LETTER—ALR redundant
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The Oct. 30 Black Press editorial (ALR is worth protecting, South Delta Leader, Oct. 30, 2009) argues that the ALR is not only successful but fundamental to our survival.
For a news organization, this is an odd characterization of the available facts.
Another view is that the ALR is part of the sorry legacy left to this province by the Barrett government of the 70’s and has been a costly burden to successive generations since that time.
The sad fact is that the authors of the ALR legislation chose to ignore the indisputable power of the free market in solving this and other problems where scarcity of resources is at issue.
In this case, huge increases in agricultural and industrial productivity shaped by the free market over the last forty years have made the ALR redundant and an anachronism more suited to 1930’s eastern Europe.
Perhaps the editors can devote future space explaining how those provinces whose economic livelihood is far more dependent on farming have achieved prosperity and farmland expansion without the equivalent of BC’s onerous ALR. Sadly, the ALR has become a sacred cow primarily used by non-stakeholders in opposing development that doesn’t suit their personal preferences.
The ALR is one bad idea whose time has come. And gone.
Doug Floer
Tsawwassen
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