Related Initiatives

Risk management

The Commission has identified and is addressing several risks to the successful delivery of its program and the accomplishment of its primary goal, to preserve agricultural land.

While the Commission has a specific objective to promote the benefits of sharing decision-making between the Commission and local governments, most local governments have not been very receptive. The political risks and various factors perceived by some of them are such that the Commission may be unable to realize its objective to delegate significant decision-making to local governments. On the other hand, with delegated authority in place, the Commission may also increase the risk to the agricultural land base if a local government or public agency makes decisions contrary to the purposes of the program. However, there are checks and balances in place in each delegation agreement to avoid this outcome.

The government has renewed its commitment to the treaty settlement process. Several agreements-in-principle that involve ALR lands have been reached or will be reached in the near future. The issue of ALR lands within treaty settlement areas is considered a high risk one for the Commission's mandate of preserving agricultural land. The Commission is managing the risk by proposing new authority and new processes to consider applications by First Nations and by working to resolve some land selection issues that involve ALR, prior to treaty agreements-in-principle.

The Commission and government respond to legal challenges as required. A constitutional challenge of the Agricultural Land Commission Act is currently before the courts. The Commission has successfully defended its authority and actions in previous court cases over the past 30 years. In 2002 government amended the legislation and regulations to clarify the Commission's purpose, its authority to act in the provincial interest, its responsibilities and legal remedies. These revisions and further changes implemented through the Administrative Justice Office will help reduce the exposure of the Commission to risks from legal challenges.

The Commission will develop a three-phase enterprise risk management plan, commencing in 2004/05. It will follow the government-wide risk management planning process.

Deregulation

The Commission shares government's commitment to achieve a one-third reduction in regulatory requirements across government by the end of 2004/05. The Commission accomplished significant deregulation during 2002/2003 as a result of the adoption of new legislation and regulations for the ALR. Through these changes, the number of regulatory requirements was reduced by 10 per cent in 2002.

Further reductions were realized in November 2003 with the passage of new legislation, the Private Managed Forest Land Act, by the legislature. The regulation of forest practices on private forest lands by the Commission is being replaced with a results based process managed by a new council appointed by both government and private forest landowners. This reduces regulatory requirements under the Commission's responsibility by over 500; however some of these requirements will be transferred elsewhere in the Ministry. In addition, the implementation of a delegation agreement between the Agricultural Land Commission and the Oil and Gas Commission, anticipated by April 2004, will realize further regulatory reductions for the ALR.