Personal life
Harold Steves is a descendant of Heinrich Stief and Regina Stahlecker, founders of the Steeves family in North America. [2] [3] Other notable descendants of Heinrich and Regina include William Steeves, a Father of Canadian Confederation. [2] [3] The Steves family, which changed the spelling of their surname upon moving west, 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. [2] They imported the first purebred Holstein cattle into British Columbia, [4] 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 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. Steves is a graduate of the University of British Columbia with a BSc in agriculture.
Political life
In the late 1950s, Richmond Council rezoned 12,000 acres of farmland for residential use. The Steves farm was rezoned against their wishes. [5] As a result, the Steves were not permitted to build a new dairy for a bulk tank when the milk company stopped picking up milk in cans. They went out of the milk business and switched to beef cattle. Steves began a campaign to save farmland. However, when the farm was assessed residential taxes his father appealed the assessment and lost and subsequently sold most of the farm. In the mid-1960s Steves drafted the initial resolutions to NDP conventions to establish an Agricultural Land Bank system in British Columbia and drafted the Agricultural Land Zone policy for the1972 election. As an MLA he was active in the establishment of the British Columbia Agricultural Land Reserve [5] in 1973 under the Dave Barrett NDP Government and for the following decades, was one of its strongest defenders. He is active in the Farmland Defence League.
In 1978, Steves bought Back Valley Ranch at Cache Creek. It is now owned by the oldest son, Jerry who raises grass fed beef and direct markets it, cut, wrapped and frozen, through the internet at www.stevesfarm.com
Steves is the past chair of the Metro Vancouver Agriculture Committee and is promoting farmland preservation, urban agriculture and food security for the region. He represented Richmond as second director on the board of directors of Metro Vancouver for many years. He was the Lower Mainland Treaty Advisory Committee rep at the treaty table for the Tsawwassen First Nation treaty negotiations.
In the late 1960s, Steves co-founded the Richmond Anti-Pollution Association, one of the first environmental advocacy groups in Canada. [5] Steves is a director of the BC Groundfish Development Authority which administers quotas for the groundfish industry to prevent over fishing. He is a former director of the Steveston Harbour Authority, and is still actively promoting harbour redevelopment and establishment of new fishing businesses.
Steves was chair of the Parks and Recreation & Cultural Services Committee and a member of the Planning Committee of Richmond Council for most of the 51 years he was on Council. In 2023, the Planning Institute of BC named Steves as an Honorary Member. Steves represents Richmond on the Metro Vancouver Agricultural Advisory Committee, and is chair of the board of the Britannia Heritage Shipyard National Historic Site Society.
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