Recently, a number of open houses were held around southern Alberta to give concerned landowners an opportunity to discuss the Alberta Land Stewardship Act (formerly known as Bill 36)  and offer feedback regarding property rights in particular to the government representatives in attendance.
While the two sides, government vs. landowner, have been at loggerheads over the legislation, it seems there may be progress happening. At previous meetings, the government seemed to be unwilling to change the Bill or repeal it altogether and start afresh, the landowners questioned its legitimacy and expressed their concerns about losing their property rights and not having any routes for appealing or for compensation should a piece of land come into dispute.
The trust by landowners for the provincial government has certainly been tarnished, if not completely shattered and while the property owners see progress being made with this latest round of open houses, rebuilding the trust is going to be a long haul....a much longer haul than the brief few months leading up to the next provincial election.
But, the dialogue between the two parties has opened up a bit and to many, that is progress. At least at this point the government is listening and has expressed a willingness to take the concerns of the people back to Edmonton. Of course, the government has not gone so far as to meet the landowners’ wishes of repealing the Bill and starting fresh, which may be the most simplistic way to do it. The people who turned out to the open house, and the majority who attended previous meetings and information sessions were primarily those who work in the agriculture industry. Their jobs are their lives and they are probably the best stewards of the land out there. It is their expertise that should have been sought out in the first place and perhaps, some (not all, however) of the current issues could have been avoided.
Ted Morton, who was the Minister of Sustainable Resources at the time and was the mastermind behind the Land Use Framework maybe should have looked to local landowners instead of modeling it after a framework that has proven to be equally unsuccessful in the United States. Hindsight really does have 20-20 vision, doesn’t it?
After loud outcries from the public over Bill 36 and those regional plans that fall under the Land Use Framework (ours being the South Saskatchewan Plan), the Alberta government changed some of the wording and amended the Act. To those who have been paying close attention, the word changes did nothing to change the meaning of the legislation.
At this point, many of the landowners were feeling like they were being played for fools and the amended legislation did nothing more than get them even more angry and concerned about the motives behind the Land Stewardship Act.
Hence, the open house. Premier Alison Redford really had little choice than to address the issue head-on and treat the local landowners with the respect they deserve.
The open houses may have seemed merely to be information gathering sessions, but they were much more than that. They were meant to mend a few fences in gaining back the trust of the people. They say wheels turn slowly when trying to get action from government. Well, the government is going to be learning that the wheels in rebuilding trust turn equally as slow. But, one step forward is better than two backwards.