It seems that the Conservative government is not happy with Alberta Beef Producers’ involvement in recent meetings to oppose Land-use Framework (LUF) legislation.
ABP Zone 6 director Greg Bowie denied reports that it was “secret,” as some sources suggested, but confirmed that three ABP directors recently met with government MLAs and that there was tense discussion of the LUF.
“It did happen. Three of us from the board did meet with rural caucus, Edmonton city caucus, and Calgary city caucus. All three caucuses were in the room, not the entire list of MLAs from those caucuses, but the vast majority. I think there was only two or three that weren’t there,” said Bowie.
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“Heavy-handed, no. Not a word that I would use,” said Bowie when asked about the climate of the meeting, which took place after a recent ABP board meeting. He said the meeting with the city caucuses was to bring them up to speed on the cattle business.
“We went there to discuss Bill 36 and the amendment Bill 10 and a lot of discussion was around that, but a lot of it was familiarizing some of these politicians with the way the beef industry in Alberta is set up,” he said.
However, Bowie acknowledged there was some tension, but chose not to elaborate. “Like I say, heavy-handed is not a word I would use to describe what went on. There was one thing that the government was a little upset about, but after we clarified that, I think the rest of the meeting went fairly smoothly and even on that issue, again, I still wouldn’t use the word,” he said.
Bowie confirmed the MLAs were perturbed by the recent ABP informational Zone 7 meeting at which lawyer Keith Wilson spoke about the LUF.
“LikeIsay,heavy-handed isnotawordI wouldusetodescribe whatwenton.”
Greg Bowie ABP “Yep. But that’s all I’m going to say at this point. We don’t want… we’re trying to deal with that matter internally right now and until it is dealt with, you know, we really don’t have any comment on it.”
ABP-sponsored meeting
The Zone 7 information session was held at the Nilsson Brothers Clyde Auction Market and attendance is estimated to have been at least 300, with some reporting as many as 600. Wilson, the meeting’s keynote speaker, a lawyer from St. Albert, has volunteered his time at dozens of similar engagements across the province in an effort to help producers understand the implications of the LUF. He said nothing out of the ordinary happened the evening of the meeting – other than the fact that this was the first officially sanctioned ABP information session to which he was invited to speak.
“This was the first one where ABP had advertised it as an Alberta Beef Producers meeting. The government doesn’t want people to speak against them. By an institutional group such as ABP organizing and publicly inviting me to a meeting to do this was offensive to the king (provincial government),” Wilson said.
Evan Berger, MLA for Livingstone- Macleod, was at the meeting and confirmed the government’s chagrin was a result of the informational meeting in Zone 7.
“ABP had offered up some amendments to what was incorporated into Bill 10,” said Berger. “They went to the minister of agriculture back in January and put forward what they asked for in amendments and all of those were accepted by government and moved into the Bill 10 Amendment Act.
“So there was a little bit of upset that we’re moving exactly the way you (they) had asked, and here you’ve (they’ve) got these meetings that you’re (they’re) sponsoring to discuss Bill 10 without a fair representation of what’s actually in there.”
Berger denied the tri-caucus meeting was intended to be kept secret. “No, no, no. Nothing secret about that whatsoever. If you’re going to have a secret meeting, it wouldn’t be inviting all the caucuses – the rural, the city and all the rest of ’em – you’re talking about quite a pile of people for a secret. If I was having a secret meeting, I’d have it with as few people as possible,” he said.
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“ThiswasthefirstonewhereABPhadadvertiseditasanAlbertaBeefProducersmeeting.Thegovernmentdoesn’twantpeopletospeakagainstthem…”
KEITH WILSON LAWYER
