Servant Leadership
The Honourable Ed Fast, PC, KC is a lawyer (University of British Columbia 1982) and spent 24 years practicing corporate and commercial law in Abbotsford, with a particular focus on real estate development.
In 2006, Ed was elected to Canada’s House of Commons as Member of Parliament for Abbotsford. He was re-elected in 2008, 2011, 2015, 2019 and 2021. He had previously served two terms as an Abbotsford School Trustee and three terms as a member of Abbotsford City Council, three of those years as Deputy Mayor. In 2011, he was appointed Queen’s Counsel (now King’s Counsel) in recognition of his distinguished service and leadership in the legal profession. He has also been awarded both the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal and King’s Coronation Medal for service to his community and country.
Among other responsibilities in Parliament, Ed served for 3 years as Chair of the parliamentary Standing Committee on Justice & Human Rights.
On May 18, 2011, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed Ed to his cabinet to serve as Minister of International Trade and for the Asia-Pacific Gateway. For almost 5 years he led Canada’s most ambitious trade agenda ever, leading negotiations on free trade agreements with the European Union (CETA), South Korea, Ukraine and the original Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) countries.
Ed was also in the room with Prime Minister Harper when he travelled abroad and met with world leaders like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Benjamin Netanyahu, Shinzo Abe, Narendra Modi, Angela Merkel and David Cameron. Over his many years in public office, Ed has developed an extensive network of contacts within the global trade and investment community and within Canada’s community of political and business decision-makers.
Since the 2015 federal election, Ed has served variously as the Conservative Shadow Minister for Environment, Industry and Finance. He recently retired from federal politics and is committed to sharing his knowledge and experience with trade-oriented organizations.
Ed and his wife Annette have lived in Abbotsford, BC for 43 years. They have four daughters and their spouses, and fifteen lively grandchildren.