Winter of discontent: Alberta panel to gauge anger over land-use rules

EDMONTON – An Alberta government panel will take the temperature of public unrest before the province makes any changes to its controversial land-use legislation.

Premier Alison Redford says she wants as much information as possible before deciding what to fix and how to fix it.

“I’ve got some issues that I’d like to deal with in that legislation,” Redford told said Thursday.

“But as opposed to going out and simply introducing amendments, I want to make sure that we’ve consulted with Albertans and covered off the areas.”

The panel of government ministers and backbenchers, chaired by Environment Minister Diana McQueen, is to tour communities starting next month and hold open houses in January.

Redford has not said when she would bring forward legislative changes.

The consultations will be open to the public and will not be conducted like recent public discussions on the budget, she said. Those talks took place in private with citizens handpicked by the governing Progressive Conservatives.

If legislation is introduced by Redford, it will be the second time the Alberta Land Stewardship Act has been put on the hoist since it was passed two years ago by former premier Ed Stelmach.

The act, along with related land-use planning legislation, have been nothing short of an albatross around the government’s neck.

For more than a year hundreds of angry landowners have jammed townhall meetings to hear citizen activists detail how the laws centralize power in cabinet and give the government power to confiscate property and property rights with scant compensation or legal recourse.

The Wildrose party led the charge and climbed significantly in popular opinion polls. The issue is one of those that fuelled caucus discontent with Stelmach and helped trigger his surprise resignation announcement last winter.

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He made changes to the legislation before leaving. In the spring legislature sitting, his government passed amendments to forbid taking away land titles, to clarify compensation and to spell out legal recourse for those affected.

Critics still said the playing field was tilted in favour of the government. They noted that water rights and other leases were still in play and that the appeal process wouldn’t be triggered unless cabinet OKed it.

It became an issue during the eight-month campaign to replace Stelmach, which ended last month with the selection of Redford.

Redford made it clear during the campaign that, if picked to lead the party and be premier, she would review the land-use rules.

Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith said Thursday she was pleased to see changes coming, but added that if Redford wants input, she can take comments already out there from angry landowners.

“We don’t need to continue delaying this,” said Smith. “I think it’s quite clear they made a grievous error in the construction of these bills and I think any delay is unnecessary.”

Since being sworn in Oct. 7, Redford has already taken action on two other contentious land-use laws. In the next week or two, her government is expected to pass amendments to the Land Assembly Project Area Act.

Under the original act, the government had the right to freeze someone’s land in case it would be needed at some unspecified future date for a roadway or water reservoir.

The formula for compensation was lower than if the government had simply expropriated the land, and any landowner who defied the order and developed the land anyway faced fines or jail.

Changes now before the legislature ensure that the government would have to make a decision on the frozen land within two years. There would also be a clearer consultation process and provisions to make sure landowners get fair value. And no one would go to jail.

“The biggest impact is strengthening the position of landowners and making sure the restrictions on government are clear,” said Infrastructure Minister Jeff Johnson, who is steering the bill through the house.

“We’ve added a few bits in there that Albertans have asked for over the last 18 months, and we’ve provided some real clarity to some of the things we thought were clear but had created confusion.”

Smith said she quibbles with smaller points in the legislation, but said for the most part the Tories have got it right.

“They went a long way to making the changes they needed to. These were the issues that we were bringing up in the legislature, and we were being told (by the Tories) we were fearmongering.”

The other contentious land-planning law revolves around changes made two years ago that give cabinet unilateral authority to order power line construction if it deems the lines critically necessary.

Under the old rules, power companies had to prove through public hearings that the power was needed, given that the billion-dollar-plus projects are funded by taxpayers.

Stelmach’s Tories used the legislation to order three multibillion-dollar power lines that critics decried as a massive overbuild of surplus electricity paid for by the public, but which power companies could then use to sell south of the border at a healthy profit.

Redford has halted two of the three lines pending a review of whether the power is needed. A third line – the Heartland line – is being built around Edmonton’s eastern outskirts to service heavy industry.

Area reeves and mayors are fighting the Heartland decision. They say the power is not needed, but Redford remains adamant that it is.