"Awaiting direction from government" is a repeated line in the B.C. Auditor General's follow-up report on his 2010 audit of the Agricultural Land Commission.
This apparent inability of the ALC to respond to John Doyle's September audit throws doubt on the government's commitment to preserve agricultural land, says Delta South independent MLA Vicki Huntington.
"Last year, the auditor general produced nine common-sense recommendations to the government, identifying ways to fix the floundering Agricultural Land Commission," says Huntington. "Now, in a follow-up report issued earlier this week, the ALC disclosed that not a single one of the recommendations had been implemented.
"In fact, out of the 30-plus audits followed up on, the ALC is the only one without any substantive improvement whatsoever."
Huntington says the provincial Agricultural Land Commission is responsible for protecting most of Delta's farmland.
"Twelve months have passed already. I'm calling on the B.C. government to step up and let the ALC move forward with the auditor general's recommendations," says
Huntington, noting that on May 5 Agriculture Minister Don McRae publicly stated he was looking forward to a cabinet-level analysis of the "financial resources" required to facilitate such things as monitoring, enforcement and accurate maps.
"The Agricultural Land Commission is hobbled, without the resources required to safeguard British Columbia's indispensable farmland, threatened daily by illegal dumping and development," adds Huntington. "It's time for the ministry to take action."
