MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2011
Afternoon Sitting
Second Reading of Bills
Bill 8 — Community, Sport and Cultural Development Statutes Amendment Act, 2011
M. Sather: It’s my pleasure to rise to speak to Bill 8, the Community, Sport and Cultural Development Statutes Amendment Act, 2011. As other speakers have before me, I’ll be referring to the agricultural components of this bill. I want to thank the minister for her comments, the member for Nechako Lakes for his and the work he’s done, and for the very thorough history of the genesis, in many respects, of this bill from the member for Saanich South.
Agriculture is obviously very important in British Columbia and in Canada, and we need to do everything we can to support it. My background in agriculture is growing up on a grain farm in the Peace River country, and my family still farms there. Now since 1985, when I moved to Maple Ridge, I’ve gotten very familiar with agriculture in my area, which is very different than it is in the Peace River country and, I think, benefits particularly from legislation like Bill 8, which I definitely support.
We have kind of two sides to agriculture in Maple Ridge in terms of the physicality of it. In Pitt Meadows and in northwest Maple Ridge we have fairly large farms. Some of them are medium-sized, and some are quite large. There are a couple of landowners in particular that hold very large portions, and then the rest of Maple Ridge, in particular — and Pitt Meadows, to some degree — is, largely, small farms. Many of them are a couple acres in size or even smaller, and they could run up to ten acres or perhaps more in some cases.
The work that the farm assessment review panel did, I think, has been very good work. I heartily recommend what they’ve done. I know they started some time ago and that the government…. I’m looking at a news release that the government put out in November of 2009, two years ago, with comments by the Community and Rural Development Minister, now the member for Kootenay East. He said: “Supporting family farms at a time when they’re facing the challenges of financial uncertainty, high overhead and a changing climate is essential to preserving one of our most valued industries.”
I couldn’t agree more with that, Madam Speaker, and it’s good to see that both sides of the House are looking at that. The news release later on talks about the province “significantly reducing the tax burden on farm properties by eliminating the split classification of farm properties” — and the minister referred to this — “on the agricultural land reserve that are not used for other purposes, and eliminating the split classification for non-ALR properties where at least 50 percent of the property is in or contributes to production.” So this will help farms in my constituency, in my community and neighbouring Maple Ridge–Mission as well, and that is a good thing.
Madam Speaker, we’re on that rural-urban interface in Maple Ridge, particularly. There are myriad challenges that come with farming in Maple Ridge and in Pitt Meadows because there are more blueberries there. You get more of the blueberry cannons, which upset some of the folks in nearby residential areas and, of course, smells, in some cases, from farming practices. All of these lead to some conflicts, so farming is definitely challenging.
The land price is probably the largest challenge in my area — farmland that farmers would like to acquire. I’ve talked to a number of them, and it’s just very difficult to acquire farmland at the price that it’s at. It’s largely that expensive because of the threat of urban development on those lands, which leads to the speculation, which leads to the higher prices, which makes it challenging for farming. So anything we can do, like Bill 8 provides for, is certainly welcome news in my constituency.
We definitely have, you know, the problem, too, that some land is being held for speculation purposes. That takes it out of production. I’ve heard of landowners actually threatening others that had an interest in the same property not to put any agricultural products on the property. These multiple challenges make it difficult to farm, as I say, so this is a good development.
I just wanted to read a short note I got just today, from two of my constituents who are farmers in Pitt Meadows, which brings out another challenge that they have and how supports can be of great advantage to them. They say:
“Dear Mr. Sather: “Our names are John and Yvonne Murdoch, and we are the owners of Hamming View Farms in Pitt Meadows. We would like to voice our extreme concern regarding the latest developments in the Pacific cooperative summit in Honolulu between Prime Minister Harper and President Barack Obama, using the supply management system as a tool to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership. I hope that you support supply management and the fellow dairy farmers in your constituency. The press only mentions the 20,000 farmers that it will affect, but that doesn’t include the thousands of support people and businesses that help keep our operations running and in turn provide stability to our economy. Support your local farmers before we become extinct. “Thank you, “The Murdoch family.”
So there are many challenges that farmers are facing — that being one of them — and I certainly know that in the Peace River country our farmers will have had concerns about that. I’m sure the minister, who is from Peace River South, has talked to his farmers and his constituents about that as well. So it all adds up to a difficult time for farming.
Of course, farming is always challenging because the price goes up and down. All too often it’s down. I don’t think most city dwellers could comprehend that the price of wheat…. And I don’t know what the current price is, but I know that it has been for decades upon decades largely unchanged, and yet they are managing to sell their product, making a lot of changes that….
Sometimes there is larger production with some of the inputs with fertilizers and pesticides that aren’t necessarily good for the environment but they feel obligated to do in order to be able to make a living.
With that, I just want to say that I am very pleased with this legislation, and I understand there are a couple more changes. What we’ve got here, specifically the incentive for outbuildings, construction of outbuildings on a farm — that can be very important. The relief for retired families — now, that’s a big one, where folks retire and their tax status can change and can lead to loss of farms.
The minister mentioned two more changes coming up: changing the reporting period and the one with regard to expanding a list of primary agricultural production. The member for Nechako Lakes talked about the difficulty, inconsistency — whatever — of blueberries being an agricultural crop, but if you make blueberry jam out of it, it’s not. So I hope the government will move on those kinds of changes to again make it more viable for our farmers to exist and to thrive.
So thank you, very much, Madam Speaker. I’ll take my seat if there are any further members that wish to address this bill.
