Attached are the articles about the Delta boys, from Equity magazine

A couple of interesting side notes are Campbell’s efforts to secure the influence of the Delta Boys – last year he gave the Delta Farmers’ Institute a provincial government heritage agriculture award, and a few months before that he gave Ron Toigo a Queen’s Medallion for community service (for the Vancouver Giants’ – which is a business, not a volunteer effort) in the middle of the battle over the Tsawwassen Golf Course ALR exclusion.

I know that Vicki Huntington and Harold Steves have both been approached by some of the farmers, but the power of the Delta boys is so great, they can make life very unhappy for opponents, that it is really difficult to get them to speak publicly.

The ALC issued its approval of SFPR in December of 2008. The only people who were involved in the consultations – who had any voice in the matter – were the farmers directly on the route and a couple of other people from the Delta Farmers Institute.

In January and February 2009, the ALC very quietly approved further farmland handovers for rail expansion and the railway over pass.

In the past couple of weeks, the Farmland Defence League have learned that none of the farmers affected by these decisions were ever consulted. There was ZERO public consultation process – these farmland losses were not included in the farmland losses reported under SFPR (although they are directly related to the Gateway expansions and should have been included in both agricultural and environmental cumulative impact assessments).

We have a blatant conspiracy between the Campbell government and the ALC to subvert due public process. The BC Rail staff report indicates that the applications were received by the Commission in 2007 – but the Commission waited until the SFPR approval had gone through and then, without so much as the customary signage to alert the community, the farmland was approved for development.

If the federal government were aware of these additional features of the Gateway Project, then they were complicit in the conspiracy by failing to include them in the federal cumulative environmental impact assessment.

Below is some information provided by one of our Delta directors:

below is from the minutes of the Delta Council Meeting of January 12, 2009. The referenced report and attachments can be found the Corporation of Delta website.

If the following link opens for you, simply click on 2009 Regular Council, then scroll down and click on January 12, 2009. The subject is the first item. Click on A01. That will give you the report. To get the Attachments, click on them at the end of the report.

http://delta.fileprosite.com/contentengine/launch.asp?ID=2198

If the link does not open, simply Google: Corporation of Delta. Then click on Mayor and Council on right top area. Then scroll down and click on Regular Council Meeting Agendas. Then follow the instructions above.

The report, attachments and minutes of January 12, 2009 Delta Council Meeting reveal all about the 28th Avenue overpass. It confirms the significant role of the ALC in moving the Gateway agenda forward.

These discussions took place after approval of the SFPR.

The minutes also confirm that the property owners were not consulted.

Mr. Savage responded to a Council question relative to potential impact on nearby property owners, noting it would be advisable to complete the 28th Street overpass as quickly as possible and that to his knowledge discussions had not been held with the property owners.

A report was given to Delta Council at their meeting of January 12, 2009. The Report and Attachments are attached to this email. There is a long history. I copy and pasted the report into Word. To me it looks like a lot of deliberation behind the scenes. This should have been included in the assessment of the SFPR, especially cumulative effects.

The following is from the Minutes of the January 12th, 2009 Delta Council Meeting.

Donna Passmore
Campaign Director
Farmland Defence League of BC
r) 604-536-2790

ALC Conditions Not Met.doc

BC Rail Staff Report Jan 2009.pdf

BC Rail Decision – February 4 2009.pdf

Delta – Gateway Rail Overpass Jan 2009.pdf

Delta – Gateway Rail Overpass Jan 2009 – decision.pdf

[SURREY]  It is the opposite result of what the people of Surrey were promised from the Campbell government’s massive highway expansion project known as “Gateway”. A message from Surrey City Councillor Barinder Rasode to citizens opposed to a road being put through Bear Creek Park confirms some of the long held fears of the Gateway 40 Citizens Network. Councillor Rasode’s message was posted on the Save Bear Creek Park facebook site (see attached).

“Citizens were promised that the twinning of Highway 1 and the construction of the South Fraser Perimeter Road, at an upfront cost of more than $5 billion to taxpayers, and thousands of acres of prime farmland and our most sensitive wildlife habitat, was justified because it would take traffic off the streets of Surrey,” says Donna Passmore, spokesperson for the Gateway 40 Citizens Network.  “Now that the project has been railroaded through, the truth is even worse than we envisioned.  Now the City of Surrey is using the additional traffic volume anticipated from the South Fraser Perimeter Road, to justify putting a road through Bear Creek Park, one of the most popular parks in the Lower Mainland.”

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“Gateway 40’s concerns that highway expansion would create more, not less, traffic were dismissed by the BC Government and the City of Surrey,” adds Passmore. “Not even a quarter of the construction is done, and now we are being told that a road through a major regional park is required to offset the impacts. “

The Gateway 40 Citizens’ Network maintains that the cumulative impacts of the Gateway Project were never accurately communicated to the people of Surrey or the region.

“The costs of road construction and loss of recreational and wildlife area in Bear Creek Park are just the tip of the iceberg,” says Passmore. “There have been several subsequent farmland exclusions in Delta that were omitted from the original plan.”

The Save Bear Creek Park Citizens Action Network argues that putting a road through Bear Creek Park will harm significant salmon habitat and wildlife habitat, elevate local and atmospheric pollutants, diminish property values and quality of life for area residents.

“It’s not too late to rethink the South Fraser Perimeter Road, to save our farmland and wildlife habitat, concludes Passmore, “It’s time the people of Metro Vancouver stopped being economically and ecologically held hostage to the asphalt mentality that seems to dominate our local governments.”

Formed in 2006, the Gateway 40 Citizens Network is an affiliation of environmental, agricultural, transportation, labour, faith and community groups advocating sustainable transportation over the Campbell government’s multi-billion dollar Gateway Project.

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For more information:

Donna Passmore, Gateway 40 Citizens Network – r) 604-536-2790

7pm – 9pm Firehall Centre for the Arts – 11489 84th Avenue

MC: Bill Tieleman – Journalist and Radio Commentator

Special Guest Speaker: Joe Foy, Western Canada Wilderness Committee

Panelists:

• Sunbury Residents: Nuking Neighbourhoods
• Corky Evans: The Future – Farming, Food or Freeways
• Eliza Olson: Burns Bog and Betrayal
• Financing P-3 Projects and the Global Credit Crunch

Participants: You!

Questions and Answers: Open Mike

Conclusions: What now?

Refreshments

PDF Version of Flyer – Print and share with friends and neighbours

This is an urgent call to action to all agricultural, wildlife conservationists, naturalists, recreationalists… everyone who has an interest in protecting this region’s green zone.

It’s under attack, and the first line of battle takes place at public hearings next Tuesday evening at Metro Vancouver (Burnaby) … http://www.gvrd.bc.ca/education/pdf08/Public_Meeting_Notice_Delta-Green-Zone.pdf for notice of meeting.

Important Background Information: 

With one exception that seems to have slipped through, this will be the first removal of land from the Green Zone since it was created – and marks a dangerous precedent. The Green Zone – part of the Livable Region Strategic Plan – was part of the largest public consultation process in western Canadian history and represents the will of the people of this region.

Now, developer-influenced local politicians are lining up to start dismantling the Green Zone. At risk is our food security, our wildlife habitat, our wetlands and the natural spaces that give this region its defining natural beauty. And because so much of the Green Zone is adjacent to waterways, our fisheries conservationists should support keeping the Green Zone intact.

The Green Zone was created as a permanent reserve – not a land bank for greedy developers.

The meeting notice below states that “all persons who believe their interest is affected…”

BC farmland is a provincial resource, and not a local issue. As we stand on the threshold of both global climate change and a global food security crisis, every citizen in the province – and millions of wildlife that share our region – are affected by this decision.

Please arrange with the members of your group/community to have coverage for several evenings, because it is expected that this meeting will carry over to subsequent nights.

In addition to appearing and speaking in person, please take these two important steps:

a)   Spend the next week talking/writing to your local representatives and/or the entire board of MetroVancouver. Contact information for the Board can be found at http://www.gvrd.bc.ca/board/directors-contact.asp

b)   Put your comments in writing in addition to speaking in person, and have them on letterhead where you represent an organization or group.

This is NOT a Delta issue. Please help protect the Green Zone while we have one to protect.  Details on the meeting and the specific application can be found below.

Donna Passmore

Farmland Defence League of BC

r) 604-536-2790

c) 604-313-0635

email: donna8@telus.net

NOTE: The boycott of White Spot Restaurants, owned by Shato Holdings, remains in effect until Toigo relinquishes his plan to remove any farmland from the ALR.

From Delta’s Boundary Bay Conservation Committee

Re: Tsawwassen Golf and Country Club Redevelopment at 16^th Avenue and 52^nd Street (Shato Holdings Ltd.)

Application to Metro Vancouver from Delta Council seeking removal of 28 acres (11.5 ha) from the Green Zone Map of the Livable Region Strategic Plan

Reasons why Metro Vancouver should not approve removing 28 acres from the Green Zone Map of the Livable Region Strategic Plan:

·      Metro Vancouver will be setting a precedent under the new policy of removing land from the Green zone.  The policy is new due to the passing of B.C. Order-In-Council 768, November 22^nd, 2007. 

·      Building condos and apartments on 28 acres (11.5 ha) in the middle of 5 properties will effectively alienate 137 acres (56 hectares) of ALR and Green Zone.  There will be 437 units including 194 strata units and 243 apartments in 4 apartment buildings (two four-storey; one five-storey and one six-storey).  In addition, there will be a 2-storey clubhouse, spa and gym, and a neighbourhood store/café.  This development will be surrounded by a golf course that remains in the ALR.

·      Delta is applying to remove 28 acres in the middle of 137 acres from the Green Zone Map. 

·      There is no need to remove land from the Green Zone for housing.  On Feb. 16^th, 2007, the South Delta Leader printed an article by Jeff Nagel, ‘Land for more housing far from exhausted: GVRD’.  The report stated that a Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD) study on housing in the Lower Mainland has shown that the predicted population growth over the next 25 years can be accommodated without touching the ALR or the Green Zone:

“The good news is we don’t have to touch the agricultural land and we don’t have to touch the Green Zone,” said regional development division manager Christina DeMarco. “We have plenty of room to grow within the existing urban footprint.”

·      The development does not adhere to the principles of ‘Smart Growth’.  The Executive Director of Smart Growth claims there should be no exclusions from the ALR in order to stop speculation of farmland. 

·      Delta is setting a precedent by passing bylaws that are not consistent with Delta’s Official Community Plan, the Tsawwassen Area Plan and Delta’s Future Land Use Plan.  Height and density exceed the limits in the community plan.

·      The project on the outskirts of town also exceeds the density permitted in the Tsawwassen town centre.  There are no public amenities in this location.

·      The designation and zoning of the ALR lands are inconsistent with Section 46 of the Agricultural Land Commission Act as they fail to recognize agriculture in the OCP and Zoning Bylaw.  They also indicate a future land use that impairs the intent of the Act. 

·        Legal Counsel to Delta has advised that approval of the project would make it difficult to refuse subsequent similar applications.  Approval of this development will set off a domino effect of new development applications on Delta’s ALR.

·      This development is definitely a net loss of land in the Agricultural Land Reserve.  Delta Council applied to the Agricultural Land Commission and requested approval of ALR exclusion

 “only if it concurs with the applicant that the proposed exclusion/inclusion presents a net benefit to agriculture in Delta.”

 The Agricultural Land Commission excluded the 28 acres but never addressed the issue of “net benefit to agriculture in Delta.”

Straight Issues

Tsawwassen golf-course development ‘thin edge of the wedge’, says Agricultural Land Reserve activist

Straight Issues By Matthew Burrows

Publish Date: January 10, 2008

Harold Steves believes developer Ron Toigo’s plan to redevelop the Tsawwassen Golf and Country Club is the “thin edge of the wedge” as far as the continued erosion of regional farmland goes.

A long-time Richmond farmer and city councillor, Steves helped draft the Agricultural Land Reserve government policy in 1972. Now Toigo’s development will remove an 11.5-hectare parcel north of the existing course from the ALR.

“The Toigo thing is very small, but when you put it all together, it is going to hit Delta like a sledgehammer,” Steves told the Georgia Straight. “When you add that to the loss to the Deltaport expansion and the loss to the South Fraser Perimeter Road, you end up with a huge, vast area of farmland in one block that is certainly going to affect the productive viability of the Delta area.”

How self-reliant are British Columbians?

> Ratio of fruit imported to/exported from B.C. in 2001: 3:1
> Vegetables consumed in B.C. in 2001: 765 million kilograms
> Vegetables grown in B.C. in 2001: 331 million kilograms
> Farmland needed to grow food for one person per year: 0.52 hectares
> Number of city lots this roughly equates to: 6
> Irrigated land needed in B.C. to ensure healthy diets in 2005: 215,000 hectares
> Amount of B.C. farmland with access to irrigation in 2005: 189,000 hectares
Source: B.C.’s Food Self-Reliance, a 2007 report by the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture and Lands

Toigo’s Vancouver-based Shato Holdings purchased the golf course a year ago and plans on making it full-size and, controversially, adding 442 housing units. The Agricultural Land Commission ruled in Toigo’s favour in November, approving the land swap subject to Delta council approving the plans and sending them to a full public hearing. At the January 7 meeting, Delta council did just that and voted in favour of proceeding to the meetings step. The public meetings begin at 7 p.m. on January 22 and 23 (and 24 if needed) at the South Delta Recreation Centre.

Outside the council chambers, Toigo responded to Steves’s “thin edge of the wedge” claim by stating, “That is an old cliché.”

Steves referred to the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands’ 2007 B.C.’s Food Self-Reliance report, which claims that farmers in 2025 will need 281,000 acres of irrigated food-producing land to ensure British Columbians have access to healthy diets. The report adds that the amount of land must increase by 92,000 hectares over 2005 levels. Steves said that “any loss of agricultural land is going to be on the negative side rather than the positive in terms of trying to find more land.”

“In the next 15 to 20 years, we are going to be looking at converting golf courses back to farms, and horse farms and stables back to food-producing lands,” Steves said. “That’s if we are going to be feeding ourselves. If we are not going to be feeding ourselves, well, I guess we will probably have to grow our food in our own back yards.”

The Straight asked Toigo if he thought British Columbians could grow enough food in the region to feed themselves.

“One of our companies, White Spot restaurants, gets the majority of its food from this region,” he said. “We have as big an interest as anybody in being able to grow food in the region. We are a very strong proponent of it, and every French fry that you eat in a White Spot anywhere in the region comes from right here in Ladner, so we are as strong an advocate of this as anybody is. The best way to support farmers is to buy what they grow.”

Speaking to the Straight in December, Delta mayor Lois Jackson singled out Brunswick Point—located north of Tsawwassen First Nation lands—as another potentially divisive issue in her municipality.

“There is a big peninsula there and it has been farmed by farm families for four generations,” Jackson said. “The provincial government has said that they [the Tsawwassen First Nation] can purchase that land, and my feeling is, if that land is purchased by the band—just the same as what they have got there now—it will all go. It will all go. It will go to housing, it will go to casinos, and it will go to all kinds of things.”

B.C. agriculture and lands minister Patrick Bell did not respond to messages by the Straight’s deadline

Are we doing enough to preserve agricultural land?

Cheeying Ho
Executive director, Smart Growth BC

“Of course not. We don’t think there should be any [ALR] exclusion applications, period. That would remove a lot of the speculation that is going on. If it was known that there are no exclusion applications and that farmland remains as farmland, it wouldn’t create all this speculation which makes people want to sell it because they think it has value.”

Spirit of Delta Rally

at South Delta Secondary (750 53rd Street – Delta) in Tsawwassen Saturday May 10 from 3-5 PM. Enjoy live music and entertainment, expert speakers and important discussion as we raise our voices to protect the public from dangerous high-voltage power lines through their neighbourhoods. This is a family event.

Boundary Bay is the most biodiverse area on the continent, and Gordon Campbell is destroying it with development. The Spirit of Delta Rally is not just for residents of Delta, but for people throughout the region who believe in protecting farmland, protecting wildfowl habitat, protecting the salmon habitat of the Lower Fraser, protecting our children and seniors from high voltage wires far in excess of dangerous levels, protecting children and seniors from deadly diesel pollutants. Protecting our first nations sacred/archeological sites from senseless and permanent destruction.

If you support sustainability and protection of farmland, biodiversity, heritage, air quality, sustainable transportation, there is no better way to spend a couple of hours on Mother’s Day weekend than rallying for Mother Earth at the Spirit of Delta. Whether you live in Delta or any other part of this region, please attend and show your support for this battered, beleaguered little community.

Just when the government thinks we’re done fighting… the fight against the pollution-packed Gateway highway and port expansion gained 90,000 supporters today… virtually all of them grey-haired.

The Council of Senior Citizens of BC know that more highway lanes mean more pollution and more pollution is devastating to seniors. They understand, too, that exposing younger people to these pollution levels increases the level of disease health care costs they will experience when they reach their senior years. This is a highly experienced campaign organization, lots of retired professionals who have been fighting the Campbell government for 7 years.

The addition of the seniors network marks the expansion of the Gateway battle province-wide.  Gateway 40 will be working with the COSCO executive to deliver our economic and environmental health messages through the 125 Council of Seniors groups across BC in the months leading up to the next provincial election, as we take across the province our message about Gordon Campbell’s promised devastation to Fraser Valley communities, destruction of some of the most biodiverse wildlife habitat on the continent,  destruction of thousands of acres of farmland during  a global food security crisis and destruction of first nations sacred sites.

Heartfelt thanks to Gudrun Langolf (Board Member of COSCO, Save Our Rivers and a number of other great causes) for facilitating this important connection.

Join me in welcoming Art Kube, Gudrun Langolf and their 90,000 fellow members.

Gateway 40 members who fit the demographic will find ample reasons for reciprocating the support and joining the Council.

www.coscobc.ca,