AGRICULTURE MINISTER REFUSES TO GIVE GROUND
Farmers take to the legislature to protest tightening of land control
Irate farmers descended on the legislature this week to complain about NDP legislation that tightened control over the use of agricultural land.
Several dozen of them staged a protest on the back steps of the buildings Monday, then packed the public galleries to watch the Opposition take on the government during question period.
The house was initially more subdued than usual, with both sides showing due respect for the favoured onlookers.
Agriculture Minister Lana Popham paid tribute to so many farmers showing up on the eve of B.C. agriculture day.
“Farming’s hard,” said Popham.
“It takes a lot of hard work, and I respect the work that farmers are doing around the province.”
That engendered enough goodwill to get her through the first few answers. But the rumblings grew among the farmers, many of them sitting right behind the row of seats occupied by the press gallery, as Popham denied any ill effects of the offending legislation
Then, when she accused the B.C. Liberals of spreading “misinformation” for the second time, one of the protesters had clearly had enough. He got to his feet, taking his two children with him, and left the chamber, loudly berating the agriculture minister all the way.
“The only one spreading misinformation is you, Lana Popham,” he shouted, adding that he was not going to “stand for lying in this honourable house.”
Such explosions in the public galleries are rare. Rarer still for one of the MLAs to heckle back. But NDP MLA Nick Simons — known for a certain lack of impulse control — did so, adding to the chaos, as both sides then erupted.
Speaker Darryl Plecas briefly considered suspending proceedings for five minutes. But when the uproar subsided, he simply extended question period, allowing the Opposition one more go at Popham.
Altogether, the Liberals mustered half a dozen examples of the hardships for farming families and businesses from the NDP’s tightening of the Agricultural Land Commission’s control over land use. One involved an Abbotsford-based shelter for women in crisis, facing an eviction order from the commission because its premises are on agricultural land.
But Popham refused to be drawn into discussion of specific cases, all the while insisting that the commission is independent of government and its decisions are final.
“We’ve heard the minister duck, weave and avoid the question,” declared B.C. Liberal MLA Ian Paton, a third-generation farmer who represents Delta South in the legislature. “Never in the history of B.C. have we seen such an outcry from the farming community as in the last 12 months.”
Actually, there was a much greater outcry in 1973 when the province’s first NDP government legislated the agricultural land reserve and its overseer commission into existence. But despite that NDP government being defeated in a snap election a little over three years into its term, the reserve and the commission survived.
The subsequent right-ofcentre Social Credit government tweaked agricultural land protections here and there. The New Democrats, when elected in the 1990s, took back some of the lost ground.
The B.C. Liberals repeated the process during their 16 years in office, making relatively modest changes here and there. And the NDP dialed back those changes last year. But despite the occasional high-profile controversy — golf courses in the 1980s, Six Mile Ranch in the 1990s, Site C recently — overall protection of agricultural land in B.C. has been largely unchanged and is likely to remain so.
By coincidence, another legacy of that same Dave Barrett NDP administration, government auto insurance, was also on the front burner this week.
ICBC was in a precarious financial position even before the B.C. Supreme Court overturned its effort to rein in spending on medical experts in auto insurance cases.
David Eby, the cabinet minister for ICBC, concedes that in the absence of a successful appeal, the loss will likely mean a one-time hit on the books of $400 million to $500 million.
That, in turn, adds to the concerns of Finance Minister Carole James, who was already revising her budget numbers because of a downturn in the economy.
But she may still be able to make up the difference by cutting discretionary funding and tapping the remaining cash reserves in the contingency fund.
Meanwhile, the Liberals seized the opening provided by the court decision to reiterate their threat to undo public auto insurance.
They’ve been on this tack for a while, insisting the ICBC monopoly no longer works, vowing to replace it with genuine choice in auto insurance. As with threats to the protection of agricultural land, right-of-centre political parties have previously campaigned from the Opposition against the ICBC monopoly.
Once they got into government, it was a different story. The Socreds kept ICBC pretty much whole during their 16 years in power. Wilkinson’s party decided much the same during its tenure.
In both cases, those governments were persuaded that outright privatization posed too much risk of them being blamed for rate gouging by private insurers.
They also came to grudgingly — and not so grudgingly — admire ICBC as a tool for financing road safety, managing motor vehicle licensing and ensuring near universal coverage of everyone on the road.
Next time will be different, suggests Wilkinson. But even if he does manage to form government, he might reach the same conclusion as his predecessors once he gets there.
The Liberals mustered half a dozen examples of the hardships for farming families and businesses.