Harold Steves: How Richmond Became a GE-Free Zone – Friday – Lower Native Sons Hall – 7-9pm
Bio: The Steves family is one of Richmond’s first founding families, after which the community of Steveston is named. Manoah and Martha Steves were the first settlers in the area, arriving in 1877. They imported the first purebred Holstein cattle into BC, established a dairy to provide milk for the fledgling City of Vancouver and were Western Canada’s first seedsmen. Born of Maude and Harold Sr., Harold and wife Kathy still reside in the old Steves farmhouse, built in 1917, on what is now an 11-acre (45,000 m2) cattle farm surrounded by residential development. Harold is a graduate of the University of British Columbia with a BSc in Agriculture.
A former school teacher and active rancher by profession, Harold is very active in community life in the Steveston area, and is particularly interested in the preservation of farmland, heritage preservation, and environmental issues.
In the mid-1960s Harold drafted the initial resolutions to NDP conventions to establish an Agricultural Land Bank system in British Columbia. As an MLA he was active in the establishment of the “Agricultural Land Reserve” under the Dave Barrett NDP Government and for the following decades, one of its strongest defenders. He is presently active in the Farmland Defense League.
Harold is the Vice Chair of Planning and Agriculture for Metro Vancouver and is promoting farmland preservation, urban agriculture and food security for the region. He represents Richmond as second Director on the Board of Directors of Metro Vancouver. He was the Lower Mainland Treaty Advisory Committee rep at the treaty table for the Tsawwassen First Nation treaty negotiations. Harold is also a director of the BC Groundfish Development Authority