Steve Peter steps back after 37 years in politics

Steve Peters resigned his seat as a member of St. Thomas council on Oct. 15, with hopes of creating more time for family, and his passion for local history, while also focusing on his year-old role as chair of the Leamington-based Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers (OGVG) board of directors.

“I’m 62 years old, I was first elected when I was 25 – 37 years ago – and all in, between my provincial and municipal positions, it’s 30 years that I’ve been a politician,” Mr. Peters said in an interview on Tuesday, hours before announcing his resignation. “Almost half my life I’ve been in politics, and the time right now is right. I thought about waiting until the next election (in November 2026), but it was eating at me and telling me now is the time to go.”

Cr. Peters was first elected to City council in 1988. Three years later, he was elected mayor, serving from 1991 to 1999, the youngest mayor in Canada, before resigning to run provincially as the Liberal Party candidate for Elgin-Middlesex-London.

He was the riding’s MPP from 1999-2011, and in that time, served as Minister of Agriculture and Food, and Minister of Labour, before his election as Speaker of the Ontario Legislature from 2007 to 2011.

“Since I assumed the Greenhouse role, I’ve been trying to do double duty and I’m somebody that always needs to be focused in life, but I’m not doing justice to both jobs,” he added. “I want to do a good job in everything that I do.

“We’ve got a lot on our plate at Greenhouse with the renegotiation of the CUSMA agreement,” said Mr. Peters, reflecting on the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement free trade pact that replaced NAFTA in 2020 and is making national headlines as all parties prepare to develop a new deal. “We’re such an export dependent industry and I thought about it over the summer and made the decision.”

He notified council and the board of directors unofficially a couple weeks ago.

Mayor Joe Preston is dismayed by the news and acknowledged Mr. Peters’ shoes will be difficult to fill. Council now has three options: staging a city-wide election to fill the vacancy on council, installing the next-highest vote getter from the last election, or appointing a prominent citizen.

“This gentleman has been my friend for 25 years,” Mayor Preston said in an interview. He said having differing political alliances – the mayor Conservative and Mr. Peters Liberal – was never an obstacle for them.

“Steve and I recognized early in our careers that it makes more sense to remain friends and work together,” added Mayor Preston. “Steve’s not going anywhere. He’s the best advisor. He’s still just one telephone call away.

 

“He’s the file cabinet of what has happened in our community and why it has happened,” the mayor continued. “He just knows all of it across the riding.”

A veteran in the agricultural field, Mr. Peters’ upbringing is rooted in traditional, open-field farming, dating back to his Ukrainian family’s arrival in Canada in the early 1900s, taking on the challenges of a 160-acre tract of land in Saskatchewan.

The OGVG is a not-for-profit organization, formed in 1967, representing about 170 farmers who grow greenhouse tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers – about 500,000 tonnes of 
produce annually – on over 4,100 acres in Ontario. Regulated by the Farm Products Marketing Act (FPMA), the OGVG is responsible for licensing growers, packers and marketers of Ontario those greenhouse products.

The member-based organization maintains standards in the sector, with a focus on research, food safety, energy, environment, market performance and marketing. OGVG also promotes and connects growers with government agencies, consumers, retailers and food service operators across North America.

The sector has experienced growth averaging six percent a year in the last 10 years, with forecasts of five percent growth annually for the next decade, said Mr. Peters. Greenhouse farm operations currently provide about 32,000 jobs in Ontario, he said.

The industry represents about 2.3 billion of Gross Domestic Product in Ontario, as 84 percent of what is grown in Ontario is actually exported, almost all of that to the U.S., added Mr. Peters. Cannabis, flowers and mushrooms are not included in the OGVG’s mandate.

He said Ontario is the dominant player in Canada’s greenhouse sector, with British Columbia ranking No. 2 and Quebec No. 3. Essex County has the largest concentration of greenhouses in North America, and is only second to the Netherlands in concentration, said Mr. Peters.

by Joe Konecny, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter