Chasing Your Tail?

Honourable John van Dongen
PO Box 9058, STN PROV GOVT
Victoria, BC
V8W 9E2

Dear Mr. van Dongen,
I thought the group would enjoy a little history. The following was taken from the Gov't site:
http://www.legis.gov.bc.ca/CMT/36thParl/CMT08/hansard/1999/af052599.htm

1998/99 Legislative Session: 3rd Session, 36th Parliament

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES

TRANSCRIPTS OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

TUESDAY, MAY 25, 1999
Issue No. 11

J. van Dongen: Now, in terms of the cannon review, I'm pleased to see that you're doing it. And despite the comments by my colleague, I think that the interests of agriculture are also served by trying to deal with the conflicts. When we've got these kinds of numbers of conflicts, if there are any possible technical options, they should be explored. So I think it's good that you're doing the review, and where you've got. . . . I think we've seen, with the mushroom-composting experience. . . . We left a complaint far too long -- in my view, a legitimate complaint by the public -- and really ended up with some more expensive solutions than we should have. If we had dealt as an industry with the ministry, and dealt with it sooner. . . .

J. van Dongen: Is that something that is worthy of review? I don't know that there are many orders that have been issued, but certainly it's my experience that if. . . . You know, I would think that if a board that was set up to protect farmers issued an order, it would be an order that would certainly have some legitimacy. It seems to me pretty ineffective to expect a complainant or a local government to actually have to initiate court action to enforce that order. I wonder if there's been any discussion, either within the board or with the ministry, about trying to improve the enforcement mechanism. This is where I think a lot of our. . . . If we've had failures in the past, it's where we haven't had an ability -- and I say this very generally, as any government: local, provincial or whatever -- to enforce legitimate decisions.

J. van Dongen: If I could just make one follow-up comment. In my experience, with the blueberry cannon thing as an example, it gets really complicated when you've got various agencies with varying degrees of authority. Nobody is clear as to who has the authority. There is no clear enforcement mechanism. I think the normal farm practice, using cannons as the example, is that you can turn them on at 6 a.m., and they have to be shut off at 8 p.m. -- that kind of thing. We need something clearer than what we have now in terms of what the local government's responsibility is -- or whoever -- to enforce that that's happening. A policy is useless if we don't have an effective, efficient -- i.e., cheap and effective -- system to enforce it. I think the board should take an interest not only in its own enforcement ability, for future discussion, but also in the enforcement ability of local governments and provincial agencies such as the Ministry of Environment in terms of their aspects of these issues. Again, I say that the interests of agriculture are well served if the system responds effectively when you have a bad apple, someone who is defying the system. When we have a few of those, they give the rest of the industry a bad name. There are a few of them that are simply not negotiable, and you need to have an effective 2-by-4. Then I think the industry is well served by that.

If you note the date above (Tuesday, May 25, 1999), does it seem that the "head dog" is still chasing his tail? John, can we ever hope to see an end to this ongoing problem?

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