Sale of Public Land for Commercial Use (November 23)
Ms Pastoor: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Food security is a growing issue internationally, and Alberta is not free of its challenges.
We have lost a significant amount of our prime agricultural land to development, and it could get worse due to an increase in land grabs by corporations and investors, but the land-use framework remains stalled. To the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development: this government recently illustrated its willingness to sell Crown land without a public process, so why should Albertans trust the government to protect our agricultural land?
The Speaker: The hon. minister.
Mr. Hayden: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the member opposite for the question. In fact, what happened with the proposed bid on the Crown land that the member refers to is that it was going through the system and did not happen, which proves to me that the system is working.
The Speaker: The hon. member.
Ms Pastoor: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My second question to the same minister: given that there are limited protections in law, how is this government ensuring that other countries and foreign corporations are not grabbing Alberta’s land for their own food security needs?
The Speaker: The hon. minister.
Mr. Hayden: Well, thank you, Mr. Speaker. We, of course, have agriculture as our second largest industry in this province, and it’s a huge contributor. The agricultural sector has a great deal of input into the land-use framework. As well, Municipal Affairs and my ministry work very hard together over our concerns about fragmentation of land. About 85 per cent of our land base in this province is agricultural land or forestry.
The Speaker: The hon. member.
Ms Pastoor: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Without completion of the land-use framework’s regional plans, how is the minister able to ensure the protection of agricultural land for the long term?
Mr. Hayden: Mr. Speaker, we do have foreign ownership land legislation in Alberta that protects us and makes certain that we will continue to own the land and be able to control the food production. But we also have to be aware that we produce far more than we can consume. We export approximately 80 per cent of what we produce.
Alberta Hansard, November 23, 2010