Did an Election Call Cost B.C. Its Share of Federal Food Money?

We spent a good chunk of yesterday's program on BC's 50-50 rule. And today, well, the Premier weighed in. And here's a quick refresher for you. The rules say food processed on farmland has to come at least half from that same farm. That's hence the 50-50 rule. Now, the province drafted a fix this summer that would drop that to 5% on the poorest soil, but Cabinet never signed the order before the election was called. Meanwhile, Ottawa has $350 million on the table for food manufacturing and $1 billion for food terminals, and that window closes in about, well, eight weeks. Well, today reporters asked David Eby about it. His answer was that you can already process food on the ALR, so BC is still in the running for that federal money. Take a listen to his comments.

Processing is allowed on the ALR right now. There's lots of processing that happens on the ALR. We're in engagement right now. We had the farmers ask for a little bit more time to do engagement on that with their members and provide feedback to us as government. That will conclude this month. And then we'll be in a position to make any changes. But just to be totally clear so that businesses are not anxious about this at all, you are allowed to do processing on the ALR and that this fund is open to British Columbia companies.

So this fund is open, he says. Now, this issue has been brought up in 2020 when the Food Security Task Force reported back. So that report was filed in 2020. So my question is, how much more engagement do we actually need? Well, joining me now to talk about this issue is Lenore Newman, director of the Food and Agriculture Institute from the University of the Fraser Valley. She was part of the Food Security Task Force as well. Ms. Newman, thank you so much for your time.

Great to be here, Jeff.

Now, this is a very important issue. Yesterday, I reported that this particular movement forward got stuck in, I guess, an OIC that didn't get signed, an order in council, and the election was called. And these rules would have been brought in to allow for greater processing of food right here in British Columbia. And we'll get to that issue for a second. But the premier says you can already process food on the ALR, so BC can still access some of that federal money, which the plan is supposed to end in about eight weeks. First of all, is he right?

Well, the Premier is a little misinformed on this issue, Jaz, to be honest, and it's very disappointing. After six years, it feels a bit like Groundhog Day. And I think for the listener, it's important to realize the agri-food industry has two components. There's farming, which is about a $5 billion industry in BC, so it's important. And then there's processing, which is about a $12 billion industry. The agricultural land reserve was designed to house both industries and that was set out right in the beginning in the 70s and along the way about 20 years ago there were some real changes but we also started to see activists really pushing to take processors and throw them under the bus and get them off of the ALR and as we've talked about before turn it into more of a green belt and we've seen that be devastatingly effective so what the