My CR Fair Food Matters Speech......

As you may know, small lot farmers in Saanich have become the first contestants in a provincial wide game that BC Assessment is calling “The Project”. This game is a little bit like strip poker. No matter how good of a player you have been in the past, or in this case how good of a farmer, eventually contestants are left standing without any clothes on and BC assessment has a brand new wardrobe.

So what is going on?

Small lot farms are being reassessed and split into pieces for tax purposes. Farmers are being put though an exercise of having to prove themselves innocent while they are accused of being guilty of not using their land in ways that qualify them for farm status. “The Project” is something that started last summer. One by one, farms were inspected without any notice. And one by one they were split up. Then BC Assessment encouraged people appeal their new assessment if they didn’t agree.

204 farms were part of the reassessment. These farms were not inside the ALR. So they were left without protection that the ALR would have given them. The lack of communication between BC Assessment and residents with these small lots farms has been unexplainable. BC Assessment claims that nothing has really changed with the legislation, what has changed is the way they are enforcing policies that are already in place. They are simply trying to correct classifications that have been incorrect in the past. They let farmers know that as land values rise in rural areas there is more pressure to correct these incorrect classifications. Where is the pressure coming from?

In January, residents of Saanich, politicians and people who care about local food joined me one evening for a public meeting. We wanted BC Assessment to know we did not agree with this action. We called for a moratorium. We said stop doing this until you figure out what you are doing.

We didn’t get a moratorium. We got a review panel assigned to assess the farm classification process and regulations with a focus on simplifying and streamlining the regulations, while at the same time ensuring the property assessment system is fair, equitable, enhances competitiveness and supports innovation and the British Columbia Agriculture Plan and a healthy future for British Columbia families and communities.

This panel will begin its review in July and will be completing the process in 2009.

That sounds really great. But for the last 2 weeks I have been sitting and watching the Saanich farm Appeals. Let me tell you, 2009 is too late for Saanich.

We have to ask ourselves an important question.. How important are our rural areas? I have heard politicians say that they don’t need areas such as rural Saanich during an election because there aren’t enough votes to make a difference to them. But when you look at a Saanich citizen study, the importance of protecting the Urban containment boundary, the importance of protecting local farming and the protection of natural spaces and places ranks right at the top of the list of things that matter. The citizens who took this poll are not all from rural Saanich but a mix of residents from all over the Municipality.

Rural Saanich, although not heavily populated, has a great role to play. There is the idea that it is a source for local food, a greenbelt, an environment for species that are slowly loosing habitat. And if you believe in climate change we have a carbon sink. And if you don’t believe in Climate change just think of it as a place where stands of trees are able to suck up pollution and clean our air.

If you think of everything as having a fiscal value then perhaps you would not see Rural Saanich as it is now, as having the value it should. And that is where “the Project” comes in. Somebody realized that there was some property tax income that they were missing out on. Maybe they thought they could improve the fiscal value of this area? They could put a greater dollar value on it.

There are large properties that are getting a reduction in there property tax by selling farm products. In the past, a $2500 - $10000 threshold was used to measure the productivity of a small farm. We have people raising chickens, selling eggs, raising pigs, selling produce, harvesting honey, raising lamb, growing grapes, making wine, etc. The list goes on and on. They are doing this and usually holding down another job off the property. This is the new face of farming.

Now it looks like there is a new way to measure if a farm is a farm in Rural Saanich.
Now the area farmed is measured right down to the last square foot.. The parts of these rural lots that are not actively farmed are being taxed at a residential rate. So that means if you have a 5-acre parcel and actively farm 3 acres while choosing to leave a 2-acre forest as a green belt or an intact ecosystem, protection from erosion, protection for an irrigation pond, natural drainage control, or a buffer zone from neighbors, this is now taxed at a residential rate. Small lot farms are being split into pieces so that more property tax can be collected.

The problem is that people like us don’t just see a monetary value in these farms. It’s people like us that see much more. We see food production, environmental protection, and most of all food security. We know what’s coming down the line. One farmer left their appeal in tears this week. Her farm was spilt and she didn’t understand why. Her question to BC Assessment this: Who is going to feed you?

So what will happen to these great stands of forest in Rural Saanich now taxed at residential rates and split from the farm that housed them as if to imply they had no value to the farm? If the only way to be considered a “whole farm” is to clear-cut your property then that may be what happens. And then what? In my opinion, we will start to see development happening behind the urban containment boundary. Maybe that is the point of this new approach.

The project is moving on to Langford and Metchosin next. How do we make sure the next round of farms is protected?

We have a panel that has been formed to address this pressing issue. We have a panel that has been chosen to represent regional areas of BC and to look at revamping the way farms are being assessed. The panel will begin to meet in July and the BC Government is encouraging all concerned citizens to give their input.

We have to tell Minister Thorpe and the Panel that small lot farms matter. We are lucky in this area that we have such a knowledgeable supportive citizen base. I think people know how important small farms are. And I think we all know that our definition of a farm is different that one being used in “the project”. So what can we do? We have to write letters, make phone calls, we have to be the ones who stand up and say that small lot farms will be part of the solution and a contributor to our food security system in this area in the future. And that is the power we have. Let’s use it!