Dear Editor,
The ALR: Pygmy goats, metro ports and everything in between.
It’s time to expose the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) as the fraud it was designed to be.
Having sufficiently researched the issue, I don’t feel there is enough space in this entire newspaper to even scratch the surface of the ALR’s sordid history.
The ALR was originally called the “Land Reserve.”
“Agricultural” is an added term which is simply putting propaganda lipstick on this socialist pig which is to create a bank of land, much of it of dubious agricultural value, whose prices are kept depreciated via restricted uses arbitrarily imposed by bureaucrats and politicians.
In essence, the ALR landowners have, de facto, had their land expropriated by government and thrown into some communistic collective, and, to add further insult, these same landowners are demonized by useful idiots who feel every square inch of ALR land is sacred.
Therein lies the rub.
Those of us well versed in the ALR can see clearly what is going on in the big picture.
Currently, we observe this staged wrestling match going on between Richmond City Hall and Port Metro Vancouver regarding industrial and ALR land.
Lets expose the charade.
Richmond has no control over ALR land designation, as this control lies with the provincial and federal governments.
City hall does have control over all other Richmond land uses. However, it has also chosen to convert many classes of zoning into various densities to facilitate “ghost city residential (mega mansion, condos, hi-rises).”
Concurrently, Port Metro has purchased large ALR acreages. Port Metro, as a federal body, is simply posturing, like a snake, and will strike when the time is most opportune to convert these ALR holdings into non-ALR uses. Depending on which matrix one uses, Port Metro will have acquired land “wholesale” for pennies on the dollar and/or reap massive fiscal gains.
Note: My sympathies go out to those farmers, often from pioneer families, who had held the land (deemed ALR since the 1970s) for decades and will be ripped off at the stroke of a pen.
Pygmy goats? These simply expose another part of the ALR scam.
R.A.Hoegler
Richmond
