Richmond councillor Harold Steves says that Natives are being asked to forgo preserving their land for money.
July 3, 2008
Development as colonialism
Are settling Native land claims and preserving the Agricultural Land Reserve mutually exclusive goals?
Grand Chief Stewart Phillip
President, Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs
“It’s a very challenging issue. Naturally, I would have to support the Musqueam position because, as we both know, British Columbia is unceded indigenous land, so any designations…are subservient to the aboriginal-title interest. I live in the Okanagan and I very much support the Agricultural Land Reserve…because if those designations were lifted, there would be massive development here. All of the orchards here will disappear and will be replaced by condos.”
Michael Sather
NDP MLA for Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows
“One of the things that people will say sometimes is that we messed a lot of our lands with developments…so how can we say that First Nations shouldn’t be able to do that? To me, that’s the same thing as saying that, ‘Well, you know, we have caused global warming largely in the industrial world,’ and now say, ‘China and India are industrializing but they haven’t had the opportunity that we had, so they should be exempted from having to fight global warming.’?”
Kim Baird
Tsawwassen First Nation chief
“Some of the public view that an ALR designation…should overwrite aboriginal rights and title. There are many other exclusions that take place all the time from the ALR. It’s a broader public-policy issue…but these are just some of the pressures we have to deal with in an urban context. I am so much troubled that competing interests and pressures in the Lower Mainland are making claim settlements more controversial and difficult.”
Wendy Holm
Former president, B.C. Institute of Agrologists
“There’s no need to be land-specific with respect to claims. If land is important to agriculture, then it should stay within the land reserve and be farmed.…What Canada Lands [Company] did is, in effect, settle a land-claim issue behind corporate board doors…then turn around and try to hold the community’s feet to the fire by telling them that if they don’t let this land out of the land reserve and let them develop it, they’d be dealing with land claims and litigation. This is ridiculous.”
When talking about Richmond’s Garden City Lands, long-time farmer and city councillor Harold Steves speaks about a “20th-century colonialism” that Native peoples should be vigilant about in their dealings with the government.
“It’s no different than a hundred years ago, when early government officials and fur traders bought the land from the First Nations for a stack of beaver pelts the height of a gun or a musket,” Steves told the Georgia Straight.
In these modern-day times, according to Steves, Natives are being offered the prospect of making huge amounts of money if they co-own lands to be taken out of the Agricultural Land Reserve and converted to residential, commercial, or industrial use.
“Now they are being asked to forgo their basic principles of preserving the land and the environment in favour of the millions of dollars they could get if they ignore their own basic principles and allow the land to be developed,” Steves said.
The continuing attempt to develop the 55-hectare Garden City Lands is a classic example of this new colonialism, according to Steves, a former Richmond MLA and cofounder of the ALR. Bounded by Westminster Highway, Garden City Way, Alderbridge Way, and No. 4 Road, the federally owned property has been the subject of a land claim by the Musqueam band.
In 2005, a memorandum of understanding was struck between the federal Crown corporation Canada Lands Company, the Musqueam, and the City of Richmond to divide and develop the land once it is removed from the ALR.
As farmland, the Garden City Lands are valued at $100,000 per acre ($247,000 per hectare), Steves noted. Once taken out of the ALR and rezoned for high-density housing, as the CLC and the Musqueam intend to do with their respective shares of about 14 hectares each, Steves said that an acre will be worth about $3 million (approximately $7.5 million per hectare, or $105 million for the 14-hectare parcel).
“If it wasn’t that the federal government could make a lot of money taking the land out of the ALR and developing it, it wouldn’t be happening,” Steves said. He added that settling the Musqueam’s land claim is just “an excuse to get the land out of the ALR”.
Musqueam chief Ernie Campbell was preparing to go fishing near Steveston when he was reached by phone for his reaction to the statements made by the Richmond councillor.
“I’m not going to comment on his comment,” Campbell told the Straight. “It’s not worth [it] to me.”
But he also pointed out that the Garden City Lands are a portion of the Musqueam’s traditional and “unceded” territory.
“We didn’t put it in the Agricultural Land Reserve,” Campbell said. “They put it there without any consultation with us, the same thing they do with creating parks—when they create parks in our traditional territories, and they say because of the parks we have no access to them.”
Under the tripartite agreement, the City of Richmond will get about 28 hectares that it can use to create a park and build a convention centre. Councillor Derek Dang is among the members of council in favour of developing the Garden City Lands.
“I’ve lived in Richmond for 50 years and I’ve never seen anything farmed in that thing, and it’s been in the Agricultural Land Reserve,” Dang told the Straight. “It’s been arbitrary.”
In 2006, the Agricultural Land Commission rejected a CLC application to take the property out of the Agricultural Land Reserve.
“The land was good-quality agricultural land and had the capacity to support agricultural use,” ALC co–executive director Colin Fry told the Straight, explaining the agency’s previous decision.
In April this year, the ALC received another application, this time from the City of Richmond, to remove the property from the reserve. The agency’s South Coast panel is expected to meet in either August or September to deliberate on this matter.
“That doesn’t diminish the capacity of the land to support agriculture,” Fry said when told about claims that the land hasn’t been farmed. “Throughout this province, there’s land in the Agricultural Land Reserve that’s owned but not farmed. There is no requirement under our legislation that it be farmed. Our responsibility is to say that when we adjudicate applications, should it be in the ALR so that at some point in the future, if needed, it can be farmed?”
The ALR at a glance
> Up until the 1970s, about 6,000 hectares of prime agricultural land were lost each year to urban and other uses.
> The provincial government under the NDP introduced B.C.’s Land Commission Act in 1973.
> A commission was struck, and it established a special land-use zone to protect agricultural land called the Agricultural Land Reserve.
> The ALR was established from 1974 to 1976, comprising 4.7 million hectares.
> The land reserve makes up five percent of B.C.’s land area, and it remains approximately the same today as in the 1970s.
Source: Agricultural Land Commission
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