Many beef producers currently leasing Crown land are questioning whether their organization’s lobbying efforts, adopted by the previous Pallister government, have achieved any of the organization’s expectations of “advantaging young producers” and making the system “more flexible and transparent.”
“Modernization” has relieved the current minister of agriculture of any responsibility for the reported annual increases in Crown land lease rates. The unseen hand of the marketplace has established true value. Any protest from leaseholders as to the affordability and future security of their leases is deflected by the reminder that a “more flexible” market-driven system of Crown land evaluation is what MBP (Manitoba Beef Producers) lobbied the Pallister government to deliver.
Any objection arising from these changes is best directed towards the organization that lobbied for the abandonment of the points-based system.
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My records show a strong majority of delegates attending the February 2017 Manitoba Beef Producers Brandon convention supported a resolution presented by District 13 delegate, Mary Paziuk, seconded by then-District 5 delegate, Ramona Blyth, directing MBP to lobby the government of Manitoba to implement a “more flexible system” of Agricultural Crown Land (ACL) transfers.
Paziuk described the points-based system as “lacking in transparency, complicated, bureaucratic and difficult to understand.”
The Pallister government was quick to respond to MBP lobby efforts, announcing changes to the ACL program two weeks following the September 2019 provincial election.
The March 2022 issue of the MBP publication, Cattle Country, ignores the organization’s role in replacing the points-based system. However, the written history of events is well recorded in issues of Cattle Country. Past MBP presidents and staff produced comforting prose, lavishing praise upon the pending “modernization” of Crown land leasing.
The 2017 resolution opened the gate to the creation of a market-driven system of Crown land allocation. Unfortunately, Crown land leaseholders are experiencing exactly what I predicted when I spoke against the intent of the resolution. I warned, “be careful what you ask for.”
The benefits provided by the earlier points-based system of Crown land allocation have been permanently replaced by a system that reflects the political-ideological belief that the marketplace provides true freedom and sustainability.
The question is, how much more of this type of freedom can the leaseholders afford?
And finally, I do not anticipate that people responsible for creating the problem are capable of solving the problem. This is definitely not a case where you want to be driven home by the one who brought you to the dance.
Fred Tait
Rossendale
