Electoral Reform - People want it - so do it - this is a democracy

If there is one thing I’ve noticed about business people, and it bugs me, they hate competition. Everyone in business seeks a monopoly; monopolies are good for monopolists and bad for society.  I love the open market and the good it does, it is the only medium that seeks every day to figure what I want and how to get to me as inexpensively as possible.  The market only works properly when there is open access to it with low barriers to entry.  When markets are healthy there is dynamism, disruption and wealth distribution – markets stop working when a few players get a hold of control.

If there is one thing I’ve noticed about politicians, they hate democracy – they would rather dispense with it and do what they want – the less democracy we have is better for power mongers and worse for society.  Right now, we elect dictators for four years and then we kick the bums out – and with the new bums comes a massive policy change and wasted money. When the government is constantly “under public pressure” policy continuity begins to emerge and over time we get stable long-term policy.

The hype that is being thrown and accumulating into the biggest, smelliest, mass of BS ever deposited on the field of political debate is the fear of extremist campaign on the NO side. Unbelievable that we have sunk to these sort of fear tactics, less unbelievable when you see who is doing it, the profiteers in the form of long-term political players who quake at the thought of having a full range of representation. 

  

Right now a full third of the electorate is unrepresented, big business is, big labour is, big government is – everyone one else is being taxed without representation.  Farms, ranchers, independent business people, the gig economy, artisans, tradespeople, small business people all out in the cold. The way this vital sector gets represented is through electoral reform. We need lower barriers to entry in the political space, more people in the game and democracy. 

I am in the Rural-Urban Proportional camp. Could this have been done better – most certainly? Are we being asked to buy a bit of pig in a poke – yes? If we are diligent, however, we can nurture this along and make it work. Avoid listening to the unmitigated horse excretion being delivered regarding the “extremists”, political boogiemen are like stray cats, all fear mongers have one and all power mongers use one. 

Healing Fissures - The Path to Finding Social Harmony

Society it seems is plagued by a thousand fissures – and like a thousand cuts that kill, they are killing us or at best wounding us all. There are religious fissures – Protestant v  Catholic v Judaism v Islam, with the people of Abraham all in possession of a jealous god. Then there are the polytheists, the secularists, free lovers, and the atheists. Layer on the “haves” and “the have-nots”. Layer on top of that political fissures.  Layer on top of that challenges that emerge from feminist concerns. Layer on top of that long-standing class divides.  Layer on top of all this, the power mongers who play it all for control for control sake. When one begins the task of unpacking it all and then brings a rational mind to finding the path to harmony, it seems impossible, even within the borders of Canada. 

No one understands the draw to tribalism better than I do; it is innate in us all. I often find myself coming to the defence of the culture I was raised in, an Anglo / Scottish protestant culture – I am so proud of our contribution in forging Canada and yet it seems the only thing finding its way into modern discourse is our mistakes. It is my sense that many of “us” feel this way and are eager to preserve what we’ve accomplished.  The temptation for me is to run to the ranks of my own, rally the troops and commence a mass effort to maintain and enhance our place in society.  That is the very approach, however, that has weakened us in the past. With our British roots – and the manner in which the Protestant Reformation came to lite on the British Empire and the cultural inclination toward exclusionary social discourse which is a part of being British,  we have left in our wake a good deal of disgruntlement; some justified, some less so.  

Exclusionary societal tactics tend over time to concentrate power to the point where a given mass of influence is insufficient to maintain a given order and so another set of actors take control – invariably, it is at the least costly and often in the course of history, it has been very bloody. It was these exclusionary social practices that caused massive disgruntlement through the course to the industrial revolution when Marxism emerged. It was bad Torism (Conservativism) that provided the genesis of Marxism.   

The barrier to developing harmony really is rooted in what is at risk for any given social group in acquiescing to the whole.  If the risk to acquiescing to the whole is genocide then no one is going to move off the established social structure. If the risk of acquiescence to the whole is a measured decline in influence absent any significant change in lifestyle then people are going to be more willing to move to a reconfigured social order.  So the search for a solution lies in the analysis of various social groups interests and protecting them. So, by way of example, if you say,  in order to fix wealth disparities government is going to take half highest wage earners income and all the wealth people accumulated to pass on to their family – you’ve created some losers in the process who will resist efforts and another fissure is formed.  There are solutions to wealth disparities that negate the need to take someone’s money and give it to someone else – in fact, they enhance the life of established actors – do that, and you’ve created an interest-based solution that people will find harmony with.

These fissures find expression in damaging ways in our society.  As various actors in civil society compete for dominance, they often lose sight of moral, ethical and legal boundaries.  As people exist in the ”us and them mentality” they become sociopathic toward the other group. There are no honest brokers at play, making efforts to heal the fissures that cause so much pain and discord.  The governments of the country are supposed to manage in a manner that generates harmony; they have been inept at quelling the very damaging effects from these competing entities because they are besieged by them – this process corrupts government, in that, there is a lack of fidelity between what is ostensibly being done and what is actually happening. As the resolution of this social phenomenon expands to larger and larger portions of society – discord will ensue.  It is incumbent on government to take steps to heal fissures in society and move us to a harmonious existence.  Integrity is the place where words and action merge, we should govern with integrity.

In the process of moving Canada under the umbrella of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms there needs to be acceptance of the present order of things – for change to happen people will need assurance that their present state of being will be respected and that as the process evolves there will be no personal toll that falls to various players in civil society. The goal should never be to TAKE from anyone, the goal should be fidelity to the ideals we expound as our core values;  the first of which is Liberty – for it is the one that guarantees all the rest.   

Dangerous Trend - Power Concentration in Canadian Society

State paternalism is a disease – that’s the only way to describe it. The state has a function, to facilitate human enterprise in a harmonious way. The challenge is, a relatively simple mandate gets highjacked by various powerbrokers – powerbrokers with one interest, to control. It isn’t so much the yearning for power that drives them, it’s the omnipresent self-interest that does.  There is a coalescence of state power and interest groups which merge the desire for interest groups to secure economic and other interests and the state to secure power (any given government at any given time); this makes state paternalism both powerful and lucrative.  The reason that state paternalism is a disease is that it steals freedom, quashes the individual and turns the state away from facilitating liberty to effecting control over people.

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For every action there is an equal reaction, one sees this play out often when observing nature, physical phenomena and in human discourse. So, it is logical to assume that when the state offers up a service that there is a reaction, or perhaps a cost. Or, when the state grants monopoly to a group to offer a service via regulation, that there is a reaction or a cost. It is often the case that under the pretence of “public protection”  regulatory frameworks come into place that restrict the supply of a service or offer a monopoly to a group for service provision; when this happens there is no competing offering and the cost of a given service rises. There are many examples of this throughout Canadian governance from medical services delivery, agriculture supply management, various professional groups bolstered by legislation – this list is endless. The fact that costs rise is punishment enough, it gets worse though because one's ability to choose whom to associate with is limited, one's choice of how to associate with others is limited and by extension control over your personal life is taken away and put into institutional hands. Please stop and contemplate your life and ask yourself, what part of your daily life is unaffected by government legislation and ask yourself what aspects of your life you retain control of.  In British Columbia, even something as personal as medical records are outside one's control, they are in public hands in a manner that fails to protect people’s privacy – with privacy goes freedom.

CLICK HERE FOR - TRANSCENDENCE - WHY IT MATTERS

At some point, we have to limit the power of these monopolies over our lives because everyone knows that absolute power corrupts absolutely. The regionalization of the medical system in British Columbia is a classic example of the undue and unnecessary consolidation of power.  Regionalisation puts $13 Billion into the hands of 5 people in the province. Health Regions have become the sole provider of healthcare in areas so large that going to another region for healthcare is very difficult. The health regions are operated by crown corporations that have become very large and very powerful and nearly inaccessible to the average citizen relying on them for care. The health regions are just one example of many government (regional) monopolies. The education system is another; we have a single choice for the provider of education to our children. The CRTC, having been co-opted by the telecoms has effected an oligopoly in the telecom space and as a result, our telecom costs are some of the highest in the world.  We have the CRTC allowing policies that erode internet neutrality – the most democratising force to have ever come into play in human history is being challenged.

This trend toward the “totalitarian state” via the institutionalisation of society is very troubling because the “side effect” of the trend is the disempowerment of the individual.  This is in no way a call to end government support for people in need or to stop funding, it is a call to defuse power and to bring government to the point of facilitating people – that is to say,  to put power where it belongs with the individual. Increasingly, the power structures within these institutions are self-serving and they always seek to consolidate influence. 

CLICK HERE FOR - SEEDING PROSPERITY - WHY IT MATTERS

The trend toward consolidation of influence, if left unchecked, is very dangerous, especially in our legal system, law enforcement and military. The RCMP, for example, is a far-reaching organization in Canada with a rank structure that is antiquated because it concentrates power to an apex of a person, rather than cellularizing or defusing power so that the apex of leadership is a creed.  

Most of our institutions preclude the existence of a competing entity and as a result, power concentrates.  This reality spills into the “real economy” in damaging ways as institutions pick winners, obstruct access to markets, reduce economic efficiency, increase transaction costs and create a Peruvian like economic structure. A Harvard Business School MBA class decided to do a case study on the Peruvian economy, they discovered it took 125 steps to licence a hotdog stand – turned out it was just easier to give the corrupt cop half your money.  We need to avoid this ever happening in Canada – unfortunately, it has; in many cases, when it comes time to do something, obstructive regulations are omnipresent - red tape is the arch-enemy of enterprise and innovation. 

CLICK BELOW - More Thoughts on the Subject

Tax Policy - KISS - Keep it Simple Stupid
CANADA - ECONOMIC STAGNATION NATION
Thoughts on - Counter Cyclical Spending

Senate - Government Financial Monitor?

Government Resource Revenue Dependence

Government - Ensuring Optimum Size

Senate Spending & Restructuring

                               Government Scale & Accountability 

State of the Province

State of the Province

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In British Columbia, the pendulum swings with such velocity it destroys things, the only thing that destroys more is the rhetoric that moves it and resulting distortion of public perception.  The recent events in our provinces politics are no exception and they are a product of failing to build consensus on a foundation of reason. Once again, short-termism, election cycles, frivolous posturing and spin are taking us away from health and prosperity to waste and destruction. What is even more ridiculous, is that the only thing there is consensus on, is the use of a Carbon Tax as a deterrent to fossil fuel use; a proposition I can readily disprove and is just plain stupid. One watches in disbelief as contention fueled folly leads us like a pack of squabbling lemmings into the realm of ineffective policy.

CLICK THIS LINK - MEDIA DISTORTIONS & PARTY POLITICS

I search every day for purity of thought in government policy – highest and best use, social goals, regional advantage, innovated education policy, disruptive economic policy, rural revitalization, rational medical policy – there is a void. There is a void because everybody is appeasing special interests and snuggling sacred cows; somehow we need to have the courage to question the status quo and design a future that holds prosperous people, social transcendence and a healthy environment.

To the socialists that clutch to mediocrity in the form of monolithic government institutions for security and salvation; I say that a truly generalised state of prosperity will never be found there and worse, institutions steal families and individuals. To the “top 1%” I say, pursue an exclusionary policy at your peril, Marx and Engels were created by exclusionary policy and their thinking has set motion several human disasters – disasters that can only be measured against the neglect of the working masses in the industrial revolution.  To the preservationists I say, we are the stewards of the earth now – the face of the earth is going to change, it is how you view that change that matters – Chernobyl, indisputably one of the largest disasters in history and it has created a wildlife refuge for short-lived mammals – that is everyone but us – it is a paradox that the thing you feared most generated what you love most – so have courage there is always a way forward. We live in the most beautiful and abundant place in the world, we can afford to be generous and we can afford to pursue a disruptive policy in the pursuit of a generalised state of prosperity and a healthy environment.

CLICK THIS LINK - TRANSCENDENCE & WHY IT MATTERS

There are a lot of “inconvenient truth(s)” that people want to ignore – here’s one – if every resident of British Columbia ceased to exist today, every environmental concern presently at play on the global stage would continue unabated – the only thing lost would be BC’s bank of human capital that wants to protect the environment. So it makes no sense to “sacrifice” our children’s futures at the altar of example – but rather make sensible use of our natural abundance, to generate wealth, to lead the change we are seeking. If you believe for one moment that stopping the production of fossil fuels in Canada will somehow drive better behaviour in other actors – you are a naïve. The vast majority of other actors in the world will respond to one thing, less expensive energy - whether it helps the environment or not – so that is where the focus should be – viable alternatives.  A policy that works is made by people accepting reality, rather than people peddling altruism. Focus altruism on measured outcomes.

CLICK THIS LINK - WHY CURTAIL CANADA'S OIL INDUSTRY - 

BAD ACTORS WILL FILL SUPPLY

Here’s another “inconvenient truth”, there has never been a school in history that has taught a child, people teach children. There was a time that knowledge travelled painlessly from one generation to the next through the course of life - no institution in sight. We have created a collection of institutions that place a higher value on credentials and process, than on knowledge and that has translated into a society that places a higher value on the status of credentials than value added outcome.  Most education is really a supply management system, we have a situation where most people are underemployed or waiting to be employed. Clearly, one needs to guard against nihilism or destructive change and take care of people who now depend on various established systems for prosperity – the trend away from this reality is essential if we are to ever to transcend the constraints our institutions are putting on the human enterprise.  We can accomplish this if we provide more relevant, rapid and less costly knowledge transfer – and credentials that are measured by improved outcome rather than ink on a page.

CLICK THIS LINK - HOW FREE & FREER EDUCATION WORKS

Here’s another “inconvenient truth”, there are a collection of people who want to control human discourse – they want to centralise power and impose their view of the world. Their view is often outmoded or corrupted by various interests that are antithetical to progress. As a result, we have legislation with many very damaging externalities – public policy should have one goal – that the human enterprise is exercised in pursuit of the expansion of the human condition – happy, healthier and prosperous people; that is to say, the facilitation of the populous. Seed the economy in the way homestead policy built 1/3 of the United States net worth, by giving people opportunity to prosper.  We have many opportunities in British Columbia for such effort – forest renewal, the transition to “tree farming” from “tree extraction”, tourism, agriculture and high tech offer many opportunities for aggressive support by the government in the form of independent capitalization. Much of what we have is wasted on policy that lacks an extended vision –  and without a consensus, we shuffle from the pillar back to the post.  Here we need cast aside old modalities to let a thousand flowers bloom, to emerge as they will – we need only feed them.

CLICK THIS LINK - Quantitative Easing for the Middle Class

Here’s another “inconvenient truth”, institutional inertia is taking us to the wrong place, nowhere is this truer than our medical system. Everyone has worked under failed strategy, one tactical change after another and the system is screaming for more, staff are overworked, resources are short - service is low, people are left wanting.  The concern here is the care and wellbeing of the population, as opposed to, preserving the medical system as it now exists. There is an irrationality that has gripped the Canadian populous on this issue and it is true here in British Columbia. We have to draw on all models – models beyond medical service delivery and design a system the provisions cutting edge care in abundance – it can be done because it is done in other areas of service.   

CLICK THIS LINK - MEDICAL SYSTEM REFORM 

Old ideas, old divisions and old thinking will take us to old places. We need to have the courage to forge a way forward that takes the long view, that can be counted on, that recognizes reality rather than pandering to existing in the box thinkers, we need to fragment group think at its source – the education system, we need to first educate and then finance our young people, we need to realize that prosperity for the poor is prosperity for everyone, we need infrastructure, we need rational environment policy – what we’re getting is political squabbling and lost opportunity.

The Right Time for Rural Land in BC's Interior

There are always junctures that provision an entry point to a market, it maybe that in British Columbia Agricultural land is at that point. There is a large inventory of substantive properties available, this large inventory has suppressed price of late – under 1 % per annum increase in the price since 2008. This flattening of the curve, seemingly at its nadir, has taken place with interest rates at an all-time low. There is a matrix of influencing factors that affects land prices, the ability to buy land and the ability to support that purchase ultimately are the key determinants in price setting.

Agricultural Lands in British Columbia have prices far beyond the ability of agriculture to support, agriculture land quality or capacity affects prices, but in no way accounts for the full value or the floor on land value. In British Columbia only 2.5 percent of the province is arable land, 95% of the province is crown land, couple these realities with the Canadian / Western cultural inclination to want to own land and one realizes that British Columbia ought to be exceeding the national average.

The matrix below indicates the degree to which BC has lagged the balance of the country in property price increases.  

Data - Farm Credit Corp.

The graph below indicates how little agricultural activity affects land prices; only when the orange line is below 1 are fundamental farm factors supporting price, if that is true of US crop land it is likely to be true of BC as well, perhaps more so given this graph focuses on cropping land. 

 Data - USDA

The challenge we face in BC is in having agricultural properties being self-supporting entities. Various farm types are more affected than others, note Beef Cattle operations in the matrix below – it has historically been the case that cattle have failed to carry land ownership cost or to withstand opportunity cost assessment.

Data - Farm Credit Corp.

Presently, throughout the province there is a large inventory of Ranch properties and prices are remaining flat, even, as stated above, in the face of low interest rates.  Throughout the interior, the predominate agricultural activity is ranching and ranching is presently enjoying a relatively good period – improved cattle prices and low interest rates, so one may deduct that the agricultural activity on ranches is less influencing on price than is ancillary factors (as supported by the USDA graph above & FCC quote below). There has been a long evolution in the lumber industry that has reduced labour requirement, thus, stifling local economies, add to that the violent correction in the US housing market (mitigated to some degree by exports to the Chinese market) and the interior has had slow growth for an extended period of time.

“Farm Credit - Agricultural Land Value Report October 2010 - British Columbia was the only province to see a decrease in farmland values by an average of 0.9 per cent over the first six months of 2010. Values were unchanged in the previous reporting period and decreased 0.7 per cent in the first half of 2009.In the first six months of 2010, economic factors largely external to agriculture had the greatest influence on farmland values. Economic uncertainty and the high Canadian dollar hindered investment in many sectors. This, in turn, led to lower demand for land and less expansion of existing operations. Overall, the B.C. land market was relatively flat during the first six months of 2010, with slight decreases in the Abbotsford, Clinton and Cloverdale regions. Sales of land for agriculture purposes were limited in some areas of the province.”

It is the sense of the writer that the US housing market will show mild improvement until about 2018 and at that point it should move into a long and strong growth pattern. This prediction is based on the belief that there was a confluence of cycle ends – major economic cycle, business cycle and technology cycle and well as, the resulting the commodity supper cycle correction or slowing – all of which collided with a grotesques financial deepening to create the down turn in 2008 – the real world economic cycles are now, one by one, running their course. One would anticipate that the inverse of 2008 will be true in 2018 – this thesis is shored up to some degree by severe downturns, 1930 etc., normally taking a decade to recover from.

It seems a prudent time to build an inventory of agricultural land, the inventory of ranches for sale is high, there have been recent sales that have effected downward pressure on the market. Anecdotally, one is noticing a larger number of price reductions occurring on listed properties. So with a large inventory and market picture with positive characteristics; the question then remains, which properties  are best positioned to garner increased value.

It has been established quite clearly that agricultural actives, particularly cattle ranching, are a means by which to maintain lands functionality but offer little support to ownership. One then considers ancillary attributes in the selection criteria; proximity to urban centers, timber assets, tourism attributes, companion enterprise opportunities - attributes that can build returns on the land. There are many such properties available now, one needs only to develop operations that carry the land assets with respect to fair returns and the land appreciation is a clear capital gain.  If one observes the first graph for the period starting 2001 through to 2006 exceptional gains were made; there is every reason to believe that we are approaching a similar cycle – starting in and around 2018.

FCC 2013 Land Value Report

FCC - Historical Land Prices

Business – Agriculture is a land play

There is a propensity in the world of high tech and escalating knowledge sector to overlook some of Canada’s mainstay industries; I am eager to draw your attention to agriculture. By way of example, the Cattle industry while experiencing a positive place in the cycle now, has traditionally been a “marginal” business. The cattle is trade heavily commoditized & well supplied, and as such, the prices garnered for cattle at sales hover around the industry wide average cost of production; so the reality is that cattle essentially take care of themselves financially – the people and assets to care for them but not the land base.

The Land associated with Cattle ranching then needs to stand on its own as a holding, and it does – over the course of the past decade it has exceeded inflation by good margins pretty consistently. The demand for agricultural land and the land’s resulting value is in no way related to the ability of the land to produce income through agriculture; if it were, agricultural land for ranching would be worth nothing, given the industries track record. The value for agricultural land comes from the western cultural imperative to own land and / or the speculative value of the land as a real-estate development and / or as a pure holding.

So why have cattle, well because, all the land will do is raise cattle in most cases and cattle provide a means by which to “maintain” ownership, in that, the process of ranching sees to the land asset’s care and wellbeing. So, while cattle-ranching is a more or less breakeven endeavor, with a grand spiritual surplus, it has value. The good news comes in the other opportunities that land base provides for companion enterprise, the cattle and land provide an essentially “free” place for other related businesses to function. Never underestimate the stability and opportunity that comes with accessing one of Canada’s mainstay industries, agriculture was here to get Canada started and it will be with us for a long long time.

Please see link below for past agro enterprise concepts and proposals

https://sites.google.com/site/midfraseragro/

Agricultural Land Commission - Largest land expropriation in Canadian history

ALR - Largest land expropriation in Canadian history

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The incursion by government in to the domain of private property, and its use and administration challenges one who holds private property rights dear. In Canada, and specifically in British Columbia where in 1972 the then NDP government in effect expropriated agricultural land in British Columbia for “preservation” as a perceived public good. Perhaps the best example of the lack of consideration in Canada for private property rights is their absence in the Charter of Rights and freedoms, Canadian’s are essentially absent any constitutional protection of private property – we do have a large breath of common law to support property rights; but our ownership or management choice of property can be legislated away, as was demonstrated by the advent of the Agricultural Land Commission (ALC). Had property rights been in place, as a right held by Canadians, the government would have had to properly compensate landowners for the reduction in opportunity that accrued to the owners as a result of the ALC’s creation. Farmers were never properly compensated, the legislation has never served to stave off development of choice farmland, agricultural land holds a massive “speculative development premium”, agricultural land trades at values that far exceed economically viable operations and the other goals of the legislation have only partly been satisfied.

The ALC’s actions, having failed to some degree to effect an overall benefit to agriculture, still frustrates the supply of land of only “marginal” value as farm land, in retarding the supply of said lands, the ACL has put significant upward pressure on land development for housing, this situation is acute in the lower mainland. This reality is exacerbated by the fact the most of BC is crownland and the government seems intent on hording it, rather than releasing in a responsible way to effect a more livable circumstance for the lower and middle income strata.

There are circumstances where the government is warranted in offering direction for private land use, but parameters must be set, people need to be reimbursed. Perhaps key agricultural land is such a case. Please read below, a letter sent in 2006 to the Agriculture Minister. Most of my critique offered then is still valid – action is needed.      

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Neil E. Thomson

 nthomson2@yahoo.ca

September 22, 2006

Honourable 

Minister of Agriculture and Lands

PO Box 9043

Stn Prov. Govt.

Victoria BC

V8W 9E2

Dear Sir,

RE: The Agricultural Land Commission Reform

This letter is in response to your and other’s discourse on the Bill Good show and the Forever Farmland submission paper authored by Charles Campbell for the David Suzuki Foundation.

Property Rights

Recent discourse around this issue is lacking advocacy for land owner’s interests. On the Bill Good show you stated that, upon a properties exclusion from ALR the owners become “instant millionaires.” The presumption being that the owner in enjoying a windfall through a zoning change being bestowed on them by the government. The fact is that farmland owners are being impaired from exercising their right to manage personal property in the most profitable way. Your tone seemed to support the tone of the David Suzuki Foundation’s submission paper that opportunity is being extended to land owners upon exclusion from the ALR, when in fact opportunity is being regained, or that ownership is being allowed to do what property rights should allow them to do. 

The right to manage property by ownership in response to market opportunity is the keystone of a market based society. Proper deference to this paradigm was withheld when this legislation initially was imposed on the farmland owners of British Columbia, and has continued to be ignored over the ALR’s thirty plus year history.

One needs to recognize that market influences often impose Faustian actions that run contrary to the greater good, and perhaps agricultural land use and development is such a case. While the need to preserve farmland is certainly a value I share with many, the actual need to preserve farm land is very abstract and subjective. It is difficult to provide supported argument for preservation of farmland outside what may have “naturally” occurred in response to market forces.

In a case such as the ALR, especially where a compelling state interest is very difficult to demonstrate, property rights should be respected by reimbursing ownership for opportunities forgone. When the government put this legislation into place in 1972 they erased large portions of people’s net worth with what amounted to an act of expropriation.  

Had the government given deference to property rights when this legislation was put in place, many of the negative effects of the ALR would have been reduced. The proper treatment of farmland owners of the day would have given the government the latitude to strengthen lands retention by the ALC and may have greatly reduced the speculative values on farmland today.

ALR and Valuation of Farmland

The present application of the ALR legislation has set up a dynamic where speculation is still viable, so land prices escalate in response to their potential value for development, while at the same time the ALR is restricting supply of land for development. The past application of the ALR legislation may have driven farmland prices higher than if the ALR legislation was absent.

The only way to assure that Farmland prices reflect farming’s ability to be viable is to have lands inclusion in the ALR permanent and the contemplation of development non existent. As a society we ascribe values to land for any number of reasons, we protect parks etc.. We manage parks in the absence of consideration of the removal of Park status and we can do the same for agricultural land.

Permanent Inclusion in the ALR

Permanent inclusion in the ALR requires recognition that government is expropriating opportunity from farmland owners and retribution needs to be made to present ownership for opportunities forgone. The commitment to permanence with proper deference to property rights, would force government to be thorough in their assessment of land type and quantity to be included in the ALR.

Clearly Defined Purpose, Criteria for Inclusion and Inventory

There needs to be a clearly defined purpose for inclusion and a set of criteria for inclusion that supports that purpose. Preserving farmland is a very broad or vague mandate and a confused execution has emerged as a result of the existing vagueness. What is the farmland being preserved for? How much preserved farmland is enough? What quality requires preservation? What are the complete set of values we are seeking to protect?

Inclusion in the ALR should be criteria driven. The establishment of clear criteria for inclusion provides for a less politically charged environment and provides the “market” with a stable setting for planning and development.

Presently there is a trading process which allows agricultural land outside the ALR to be “traded “ to allow the development of land inside the ALR. This fact in of itself illustrates that there is more work to be done on inventory or presumably these “non ALR agricultural lands” would have been included in the ALR at the inception of the ALC. A complete inventory of presently available agricultural land needs to be developed.

The interests underpinning the societal desire to preserve farmland are diverse. A process needs to be initiated that draws out the values that exist in the public body around farmland and informs them of the cost of preserving farmland. It is my opinion that a broad array of values are at play exceeding just securing food production, to values including aesthetics of the countryside and preservation of the family farm. The existing legislation and its enactment seem to be falling short on responding to the diversity of values that exist.

Regressive Assessment of ALR Legislation

The legislation needs to be considered in the context of where would we be today in the absence of the ALR? What do other jurisdictions look like without a ALR? This assessment would provide valuable information for the future management of the ALR and its management regime.

Facilitation of Diverse Land Use

  

The government has taken steps in the past to contribute to the viability of agriculture by offering opportunities for diversifying farm operations. The woodlot program is a case in point. The farming community should have access to tourism opportunities enhanced. Complementary Tourism enterprises come with a small environment and land use footprint, and offer opportunity for higher margins than can be garnered from most agricultural enterprises.

The case of Golf courses has been raised by many as a “non agricultural” activity and inappropriate for ALR Lands. This is a case in point, where the legislation needs to offer direction. A Golf course is an activity that allows for economically viable non-destructive use of the land, until such time as a future agricultural venture offers a better opportunity. That is to say the land is “readily” reclaimable or “held in reserve” for agriculture. A golf course is every bit as agricultural as a turf farm or a Christmas tree farm.

Forever Farmland – David Suzuki foundation - Recommendations

The recommendations submitted to you are generally acceptable. The recommendations do need to be sensitised to property rights. In the ambit of land use management, the various planning forums need to find interoperability. Criteria and objectives can be derived from public consultation through the full management spectrum, the application of criteria and objectives should be held to the local forums.  

Conclusion

I am compelled to support measures that protect farmland. The protection of farmland satisfies two primary concerns for me; firstly the assurance of the ability to be regionally self-sufficient in traditional food production, and secondly the desire to preserve the beauty of British Columbia’s countryside.

Thank you for giving consideration to the contents of this letter in your deliberations.

Sincerely,

Neil E. Thomson

CC:      Claude Richmond, Minister of Employment and Income Assistance

            Kevin Krueger, MLA Kamloops – North Thompson 

            Ann Rowan, Director of Sustainability – David Suzuki Foundation