Chris Davis, Pincher Creek Voice
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| Evan Berger |
Berger is the Progressive Conservative candidate for Livingstone-Macleod and was appointed by PC leader Alison Redford as Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development last year, a position he intends to re-assume should he be re-elected and the PC's form the government.
Berger was born in High River and raised on a ranch southwest of Nanton. He currently lives in Nanton with his wife Laurie and their three children. He has an extensive political background prior to attaining Provincial office, serving as a Councillor for the MD of Willow Creek for 16 years, 9 of which he served as Reeve.
I asked Mr. Berger what the challenges were in representing a constituency with such a wide geographic spread.
"Travel-wise it's a huge constituency to get from end to end, because you can spend, on the campaign trail a day, four hours on the road easily," he said.
"It is a tough one to represent. When you look at probably 17 different parades a year for every community, we've got four different rural municipalities represented now with the new (boundaries), lots of different issues in different towns. One town may have wastewater issues, the next town has wastewater issues, and the other one may have road issues. There isn't any one-size-fits-all. Every area isn't alike."
I asked him what the differences might be between the north end of the constituency and the southern area. "Overall, at the far north end you have less agricultural dependency," he said. "Down here we're a lot more agriculturally dependent, and we're also more resource dependent. Up there I think we have more folks that are involved in the resource industry in the extraction end through their jobs in the area, but down here we have a lot more of the actual in-the-ground resources."
I asked him what contributed to his rapid success within his party, achieving a Ministry during his first term. "I believe that the Premier, when she was sworn in as Premier, and quite a few people were wondering how she would pick her cabinet. She had the ability with the limited amount of MLAs that were supporting her into the leadership to pick based on merit and ability. I believe she looked to Cabinet and said 'It's time for some changes here, and has made changes, significant changes in Cabinet, and it's a welcome change as well. Things can't stay the same. She's looking at the future and what does the future look like, and that change phase is here."
Berger said that he and Premier Alison Redford had "A great working relationship. Her first words to me when she asked me about being Minister of Agriculture, I asked what the parameters would be and she said 'I'm not sure. I don't know agriculture like you know agriculture. I want you to be bold, I want you to be aggressive, and I want you to bring the profile of agriculture back up in the Province of Alberta', so to me that was fantastic."
Land Acts
I asked Mr. Berger what he had to say about the contentious "Land Bills" that are on the minds of many rural constituents, only to be corrected that they were in fact "Land Acts", having past the Bill stage into law.
"It's a fallacy to say that you could just repeal all of these things, because no-one would repeal them," Berger said, a position he reiterated at the All-Candidates forum held in Cowley on the evening of April 11.
"It was ruled that we had to come up with a new Act because the court ruled against the last one, which was the Restricted Development Area Act. It was actually a challenge between the Nillson family of Edmonton against the City and the Province from 1974, they finally settled in 2002. The court ruled that we could no longer use that Act to acquire land for major projects, such as dams, water reservoirs, and highways. That brought forward the need for a new Act," he explained."
"The reason that it was ruled against was because they didn't feel that it was fair in the consultation phase. In many cases, a real-estate agent would have a pocket full of money and go out and acquire land without anyone knowing what the purpose was. Now, before anything can go forward the first step is to get out there to the local municipality, contact all the land owners and bring forward the fact that this is what we're looking at, this is the area that we're looking at, and ask 'What's your input'. And then we go back and forth with that discussion, and if we haven't come to an agreement, and haven't purchased the land or settled with the people in regards to whether that will go forward or not, the project's dead, it's off the table. There's a two year window."
"If the land owner says 'I want to go to expropriation', there's no further discussion. That was an amendment that came forward this last fall, and it was brought through on Bill 23, so that amended the Land Area Assembly Act. When we look at the Alberta Land Stewardship Act, that was what the land-use framework consultation turned into, and there's four pieces of that Act that enable compensation where there wasn't compensation before, or ability for a land owner to collect."
"I think, especially down in this area where we have all these competing land uses, when a plan is developed, the South Saskatchewan Regional Plan, if the Plan came forward and said there cannot be a mine in this area, the Alberta Land Stewardship Act says not even the NRCB, the ERCB, the local government, or the Province can go against what that Plan is."
"I am a land owner, I am third generation, I have another generation that wants to farm and ranch, and I'll be damned if I'm going to give away any of my rights to compensation or property, and it's an insult that others would take it that way. Of 32 rural MLA's, if anything we have enhanced the property rights and the ability for compensation that wasn't there before, anywhere in North America."
I asked Mr. Berger if the Plan could be modified after adoption.
"If there was something in an application that had finally come forward and it wasn't recognized in the Plan, if it doesn't change the end result of the plan, there could be a variance offered," he said. "We want to accommodate what is on the landscape already, but there is areas that everyone agrees we want to have different Plans for, whether it's forest harvest, or mining, or leaving these pristine grasslands without any disturbance."
"Currently you have rights that were subsurface that were sold in 1878 for the first time, or rather first granted in 1878, so you have to be cognizant of all of the rights that are stacked on this landscape right now, and make sure that we have the ability to compensate those if there are to be changes in the use of that, whether it be surface or sub-surface, they're all rights."
"If you don't want a power line here, the fact of the matter is, in the land use Plan, as the Plan comes forward, the South Saskatchewan Plan, make sure you're putting your input in there saying 'This area should stay just like it is, it's pristine, it's perfect, we don't want to see it cut up by any other corridors'. Now, no-one could even apply, if it's adopted. The AUC can't overrule it, which also says we make better use of the corridors we have."
"There's always going to be a kick-back no matter where you go. At the meeting in Lundbreck last year I said 'Deciding a lot of these things is like having a boxer punch you everywhere in the body, you pick the spot that hurts the least.' And that's the way we have to do this. They have to have the ability to apply here, here, and here within this broad of a balloon, and pick a spot in there that is the least cause for concern for those involved."
"There's never going to be a perfect spot, because as the population grows and we infill areas it is never going to get any easier, so it's probably better to get corridors in place, and make it clear that that's a corridor, and if it follows the highway, perfect, because you've already got that, and that's what the Land Assembly Project Area Act says. If there is a highway corridor purchase by the government then there can be other ancillary uses in there. You can never purchase a corridor for a power line as a government, but you can purchase it for the transportation of people, including a rail line. If you took that half mile wide or quarter mile wide corridor then you can put whatever compatible transmission, whether it be pipe or power, in that corridor but you could not have it as a stand-alone."
"That's making corridors work for all of us."
"I understand the concerns of the power line. My dad had that application come to him, and it wasn't an application back in 1968. It was 'Sir, we're putting a power line across your property. You get 50 bucks a year a tower or, if you don't sign you don't get 50 bucks a year per tower'. There's a guy with 5 kids saying 'Well, 50 bucks isn't much. If you aren't going to pay me and put it across or you are going to pay me and put it across, I better sign the paper and get my 50 dollars'. We've come a long way since then. There wasn't any input, there wasn't any consultation."
An aging rural population
I asked Mr. Berger about the challenges facing rural Alberta's aging agricultural population.
"We're losing our (rural) population, as witnessed in our schools. As Ag Minister one of my initiatives was the next generation, how do we draw in the next generation of ag producers? How do we draw this generation back to agriculture? We've missed a whole generation. The average age of our agriculture producers in Alberta is 51. In Canada it's 52. In the U.S. it's 56. And you know what? Why is that? A lot of it is the opportunities are so much better in the other industries. Gas and oil paycheques, 5 days a week... We need to reverse that trend to fill our schools, our gymnasiums, to fill our libraries, our curling rinks. The only way we can do that is to get those young people back into the rural areas, putting their kids in that school, having that way of life."
"That's why we started the Next Generation Ag Producers Advisory Council. We want to talk to the youth that are coming out of University, that are engaged. This advisory council ranges in age from 19 up to 39, and we want to know what the barriers are. Not what we perceive the barriers are, what they think the barriers are."
Next term?
I asked Mr. Berger what he proposed to do with a next term should he win the election.
"I propose to do my very best to represent the people of Livingstone-Macleod, to the best of my ability, which I have done in the past, and I'm always here for people. I live within the constituency, I'm home every weekend, I'm approachable. I'm down here for events... You can't just be here pre-election for a month's time, you have to be prepared that you're going to be back and forth throughout the constituency."
"Something I take great pride in is doing my very best. Family life sometimes suffers because you're gone from Sunday afternoon right through until Thursday night, and then Friday and Saturday are pretty much tied up in constituency events, but I think you have to get out to all of those, as many as possible, to make sure you hear enough of what people have to say to you, and as well they expect your prescience at these things. Plus it's a great opportunity for learning. You hear things you won't necessarily hear at a meeting just in visiting people."
"I work hard, I continue to work to earn everyone's respect and carry that forward. It's an honour, it's a privilege, and it's a pleasure to represent the people of Livingstone-Macleod, and it's something I take very seriously. I still enjoy it, because there's always something new."
"I've nothing to hide, I will answer any question that comes forward, and if I don't know, that's an answer."
Getting personal
"I've got a wife and three kids. The oldest one is in third year of University, the other two are in grade 12 and grade 11, and they're looking after the fires at home. We still have the cow herd, we still have some limited grain farming, and you know, all these things work together. I've always said if you don't have your hand in the industry you forget why you ran in the first place, so I like to keep all that going. It makes for very busy times, but there again you are what you live and what you do."
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| Chris Davis, Loretta Packham (Mrs. P) and Evan Berger Chad Barber photo |
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