A plan to sell a 16,000-acre spread of provincial grazing land and wildlife habitat in southeastern Alberta for irrigated potato production has been shut down by the province’s new premier.
The province on Wednesday announced it has cancelled the request for proposals (RFP) that would have led to the land’s sale in a deal dubbed “Potatogate” by its opponents.
The province said it cancelled the RFP, first issued in August, after concerns were raised “that there was no public input into using a (RFP) and that there might be an impact on water and on the ranching community.”
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The land in question, in Cypress County east of Bow Island, is currently all under grazing lease or grazing permit.
The decision to rescind the RFP follows the provincial Tories’ recent election of Alison Redford as their new leader and Alberta’s new premier.
The Alberta Wilderness Association (AWA), in a release Wednesday, quoted a statement from Redford during her leadership campaign that as premier she would “suspend the sale of 16,000 acres of ecologically sensitive crown land near Bow Island and wait for the South Saskatchewan Basin Regional Advisory Council to present its final report on the best use of that parcel.”
The AWA has criticized the Stelmach government for the “secretive process” by which it said the province had deemed the land to be “surplus to requirements.”
The land, the AWA said, “was known to be habitat for a number of species listed under the federal Species at Risk Act” such as burrowing owl, ferruginous hawk and Sprague’s pipit, and besides, was already leased for grazing. Under the RFP, in an area of the province well known for its irrigated crops, the land “would be ploughed up, irrigated and used to grow potatoes.”
“What the huge opposition to this shady deal showed is that Albertans believe public land should remain public, and not be sold off behind our backs in closed-door deals,” Nigel Douglas, speaking for the wilderness conservation group, said in the release.
The association, in a separate letter to Redford Thursday, added that the province now needs to look again at its recently revised Public Lands Act regulations.
The new rules, the AWA said, have “reinforced the existing process of selling off public land with no public input, allowing the minister to ‘sell public land by public auction, private sale or tender, on the terms and conditions the minister considers appropriate.'”
