To the editor,
BC Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson and MLA Donna Barnett are getting a head of steam up over Bill 15 this month, stoking it with outrage over the removal of the ability of landowners to directly apply to remove land from the ALR; invoking matching outrage from landowners.
That language sounds real for the few seconds before rational thought sets in.
Then, one realizes that decades of destruction of the very farmland that we all need for food, under the BC Liberals, have necessitated Bill 52, of which Bill 15 is a strengthening amendment.
The principle of protecting the integrity of the land base that we share, on which we depend, as being more important than the right of a speculator to make money, is the core intent of the ALR.
It should not be abandoned as it was by the BC Liberals when in power.
One only has to visit the Fraser Valley to witness the worst abuses.
It is now our responsibility to elect people of intelligence and integrity, guiding policy, so that producers who are legitimately stewarding their land, and understand the quality and nature of it, have a path forward to earning a decent living by growing food and are not forced into selling off agricultural land for development to secure their old-age or their children’s education.
Because that is where the real economic dysfunction and injustice lies, and this crowing about the ‘removal of person’ is a classic political diversion from the actual issue.
Rita Giesbrecht
108 Mile Ranch