Confined Feeding Operations

[cowman]

A petition carrying 510 signatures was tabled in the Provincial Legislature this week by an Edmonton MLA. The petition called for a moratorium on all confined feeding operations and also to phase out existing ones within a three year timeframe !!!!!

I am trying to find out where the petition originated, obviously not in Edmonton, but likely in an area that is upset over current CFO's . I doubt that there will be much attention paid to it but it is a significant number of signatures if they are all from one area.

[cowman]

I wonder what would happen if a municipality got enough people signing a petition for something like this? Would it have to go to a referendum or plebisite or something?
In Red Deer County a petition with enough names on it(a certain percentage I believe) forced the council to put the elected reeve question to a petition. Could the same thing be done in regards to ILOs? I realize the NRCB has the final say on ILOs, but as you pointed out the municipality can use zoning, buffer zones etc. to pretty well kill every ILO that might be proposed?
I believe this whole mess is going to come back and haunt the province in the future? If the population in general can stop expansion of ILOs or even eliminate businesses already in operation, is this desirable? In a democracy aren't the majority always right? Is a democracy really the best form of government possible...or is it nothing more than Mob rule?

[cowman]

comwan, a petition of 10% of electors can certainly force a municipality to consider amending their Municipal Development Plan if that many of their citizens did not want Confined Feeding Operations in their municipality.
The thing that is causing grief at this point is the Ministers of AAFRD and Sustainable Resource Developments intention to revamp the NRCB. Groups that oppose feeding operations are concerned that the regulations will be eased and the regulator ( NRCB) will have their clout watered down.

I have heard comments from numerous municipalities over the past couple of weeks and some of them are suggesting putting ten mile CFO Exclusion Zones around all their hamlets, towns, villages, recreation areas and in some instances their rivers, etc.
AAFRD recently had a committee working on proposed changes to the AOPA legislation and regulations and did not see fit to include municipal representation on that committee so small wonder things are starting to backfire against the industry. It is a shame because most of the backlash seems to be against hog operations not other livestock but all sectors will pay the price if there is a push back from the general public in rural Alberta.
The final say in whether feeding operations are suitable in specific zones within municipalities rests with the municipality but a Board Hearing can result in allowing an operation to locate in a specific area even if the municipality has designed it as an exclusion zone within their MDP. I would doubt that the Board would over ride MDP's though, unless it was a very excepional circumstance.

Mind you, all it takes is the stroke of a pen in the Legislature to take away zoning rights from municipalities, and that is one thing that municipal councils are concerned about according to some of the folks I have spoken to.

[cowman]

Well thank you for keeping me up on this subject. I am always interested in the politics of the province and municipalities.
I think the original way the province set out to handle the problem was the best one? There were some really brutal fights before where no one really came out the winner. It is unfortunate that through lack of funding from the province they failed to follow through and create an environment where these things were seen as fair and up to snuff?
I often wonder why the provincial Tories have such a problem following through with the systems they set up and usually try to do everything on the cheap? Like I don't think they are broke or something?
The oil and gas companies are forced to basically police themselves because Alberta is too cheap to hire inspectors to see things are being done properly! Why bother having any rules if you have no intention of enforcing them?

[cowman]

At the AAMD C Convention last week , in response to a question from one of the Reeves from southern AB.,Horner assured the over 500 delegates that he had no intention of amending the AOPA legislation. It is going to be interesting to see if he has the B-- to keep his promise, because no doubt industry will demand that the legislation is changed, to take the teeth out of it I suspect.