By Roy L Hales
The Clark government introduced legislation dividing the province’s Agriculture Land Reserve in half. In the South, “decisions will continue to be made on the basis of the original principle of preserving agricultural land.” They want freedom to reconsider how parcels the Northern section will be used. A news release entitled “Food for Thought” explained this by saying 85% of agricultural revenues came from a mere 10% of the land. It looks like the BC Government wants to frack BC’s Agricultural Land Reserve in the north.
Opposition MLA Vicki Huntington had stronger words, “Without consultation, this government has introduced legislation to remove 90 per cent of BC’s farmland from the ALC’s (Agricultural Land Commission) independent mandate to protect farmland and farming.”
This is not the first time that she has complained about the Government’s lack of communication.
Three days ago Huntington scolded Bill Bennet, who Chairs the Core Review, during Question Period, “A one way consultation process doesn’t mean anything to the people of this province. This Government has consistently refused to oppose industrial speculation on farmland in Delta, it has leaked proposals to weaken the land commission. The minister have openly defied the ALC by supporting exclusions from the land reserve. It is a government whose minister responsible for core review openly targets the ALC.”
Richard Bullock, Chair of the Agricultural Land Commission, appears to have been deliberately kept out of the loop and told a reporter from the Globe and Mail. “I’m not sure if any of our people should be treated different in one part [of the province] than they are in another. I thought [equal treatment] is how we operated as a society, but we’ll see.”
He later added that one of the Ministers behind this scheme is “going to have to sit down and talk to me on how he sees it working. I don’t know.”
A great many people have raised concerned about the possibility the ALC will be reformed over the past few months.
Only 5% of the Province is in the ALR yet, as far as I know, nobody has asked if there is anything special about this land.
There is a map of them, taken from the ALC’s 2009 annual report at the top of this page. Note the amount of green in the area north and west of Dawson Creek. That would appear to overlap with some of the orange dots in the map below. Only those are areas where licenses have been taken out to draw water for LNG operations.
Some of this area is also in the map of the Montney Formation (below), which was taken from joint press release entitled “Montney Formation, one of the Largest Gas Resources in the World, Report Shows.” Two of the government bodies involved with it were the British Columbia Oil and Gas Commission and the British Columbia Ministry of Natural Gas Development. They were announcing a report that estimates the Montney Formation contains:
- 12,719 billion m3 (449 Tcf) of marketable natural gas;
- 2,308 million m3 (14,521 million barrels) of marketable natural gas liquids (NGLs); and
- 179 million m3 (1,125 million barrels) of marketable oil.
According to Gaétan Caron, CEO of the National Energy Board, “At current consumption rates the Montney gas resource would meet Canadian needs for 145 years.”
Now Premier Clark has been very open about belief that BC’s natural gas reserves are a trillion dollar opportunity. It is also a well known fact that the most abundant reserves are in the Northeast corner of the province. What I would like to know is how much, if any, of the land they want to frack is in the Agricultural Land Reserve?
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