EDITORIAL & OPINION — A land-use planner’s job is never done — Changing goalposts

Margaret Thatcher once said that trying to run a country by consensus is foolhardy at best and an abdication of leadership at worst (or words to that effect). Nonetheless, governments of all stripes continue to develop public policy based on the so-called “stakeholder” process, which entails bringing together people with opposing views and encouraging them to make nice, compromise, and devise solutions that please everyone.

True to form, the government of British Columbia decided, ten years ago, to sit down with environmental groups and other stakeholders in a province-wide land-use planning initiative.

The goal was clear: double the province’s park area to twelve per cent from six per cent and protect unique features, as well as bio-diversity. But there also was a promise that certainty would flow from the process, and that multiple land-use solutions might be considered in areas of competing interest.

From Prince George to Campbell River, from Fort St. James to Cranbrook, mining representatives participated in planning sessions sponsored by the provincial government. They were joined by environmental groups, native groups, other resource developers and local citizens. But as one prospector told us years ago, it was obvious that the function of the land-planning process was to withdraw working land from the land base, rather than make decisions on how it should be used. In some towns, the process went off the rails entirely, with bussed-in radical environmentalists highjacking meetings and leading chants to the four winds and the spirits who live in trees.

The mining industry hung in and eventually the 12% objective was achieved, but the promised land of peace and certainty was nowhere to be found. The goalposts had changed. The environmental groups wanted more and unleashed a propaganda machine, claiming they had to protect this “last wilderness” and that “last wilderness” until eighteen per cent of the province was covered by parks or Park Study Areas. And they still weren’t satisfied.

Next came the “Special Management Zones” — 225 of them — blanketing a further 20% of the areas planned to date. Add to that the eighteen per cent covered by parks and park study areas, and other areas where mining is prohibited, and a whopping fifty per cent of the province would be off limits to mining.

Still, the preservationists showed no signs of backing down. They started lobbying for protection of “special peaks” and “heritage rivers,” becoming, thanks to the largess of an unsuspecting public, an industry in their own right.

Early this year, the B.C. mining industry faced up to reality and admitted that the Land and Resources Management Planning Process had never worked, and that it never could work. They realized that if the process were allowed to continue, all resources industries, rural towns and communities would be damaged as environmental groups seek to expand protected areas. They realized, too, that the process had not, in any way, stopped the valley-by-valley battles to stall new resource development projects, not even in areas where it was allowed. The government didn’t do much of anything to redress the obvious imbalance.

So on Jan. 22, the mining industry advised the provincial government that it was withdrawing from participation in all provincially sponsored land and resources management planning, effective immediately.

Having watched the farcical land-use planning process for a decade, all we can say is, it’s about time. If the mining industry were to remain in a system that is clearly dysfunctional and doesn’t work, it would only contribute to its own demise.