsibilities.
Multiple Manitoba premiers have also pulled double duty with the ag file.
Thomas Greenway became Manitoba’s seventh premier in 1887, and served as the ag minister from 1888 to 1890.
During his tenure, he fought to upend CP’s freight rate monopoly and allowed Northern Pacific Railway into Manitoba to lower costs for producers.
He also encouraged “the breeding of purebred stock by grants to agricultural societies and to creameries and cheese factories,” the Manitoba Agricultural Hall of Fame says.
Rodmond Roblin, Manitoba’s 9th premier, held the ag portfolio simultaneously from 1900 to 1911.
Some issues he faced revolved around grain trade.
In 1910, his government passed the Manitoba Elevator Act, which created the Manitoba Elevator Commission, a public entity designed to compete with private elevators.
The commission “provided an initial model for the non-private ownership of grain elevators that was to be of considerable educational value to the other prairie provincial governments as well as to the various farmer-owned organizations that soon came to dominate the Canadian grain trade,” a report on grain elevators in the province says.
John Bracken, an agronomist and Manitoba’s 11th premier, served as his own ag minister on two occasions –from 1923 to 1925, and again in 1936.
Supporting farmers was a main priority for Bracken.
“He was greatly concerned about the farm problems of the 1930s and took the practical step of wiping out the relief debts owed to the province by 13 municipalities hardest hit by drought,” the Manitoba Agricultural Hall of Fame says. “He set up the Manitoba Wartime Agricultural Committee to deal with wartime problems of production and the adjustments anticipated as necessary after the war.”
An Ontario premier also held the title of ag minister.
When former Ontario Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne was sworn in in February 2013, she appointed herself the minister of agriculture and food, which she promised to do during the leadership race.
Upon her swearing in, Wynne divided agriculture and rural affairs into separate files and put Jeff Leal in charge of rural affairs.
She took on the ag portfolio to interact with people from rural and urban communities.
“I’m going to be more informed, I’m going to have a whole different understanding of how rural communities and agriculture communities work, and that’s a good thing for my urban constituents and vice-versa,” she told The Canadian Press in February 2013.
Her government passed the Local Food Act in 2013 to increase access, awareness and sales of local foods in public institutions. It also provided tax credits for farmers donating to food banks.
In 2014 during a cabinet shuffle Wynne made Leal the minister of agriculture and rural affairs.