ADAM OLSEN: I’m not a farmer. I don't own agricultural land. I think that's important to be acknowledged. But I certainly do have experience at the governance tables dealing with issues around the Agricultural Land Commission
Food security is increasingly important in a world impacted by climate
change.
For the second time in as many sessions the BC NDP government is
amending the Agricultural Land Commission Act to increase protection of food
producing land for agriculture.
This is vitally important. But it is also important that government
recognizes the other natural values of land such as wetlands and watersheds.
Admittedly this is not my cleanest attempt at second reading, frankly it
was a bit of a circus in the Chamber. Nonetheless, I support the commitment to
protecting food producing land and hope to work with government to strengthen
the protection of other natural values as well.
[Transcript]
I am trying to gather myself. I thought that it might go for much, much
longer than it did. I'd just like to acknowledge the experience of the previous
speaker and the ability to capture the moment, or the 90 moments or however
long it was that he spoke to this bill. He did a very thorough job at that.
I don't know that the member is going to be necessarily surprised that I
don't follow the arguments that he has made. Well, I follow them, but I don't
agree with them. As somebody who grew up in politics, I guess, over the last
ten years at the local government level, in a municipality that has a tremendous
amount of agricultural land in the agricultural land reserve….
In fact, Central Saanich is the municipality that I got my start in. The
first election that I won was back in 2008, more than a decade ago. The first
issue that I dealt with was around stormwater management and the relationship
that that had with agricultural land.
I rise today to speak to Bill 15, the Agricultural Land Commission
Amendment Act, to discuss, I think, some of the aspects of this bill and to
discuss some of the aspects of the industry as I've seen it and watched it. I'm
not a farmer. I don't own agricultural land. I think that's important to be
acknowledged. But I certainly do have experience at the governance tables
dealing with issues around the Agricultural Land Commission.
I think it's important to frame this conversation we're having with
respect to agricultural land in the context that I don't know that there is
anything we could do more urgently right now than to ensure that we have the
appropriate levels of protection around quality food-producing land.
We got a tour of history, going all the way back to, I believe, the
Magna Carta by the previous speaker. I'm not going to go quite so far back, but
go back to the 1970s and the desperation of that government at the time to
protect food-producing land that was being developed very aggressively.
Indeed, that happened in Central Saanich. Many of the lands in Central
Saanich that we live in now, the neighbourhoods that we live in now, the neighbourhoods
that I used to bike around as a kid, before that, were strawberry fields and
before that, were agricultural lands. I think of Tanner Ridge.
Many members, as they're coming through here, will drive by and drive
through, past Martindale Valley on the left and Tanner Ridge up on the right.
There are many challenges that exist there now because of highway construction,
neighbourhood construction. The low-lying agricultural lands are being
inundated with water because of poor drainage. I'm just thinking that the
neighbourhoods that we live in now are there being built right on top of
agricultural land.
That government back in the 1970s, as the previous member spoke to, were
in somewhat of a desperate state to protect land. I remember hearing some of
the stories about it. No need to go into any detail on this, but in that
desperate state, they did draw big, thick, black lines on maps. And it is true
that having the flexibility there to be able to make sure that those lines are
correct, having the land use decision-making capacity to be able to ensure that
lands that are not necessarily of high production quality can be used
appropriately….
I think it's important, as well, that many of the operations on
agricultural land…. Soil quality is an important aspect of it, for sure, if
you're going to be planting things in the ground. But there are lots of other
agricultural operations that don't require direct planting in the ground.
One of the aspects of the challenges that we face in Central Saanich, of
course, was the cost of agricultural land, the prohibitive costs of ALR land
and agricultural land to the next generation. Coming forward in time to now, I
look at it and think: "How is it that we're going to be able to make sure
that the business of farming is viable?" That is, in fact, part of the
work. It's not just land. It's business. And it is, as was mentioned
previously, about people.
One of the aspects of this legislation and the relationship…. There was
some criticism of the fact that this bill is talking about increasing
enforcement. One of the biggest frustrations that I had as a municipal
councillor was noting that, especially in a kind of rurban area that we're in
here, a rural-urban area, Central Saanich became the dump zone for all the
development fill that was going on in the more urban areas.
When we were looking to the Agricultural Land Commission for enforcement
capacity there, unfortunately, during my early days — and I recognize this is
going back before my time here in this place, when there was a different
government in place — it was incredibly difficult for the Agricultural Land
Commission, with their lack of enforcement capacity.
So when I do hear the member kind of wax eloquently about the policing
or the enforcement of the agricultural land reserve, I have to think of the
prime agricultural land that was covered, completely unnecessarily, because of
a total lack of enforcement and an unwillingness to fund the Agricultural Land
Commission to the point that it needed, to be able to actually enforce the
rules that were already there. Never mind taking a look at the rules to ensure
that they were strengthened.
In addition to that, I think of all of the agricultural land that's been
left completely exposed to other interests, like oil and gas, for example. I
think of the agricultural land that has high-quality production capacity in
this province that now has gas wells drilled into the middle of it, making it
completely useless for food production. And I think of the land that was
removed from the agricultural land reserve in order to make way for Site C.
It comes with some great difficulty to hear members of the official
opposition wax so eloquently about agricultural land, noting that, as a
municipal councillor, many of the decisions that were made and that impacted
our lives at the local government level, at the planning level, at the
community planning level, really, really were not helpful.
As we face some of the biggest challenges that we have now going
forward, with climate change and with the fact that our weather patterns are
changing, increasing levels of drought, I think that we have to be ever more
cognizant of the fact that we can ill afford to lose more quality soils. We can
ill afford to lose more quality land for agriculture.
I think it's important, as well, at this point to point out that there
are other values in this. I've mentioned them, and I've brought them up, as
well, elsewhere, but this is part of, I think, understanding and having a
relationship to the land that's more than just one of massive resource
extraction. I understand and recognize the fact that resources that we extract,
if done prudently and if done in a sustainable manner with resilience in mind….
We certainly can benefit from that. But I also have to balance that with the
understanding that if we do it in an unbalanced way, in fact, it hurts us and
hurts the resilience in our societies and our communities.
One of the things that really was problematic with the agricultural land
reserve in Central Saanich was that some very, very highly productive lands
with other natural benefits to them, other natural values to them, were being
drained and were being damaged.
One of the things that I'm hoping we can do here is not only recognize
that these lands have really important, incredible values for the purpose of
agriculture, but there are also other natural values that need to be protected
and need to be nurtured.
One of the stories I've heard recently on this was a story that was a
transcript of my late uncle PENÁĆ, David Elliott Sr. This is what he said:
"Take a look. It's flat as
far as you can see. It used to be a huge swamp, extending to the hill and as
far as your school" — Stelly's School, which is my high school —
"flooded in the wintertime like a huge lake. I saw it that way when I was
a young man." This was in the 1920s.
"It was considered by
non-Indians to be a wasteland, unproductive, good for nothing, too wet. To our
people, it was not a wasteland. To us, it was a beautiful environment and very
productive of so many things our people needed and used”.
"The plants provided material
for making mats and baskets and house linings, material for medicines, for
making rope, twine, nets for SXOLE,
our reef-net fishery.”
"The list goes on, and I
cannot mention them all. It came from this very area, which are now all farms.
I say the way we used this land, this territory, we got more out of it, more
good out of it than all these farms put together. We did not only take those
things I already mentioned, but there was also wildlife.”
"Picture this after it
floods, which lasts for months until the summer. Then came the ducks, thousands
upon thousands upon thousands of ducks. There were also geese and swans and
other bird life, including grouse. This was a feeding ground for them all, and
this was where we came to get them. Our people ate all these birds. Of course,
the deer also came here.”
"The Saanich Peninsula was a
drought area in the summertime. This was the last place where there was
moisture. As the land dried in the summer, then the animals came to feed to
this beautiful area where the grass was still lush and green. Grouse also came
to feed on the ripening berries. Our people also came here to harvest all those
things that I mentioned — the food, the medicine and everything else.”
"This was what this place
was, beautiful and productive, with fertile soil, and everything grew so big
and of good quality. Now the farmer here grows potatoes year after year after
year. Why? Because it's all peat soil. There's no end to the fertility of that
land. This is the swamp, and the farmers saw it as a wasteland, but to us it
was beautiful and productive.”
"You see this ditch? Further
down is a huge, deep ditch, dug in my time, to drain the swamp. I remember when
it happened. When they did it, my mother cried openly, unashamed, and said it
will be no more good. She was right. It is no more good.”
"Only a few people benefit
now, whereas before, everybody benefitted, including the birds, the animals,
the flowers, the trees and everything else. That was the way the Creator meant
it. That is all I have to say right now."
Those are the words of my late great-uncle PENÁĆ, Dave Elliott Sr.
I want to add a little bit of complexity to this. I want to acknowledge
that the type of resource extraction that we have from agricultural
production…. The definition of that needs to be inclusive of this type of
production. We need to have spaces that we recognize for the storage of water
and places for other plants and animals to live, for our medicines to grow.
Back in the 1970s, as former members of this place went around the
province and drew big lines on the map, they weren't perfect. So, I do
recognize what the member is saying about the need to be able to have that
flexibility. Indeed, I'm asking for the minister to also exercise that
flexibility.
When I look at the bill, I see that there is an opportunity for the
minister to take a look at those aspects of the natural values that I was
talking about, that I've been talking about, that my great-uncle was talking
about. The definitions of farm use and non-farm use. I think we need to be
taking a look at those to ensure that the other uses are able to be applied
here.
I want to say that I have some strong feelings about our relationship to
the land. I have some strong feelings about our relationship to the land use
decisions that are being made around sustainable and resilient communities. In
some cases, to be very frank, I have some strong feelings about what I think
are very poor land use decisions that are being made, very short-term
decisions, like this one, to drain a very productive and very important bog
that was so productive of so many things, to build homes on top of fertile soil
in places that we can grow food.
I have a tremendous amount of worry that we are undermining ourselves
and our communities, that we are relying too heavily on transported foods from
other regions on the Pacific coast here, that we are relying too heavily on
areas that are so deeply impacted by climate change. The lack of water in the
Hoover dam is an example.
The food that we rely on to fill our grocery stores. When we go there,
we have this expectation and a demand in our mind that we should be able to get
those foods that we expect to be there in the grocery store, because we don't
produce them here any longer.
The fact that so many of our farms have changed their crops and that we
don't have the diversity in our crops that we used to have in this province.
I'm very concerned about that.
I'm very concerned that we don't value the land like we used to. In
fact, if you take a look at where our major cities are, they've all been built
on these very fertile deltas because our ancestors knew the inherent value of
building their homes in places that they could produce food close by.
Our fishing locations in WSÁNEĆ — the SXOLE, as they were called, the
reef net fishing locations. They had to have three basic conditions for it to
be a good fishing location. It had to have a good supply of fish — that was the
first — but it also had to have a good supply of water, and it had to have a
good supply of deer. These were what was going to sustain life while we were
out fishing. Without those things, without the ability to provide those things,
that was not a good fishing location. It didn't provide the support for our
families.
I think we have become so reliant on food sources from elsewhere that
we're really undermining the resilience in our communities. I'm really quite
worried about that. I'm quite worried about the fact that the thinking in here
is very short term. It's very, very short term.
I respect and understand the long-winded, very emotional response by the
member who spoke before me. There's absolutely nothing about the fact that we
have communities that are exceptionally vulnerable because they do not have a
sustainable food source close by to them. The watersheds that sustain them, the
watersheds that I was talking about, the Graham Creek, or ḰENNES, as it's known…. I was talking about it today in question period.
The bog that my late great-uncle PENÁĆ was talking about was a little bit
further up that watershed. It's all the same watershed.
I think that the short-term decision-making that happens in this place,
the short-term decision-making that happens at municipal council tables, that
we need to chase deficits of property taxes with new development, creating only
a deficit…. We just kick the can down the road. Those short-term
decision-making processes have got us to a situation where, in fact, we are
chasing one bad decision with another.
I think that when it comes to agricultural land and it comes to making
sure that the processes that we have to protect agricultural land be strong,
that we strengthen them and that we stand by the process to strengthen them.
In my experience as a municipal councillor, many, if not all, of those
applications for exclusions came to us anyway. In fact, one of the things that
I find really problematic about the tone of the debate or the tone of the
arguments that have been made with respect to the proposed amendment to the
exclusion process is that I remember some decisions that the municipal council
decided: "We're not going to burn
any political capital on this. You know what we're going to do with this? We're
just going to punt it to the Agricultural Land Commission with no
recommendation."
Everybody, elected officials…. The easiest thing for an elected official
to do is hand off a tough decision to another different elected official or
another decision-maker somewhere else. The most difficult thing for an elected
official to do is to take responsibility for those decisions that are made. So,
we see these situations where those decisions just get punted off to somewhere
else.
I think what's happening here with this bill is that…. Basically, you're
saying: "Look. These are important
decisions about land use. The decisions about land use that are made at the
local government level…. They're making all the decisions about land use. Let's
make sure that they're making those decisions in a coordinated fashion as much
as possible."
The fact of the matter is that fragmentation has been so beneficial to this
level of government. What did we have here? We had a conversation, here in this
region, about local governments and about fragmented decision-making. What did
the previous government do? That was a decision they punted too. "You know what? We're just going to let this
situation be the way it is. We're not going to show leadership on that, because
it's beneficial for us that way, just to leave it that way."
That's not acceptable, as far as I'm concerned, in this place. Those are
our responsibility, and we have to take responsibility for that. I think that
when it comes to land use decision-making, we still have a long way to go on
that to make sure that our communities have the decision-making at the local
level and that the interest of the people…. The fact that communities can still
produce food in their own areas and that those decisions are made at a local
level I think is very, very valuable.
That's why I think that what's been going on here with the immediate….
Member after member jumping in front of the video camera to make the first
video, they can to cast aspersions on this is really problematic. The reality
is that this needs to be a part of a land use decision-making process, and it
hasn't been.
I've seen it. Those who've been around the decision-making tables know
this. They've seen it. Anybody who's been at UBCM, anybody who's been to the
local associations, knows this. They know that it's easy just to punt it.
"Let's just punt. Let's just send it off to the ALC with no comments. We
won't even make a recommendation on this. No, we'll just leave it up to
somebody else to make the decision."
I think that it's important….
Interjections.
A. Olsen:
I'm sure you will.
Anyway, I just want to say that as we go forward here, I'm interested to
hear the members of the official opposition follow through on their promises to
talk forever about this bill. I'm sure it's going to be amazing. I just want to
say that I feel very strongly about the importance of protecting the integrity
of food-producing lands.
I know that others, in the past, have done everything that they can to
try to undermine that. They called it all sorts of things. They called it…. I
can't remember what it was. They were doing review after review, back in 2013,
as a way to try to undermine the agricultural land reserve and the Agricultural
Land Commission. They did everything but actually call it that.
Interjection.
A. Olsen:
I was very, very familiar with the process that was going on. Thank you
to the member from Surrey for pointing that out.
I would just say that I watched the former member for Kootenay East, I
think, undermine that, do everything they could to undermine it.
I think that it's important to note that we have a responsibility to
ensure our communities are resilient. We have a responsibility to ensure that
there are food-producing lands available to our communities. That's our job in
this place. I fundamentally believe that it needs to be part of a coordinated
land use planning process, and that's where the local governments come in.
With this bill, I look forward to the committee stage. I thank the
minister for bringing it forward, and I'll take my place now.
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