When news broke this month that former B.C. Finance Ministry senior aide Dave Basi is alleged to have taken $50,000 from two Vancouver Island developers to help them remove property from the Agricultural Land Reserve, many wondered if the integrity of the reserve had been compromised.
However, no one involved in the Agricultural Land Commission, which oversees the reserve, has been publicly implicated. And the reserve itself is hardly harmed if bad money was simply given to someone blowing hot air.
In this instance, in fact, the scandal is distracting from the scandal. The allegations against Basi, who first hit the front page when the legislature was raided two years ago, should be the least of the public's concerns regarding the ALR.
After all, why bribe your way to a land-speculation windfall when you can likely get what you want through official channels?
In the four years ending in March 2005, the commission approved the removal from the reserve of 71.4 percent of the 7,493 hectares under consideration. On Vancouver Island, the removal rate was a remarkable 86.8 percent. From Sooke to Langford, from Summerland to Penticton, from Invermere to Abbotsford and Chilliwack and Hope, controversy has dogged a wide range of applications and decisions to remove land from the ALR.
In Penticton, ALR land was made available to facilitate the development of sports and recreation facilities until citizens rejected the municipality's plan in a November referendum. Langford is now in the news because it sent a letter to its ALR property owners asking them if they wanted the city to apply for the removal of all land from the reserve. The municipality now says it doesn't necessarily want to see it all developed, it's simply thinking about it.
In Invermere, two area farmers' associations have just called for the resignation of one Agricultural Land Commission regional panel member following a contentious decision to remove 267 hectares of rangeland for a 600-plus-unit residential and recreational development. The panel declared the land had "no significant agricultural potential". When a local rancher who grazed cattle on the property pointed out that it had been rangeland for more than a century, the decision was reconsidered. The commission then acknowledged the negative effects on local ranchers but stood by the removal.
Chilliwack was an early adopter when, in 2002, the provincial government subtly loosened the restraints on removing land from the ALR. The Chilliwack Times was thrilled: "Milking our ALR cash cow" declared one editorial. Now the city wants to lease agricultural land it owns to a developer for a theme park.
In Abbotsford, 178.5 hectares—mostly prime farmland—was removed last year for industrial development in response to the municipal plea that it is hemmed in by the ALR, which comprises 75 percent of its area. Yet the other 25 percent is nearly as big as the City of Vancouver. Abbotsford farmland is the most productive in the country, and it's almost fully utilized. The ALC's written decision did not consider such details.
Of course, in the face of all this controversy, Minister of Agriculture and Lands Pat Bell isn't budging. He argues that the reserve is larger than ever, at 4,760,000 hectares. Yet that's because low-productivity land is being added in the north while good land is coming out in the south.
Bell argues that less land is coming out of the reserve than in years past. That's partly because the boundaries of the reserve have been refined over the years in a comprehensive way, based on careful research, which resulted in some large removals. It's also because provincial governments and the ALC have always struggled to balance our long-term provincial need for farmland against short-term local economic-development ambitions.
Local versus provincial and short-term versus long-term are the core of almost all ALC controversies. And although the details may seem mundane compared to the whiff of bribery, how those interests are balanced is the key to a successful Agricultural Land Reserve.
The ALC has always acknowledged that taking land out of the reserve for purposes other than agriculture can be legitimate. It's usually a matter of local concern. Sometimes it makes sense to expand a school rather than relocate it. Sometimes removing a piece of land surrounded by urban development can help build more compact, efficient communities. Sometimes there's only one sensible place for the new railway siding.
Until 2002, the commission dealt with community need without explicit guidance from the Agricultural Land Commission Act, which generally requires the commission to "preserve agricultural land" and to place farming interests ahead of other interests. Although there were some debatable removals, the commission also upset people mainly when it said "No" to them. Local communities often felt it was insensitive to and remote from local concerns.
As such, when the B.C. Liberal government took office, it built on the direction the NDP had taken toward a regional model for ALC decision-making. For most of its history, ALC decisions were made by a seven-member provincial panel; now they are made by six three-member regional panels.
The Liberals also made the terms for addressing community need explicit, which would be to its credit if it had done so in a coherent, accountable way. But the government didn't revise the act and debate the changes in the legislature. Instead, it defined the policy in the commission's "service plan", a three-year set of guidelines and objectives. Let's be blunt: the 2005 service plan essentially calls on the commission to contravene the principles enshrined in the Act. "Depending on the circumstances, the Commission may give different weights to considerations such as the compatibility of the proposed use with agriculture, soil capability of the land, location and whether the proposed use would meet a pressing community need." The plan declares that it relies "heavily" on the commissioners' judgment.
In other words, whatever the commissioners think is best.
There are guidelines on how much prime land can be removed, but there is no limit on how much less capable land can be removed. That old barn door is definitely open.
Yet none of the current controversies has stirred the kind of attention that the Six Mile Ranch exclusion did for the NDP government in the late 1990s. This is another instructive piece of history. When a developer proposed a $180-million resort development on Kamloops Lake, at the expense of perhaps 200 head of cattle and some hayfields, the commission's reluctance to approve it outraged many Kamloops residents. They saw cappuccino-sipping city dwellers telling their struggling town what to do, and they didn't like it.
The NDP government was worried about losing two Kamloops-area seats, and it wanted the development approved. A commissioner was appointed to determine whether or not the project was, in the Act's words, in the "provincial interest". Commissioner David Perry gave the government what it wanted, but with a big asterisk. Perry didn't have a helpful sense of what "provincial interest" meant, and he wanted government to clearly define it. A weak definition would "undermine the integrity of the ALC", Perry wrote in his February 1998 report, noting that in crude economic terms, other values will almost always overwhelm agricultural values. He said opposition to excluding land was "driven by deep, and valid, concerns" that vague provincial-interest decisions "may undermine the entire structure of the ALC".
The NDP government then defined provincial interest in a restrictive way that asserts the primacy of agricultural values. The B.C. Liberals stood by those principles when they revised the Act in 2002. But the Liberals also created weak service-plan guidelines that, to borrow a phrase, undermine the entire structure of the ALC.
Those guidelines, in combination with small, local panels that are proving to be a soft touch, have damaged public confidence and contributed to bad decisions. Does it make any sense that it's harder to take land of the reserve for a highway than it is to take land out for, say, a subdivision that encourages sprawl, or even for a theme park? Of course not.
Is weak government ALR policy contributing to speculation that's driving the price of farmland beyond the reach of farmers? A cursory analysis shows that land with development potential often costs triple its value as farmland. Are municipalities and developers slavering at the prospect of cheap land for ill-advised growth? Uh, yeah. It's what they do for a living.
Pat Bell says he doesn't like the effect of speculation on the use of farmland. "This is a huge concern for me." It's time he recognized the connection between his problems and his policies.
The reforms we need—consistent and transparent process, a long-term vision, and a less reactive approach to dealing with those who want to pave precious earth-are not complicated.
The Agricultural Land Reserve is one of our province's greatest assets. It has been a huge factor in forcing us to plan growth effectively. It has protected our province's tiny supply of farmland for an uncertain future. It's also barely 30 years old, and it's still fragile. Our government needs to reaffirm the principles essential to its success. Unless, of course, it's just blowing hot air.
Charles Campbell is a former editor of the Georgia Straight and the author of Farmland Forever: Reshaping the Agricultural Land Reserve for the 21st Century, a report released this week by the David Suzuki Foundation.