Premier John Horgan has called in his deputy minister and head of the B.C. public service, Don Wright, to sort through allegations of conflict of interest at a B.C. government lab in Abbotsford in charge of livestock and farmed salmon health.
Agriculture Minister Lana Popham continued to defend her actions in the B.C. legislature Wednesday, after it emerged she had phoned Fisheries and Oceans Canada scientist Kristi Miller to ask about Miller’s complaint of conflict of interest on the part of a researcher in the agriculture ministry lab in Abbotsford.
Horgan said the allegation, which aired on the CTV program W5 last Sunday, was serious enough to warrant a review by Wright.
Popham has been under fire since last week, when her letter to salmon farm operator Marine Harvest was made public. She has denied that the letter represented a threat to cancel the company’s salmon farm tenures in the Broughton Archipelago area north of Vancouver Island.
more to come…
