The creation of the new Department of Business is a major change, the press release for this can be found here. In the release it speaks of three Strategic areas for the Department:
- Business Strategy and Planning
- Strategic Projects and Investments
- Operational Leadership, Co-ordination and Alignment:
The Department of Agriculture budget looks very close to last year’s numbers, which is good! There are changes in staff that was mentioned in the Minister of Finance’s address to the legislature.
“Government will also consolidate inspection compliance and enforcement functions of the Department of Natural Resources, Agriculture, Fisheries, Environment and Public Health Inspectors from health and Wellness into a new division within Department of Environment. This change will unify inspection and enforcement activities and allow resource departments to focus on sector growth rather than policing activities. This change will take effect July 1, 2015.”
This means that Inspectors for food, meat, animal welfare, bee and mink (approximately 45 staff) will move from Agriculture to the new division along with about 50 Inspectors from other resource Departments.