October 28, 2001

No More Parks or Protected Areas?

At the staged cabinet meeting on October 24, Stan Hagen, Minister of Sustainable Resource Management, explained that he is responsible for the Land Resource Management Plans. He said "Of the 12 planning areas yet to be completed, we will finish six plans with the firm time lines …"   The subsequent exchange with Minister Neufeld raises the question of whether BC will see any new parks or protected areas in the planning areas not yet completed.

Hon. R. Neufeld: "Stan, I want to thank you for a great presentation, and I know that your ministry has been hard at work trying to resolve some of these huge issues. I have one question I'll ask you here about set-asides for parks. We're at over 12 percent. I think the province committed to 12 percent. When we finally finish all land use plans that are in place, where do you think we'll be in parks set aside as a percentage of the province, remembering that most industries have told us 12 percent is fine? They can live with it, but we should stay as close to that number as possible."
Hon. S. Hagen: "Dick, I know this isn't going to make your day, but I think we're actually almost at 13 percent. It's 12.8 or 12.9 percent. Joyce might be clearer on that number. We're approaching a new way of doing land use planning from a very balanced perspective. Certainly, one of the main drivers is economic development. What I heard as I traveled around the province is that people who live in the resource-based communities of the province are really concerned about the decreasing amount of land that they can actually use to make a living and create economic growth for their communities and for the province. I think there's going to be a movement of the fulcrum on the balance as to how we approach land use planning in the future."