Save Our Southlands

Since I have been participating in the public discourse related to the future of the Southlands, I have noticed a few labels that have been applied to myself and others who hold similar views.

In this post, I will focus on three of them.

NIMBY: Not In My Back Yard. A classic. The phrase implies selfishness, narrow thinking and a reactionary attitude. Unless you are advocating a position universally accepted (no maximum security prisons next to pre-schools, no sewage outfalls in water reservoirs) chances are you will be labeled a nimby by someone. Deltans are often accused of nimbyism, so it may be useful to make a quick list of what all is in our back yard already:

-A water reservoir for Point Roberts
-The electrical power lines for Vancouver Island
-A multi-berth ferry terminal with all attendant commercial and passenger traffic
-A coal port and container port with rail yards and high-volume truck traffic
-The City of Vancouver dump

Coming up? Power line upgrades, port expansion, the perimeter road and development related to the TFN treaty.
Approximate loss of farmland? At least a thousand acres.
Additional traffic? Yes, of an unknown quantity.
So I’d say there is plenty happening in our back yard and there is no reason for people to be considered selfish for wanting to preserve farmland.

Idealist: This label is a little more puzzling. On its face, it seems that a person is being taken to task for having ideals, but that can’t be. Ideals are usually held to be worthwhile, a way to navigate through the complex issues that we face in life. So if a person is called an idealist in a negative sense, it must mean something else. I think that when someone is called an idealist it means that that person is thought to be too high-minded to compromise or too trapped in a point of view to engage in the pragmatic work of consensus building. But perhaps it also means that that person simply has different ideals than the person who has made the “idealist” charge.

Afraid of Change: In some ways, this accusation can be seen as related to the NIMBY label. Not only is a person branded as selfish and narrow but the notion of fear is introduced. Since all of life is change, a person who is afraid of change is by extension unfit for life, or at the very least unfit to participate in the modern world. Since their decision making is governed by emotion it will always be, in some sense, irrational.

But, as I’ve written before, I think the preservation of farmland can also be seen as the anticipation of change. Unless we foresee a future where food is unnecessary, it is safe to say that we will always need farmland. It is also fair to say that with the increase in population, regionally and worldwide, the need for arable land will grow. In a mountainous province like BC, we are already dealing with a limited land-base. It makes sense to preserve what we haven’t paved already. And I say that in sober reflection, not in the throes of terror.

Dave Staniforth

Click here to sign an online petition requesting inclusion of the Southlands in the ALR.