B.C. MLA says changes to agricultural oversight were ‘clearly political’

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Independent MLA Vicki Huntington has been on a two-year quest to find out what problem the BC Liberal government was trying to fix when it restructured the province's system for protecting farmland.

It is worth remembering why the Agricultural Land Reserve was established in 1973: Thousands of hectares of prime farmland had been disappearing under asphalt each year. The New Democratic Party government of the day put roughly 5 per cent of the provincial land base – the best remaining farmland – under special protection to ensure B.C. would not lose its ability to produce food. The Agricultural Land Commission was established to preserve that farmland and encourage farming.

For four decades, politicians dared not tamper with what has become a sacred cow. "British Columbians have a strong emotional attachment to the Agricultural Land Reserve," warns a cabinet briefing document. "Any significant changes to the reserve have the potential to be controversial with the public, local communities and farmers."

But some members of the government caucus chafed at the inability to get the independent commission under government control, and to free up farmland for other purposes. MLA Pat Pimm, in an e-mail exchange in 2012 that was not meant for public consumption, complained to fellow MLAs: "Who the hell is running the province anyway."

Once the changes were passed into law, in June of 2014, Ms. Huntington started asking for the scientific data and the consultation behind the decision to carve the ALR into two zones, to allow more non-farm use of agricultural land in most parts of the province.

"We were asking for the 'how' and 'why' behind the decision," she said in an interview.

At first, the government cited cabinet secrecy, even though the decision had been made, so she applied for the documentation through Freedom of Information. When she received a stack of mostly blanked-out documents, she appealed.

It took 707 days, but Ms. Huntington finally received 551 pages of internal memos and reports. "And there was nothing in those pages, nothing that indicated any of the decisions were based on any scientific or financial analysis at all," she said.

The documents do show the problem that the Liberals wanted to fix: They considered the ALC's core mandate to be an obstacle to economic development. The independent agency responsible for protecting the ALR had a "myopic focus on farmland protection at the expense of any other considerations," a cabinet submission from 2013 explained.

The documents show frustration within government that the commission was not considering its broader economic agenda. A draft document for cabinet cited numerous examples where the ALC was not responsive to the province's transportation plans, oil and gas development or other non-farm uses. In one example, an unidentified regional district signed off on a community plan "that directors believed would be acceptable to their constituents." But the commission rejected the plan because it called for a private campground on farmland. "The ALC did not consider the business potential in the area for campgrounds and is oblivious to the low quality of [agriculture land] in the area."

Ms. Huntington said the talking points for the public differed from that message, stressing that the changes were "modest" and mostly maintained the status quo.

"What it shows is that the decision to split the ALR was clearly political," she said. "They wanted to break the back of that mandate to protect farmland."

Agriculture Minister Norm Letnick, in an interview, said he could not speak to the rigour behind the decision to make the changes – he was only appointed to lead the Ministry of Agriculture while the bill was already before the House.

But he says the changes have been successful. "It's working. We see it in the decisions the commission is making. People who are applying to the commission are now getting positive decisions so they can continue to be on the land, farm the land, but also have a little extra income."

In the coming week, the Agricultural Land Commission is planning to table its annual report, which may offer an early measure of the impact the changes have had on B.C.'s ability to produce food. As well, Mr. Letnick will report back to cabinet later this year on Bill 24's impact on farming. Success may be hard to define, though, since the record – at least those documents Ms. Huntington has compiled – never defined the expected results.