Vision PEI

20 QUESTIONS: Green leader Peter Bevan-Baker's most treasured possession is his trumpet | SaltWire CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — It took nine tries before Green party leader Peter Bevan-Baker managed to win in an election. Bevan-Baker, who is a dentist by ...

Can't resist posting Ranald's letters. The man is awesome.
GETTING ALONG WITH NEIGHBOURS
The Guardian (Charlottetown)3 Aug 2022
I really like the Mennonites. Thank goodness they are moving here. I’ve had a lot of dealings with them. All good.

They buy farms. They farm responsibly and sustainably. They are good business people, so they don’t suck huge quantities of taxpayers’ dollars.

I’ll take a thousand more Mennonites before I’ll take another friggin’ Irving. Ranald Macfarlane, Fernwood, P.E.I.

UNLESS THERE IS AN ISLAND-SHAKING ISSUE OR EVENT THAT FORCES ME TO YELL AND WHINE PUBLICLY, THEN THIS WILL BE MY LAST VISION PEI POST. DALE SMALL

WE WERE WARNED. WHAT COMES NEXT FOR OUR SUCCESSORS?

COMMENTARY: What lies ahead 50 years after the Limits to Growth report of 1972 | SaltWire Palanisamy Nagarajan is an emeritus professor of economics and an island studies fellow at the University of Prince Edward Island. A country can cut down ...

C'mon Greens! PEI NEEDS YOU! Surely you have not been infected by the political virus. The one that changes otherwise fine people into self-centered, entitled know-it-alls. Show Islanders what a new, visionary, honest government will do.

Page A01 View the The Eastern Graphic for Wednesday, June 29, 2022

A timely, thought-provoking read.
DS

Do we need a better understanding of 'progress'? A growing and influential intellectual movement aims to understand why human progress happens – and how to speed it up. Garrison Lovely investigates.

June 15, 2022

Statement on the out of touch and callous response by King government to predicament of Islanders facing record inflation levels

Reminiscent of Marie Antoinette’s “Let them eat cake”, the suggestion by the King government for Islanders to “tighten their belts” reveals the Premier and his Ministers are simply out of touch with the very real, very painful struggles Islanders are facing each and every day.

For example, the cost for someone to travel from the Minister of Finance’s district to Charlottetown and back is around $15 a day or $75 a week if they were doing this everyday as a commute to their workplace. That means for a minimum wage earner, more than the first hour of their work day is just to cover the expense of getting to their job. Their fuel expenses aren’t covered by taxpayer dollars.

Fuel costs are just one area that record inflation on PEI is creating unsustainable expenses for Islanders. Yet, the cost of fuel affects everything from access to goods and services for things from food, medicines, and healthcare.

Shelter is also a major concern for Islanders. Financial experts are sounding the alarm that as many as 1 in 4 homeowners will be forced to sell their home because they will be unable to make their mortgage payments. The King government has made no substantial improvements to our public housing supply, no rental registry to protect against illegal rent increases, and no efforts to crackdown on housing speculation that hurts prospective homeowners and tenants alike.

During a meeting of the Standing Committee on Education and Economic Growth yesterday, it would have been frustrating for Islanders to hear finance officials say “the worst is behind us.” Especially in light of the fact that Premier King has failed in his promise to deliver his emergency inflation relief during this time.

Premier King and his ministers may be able to hide from committee, but Islanders cannot hide from the rising cost of living. The Department of Finance claims that prices are expected to return to some sense of normal by mid-2023—yet government seems to have no clear plan of action for the next 12 months.

Islanders need help now. They don’t need moral support; they need financial support. This government is showing itself to be at best out of touch with reality and at worst uncaring and callous towards the very real struggle Islanders are facing. Neither bodes well for our province.

Lynne Lund, MLA Summerside-Wilmot
Education and Economic Growth Legislative Standing Committee Member for Official Opposition Green caucus

Trish Altass, MLA Tyne Valley-Sherbrooke
Education and Economic Growth Legislative Standing Committee Member for Official Opposition Green caucus

Island media can seem like it doesn't ask the hard questions at times, or ignores tough issues, but there are exceptions, and here is a glimpse at one's frustrations trying to do his job:

From CBC PEI journalist Kerry Campbell
Friday, June 10th, 2022
via Twitter

It's now been 590 days since I filed an access request for the Brendel Farms report. It's been 1,345 days since I asked for information on a death at Sleepy Hollow that, in other provinces, would have been made public as a matter of routine disclosure.

"I think this is the most open and transparent government in the history of Prince Edward Island. I’m very proud (Indistinct)," Premier Dennis King said in the PEI Legislature on May 3, according to Hansard.'

Under the previous govt I got used to the province not asking me to pay for most access requests. Those were the good times. Now invoices in the hundreds of dollars are routine, and I don't feel like departments are engaging with me in good faith as I try to whittle those down.

A functional access-to-information system is a critical component of a healthy democracy. When it takes four years (and counting) just to find out whether a person who died in custody received appropriate medical care, that's a problem.
'm also still waiting on these records I applied for in early 2020. These are forms corporations submit to IRAC on land ownership. Technically, their land holdings are public information, available through PEI's land titles office.

My frustration today is over a request for records on

's ambulance system. The bill came back at $330. I asked for a breakdown, then told the province we could eliminate the item responsible for 6 of 14 hours of searching in response to this request. The bill is still $330.

That request was spurred on by the story of George Kinch, as told by his daughter, who died of a heart attack earlier this year. I don't know that he could have been saved, but it took the ambulance more than an hour to arrive.

Hey everyone, thanks for being there for me. Sometimes a journalist just has to vent, you know? ....

---Kerry Campbell,
June 10th, 2022

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"Democracy dies in darkness" is the slogan on the masthead of The Washington Post, a phrase based on a quote from a United States judge several decades ago, and it fits here, too. We probably need to be more vocal about reminding the provincial government that they are *not* living up to their assertion of transparency (this goes for all levels of government, too).

Kudos to Kerry, and Stu Neatby at The Guardian, and Rachel Collier and publisher Paul MacNeill at The Graphic publications, and citizens like Martin Ruben for their perseverance.


Yours truly,
Chris Ortenburger,
Citizens' Alliance of P.E.I.

During my career as an enforcement officer for PEI's
environmental regulations and having drafted a number of regs, it is crystal clear that well-intentioned laws require an enforcement component to be effective. Without enforcement, the laws are absolutely meaningless. In some cases, politicians will intentionally pass unenforceable regulations to deceive the public and take the heat off themselves.
DS

P.E.I. water strategy 'a leaky document' | CBC News While praising the goals of P.E.I.’s recently released water strategy, some water protection groups have some concerns about how exactly it is going to be implemented.

Dirty Dealin’s cost the taxpayers big-time…again.
Perhaps a pre-election phycological examination should be required for all potential candidates, such as IQ, integrity, narcissism, and other abnormal characteristics.

Future of Charlottetown We are working together to ensure a better future for the city of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island

DOES THIS INITIATVE REPRESENT OUR DREAMS COMING TRUE? LOOKS VERY PROMISING. THANKS TO ALL WHO DEVELOPED THIS STRATEGY. NOW WE WAIT, WATCH, HELP, AND SUPPORT. DS

OPINION: Citizens assembly is ground-breaking step forward for P.E.I. democracy

The P.E.I. legislative assembly has passed a motion for a citizens’ assembly to “study, deliberate, and recommend around electoral reform on the Island”

by Marie Burge, Fred Horne and Donna Dingwell
published on Friday, February 11th, 2022, in The Guardian

https://www.saltwire.com/atlantic-canada/opinion/opinion-citizens-assembly-is-ground-breaking-step-forward-for-pei-democracy-100691745/


Islanders for Proportional Representation (IPR), formed after the last referendum, has tried to keep the movement for proportional representation (PR) before the minds of the general public.

With P.E.I.’s long history of progressive electoral reform, it seemed unlikely that Islanders would give up at this stage. However, for the past 20 years through four separate P.E.I. governments, electoral reform has been, and remains, an unresolved and divisive issue. Even though the majority of participants agreed on the need for changes to the first past the post system, this has not translated into proportional representation. And even though either a majority, or close to majority, of voters in two separate referendums (2016 and 2019) approved of PR, the process is stalled.

The P.E.I. electorate remains divided pretty much down the middle. There are some of us who ardently wish to adopt a proportional representation system for electing the representatives to the P.E.I. legislature. And there are those who are at the least unconvinced about what has been on offer. We might say that both sides are entrenched, deadlocked.

And now along comes the approval for the formation of a citizens’ assembly to “study, deliberate, and recommend around electoral reform on the Island”. This was in the form of Motion 71 passed in the last sitting of the legislature.

Citizens’ assembly is probably an unknown entity for many people. To help clarify it somewhat, Islanders for Proportional Representation calls on its various experiences of stalemates to describe the role of the citizens’ assembly. We compare the function of the citizens’ assembly to that of a referee in the current electoral stand-off. We refer to experiences as parents in imposing a "time out" to settle down two sibling children who are acting up repeatedly over a contentious point of disagreement between them. It might also be expressed as a ‘stop behaviour’. All the usual interactions are suspended and there is time to take a deep breath and deliberate about a way forward towards an agreement. No sense coming back into the room and just continuing the same arguments!

In the adult world there is a similar situation when an employer and workers’ union reach a stalemate. A mediator may be called in. But the important part is that sides go away to deliberate and come back with modified positions in order to come closer to common understanding.

The interesting aspect of a citizens’ assembly is the goal. In our case, the proposed P.E.I. citizens’ assembly will be established specifically to “study, deliberate, and recommend around electoral reform on the Island”. In the future, other citizens’ assemblies could be formed to work on other crucial Island issues. This is the case in Scotland, which after having adopted proportional representation, convened two citizens’ assemblies, one to work on a plan for the future of Scotland and the other to address climate change. (Note that a parallel children’s assembly on climate change was set up, which contributed to the adult final report).

The new P.E.I. citizens’ assembly will not only be a step toward more democratic elections, but will in its very nature be a serious and disciplined exercise of democracy. This will be no ordinary committee or commission, which often rely on political appointments or personal interest volunteers. The objective is to form a group of 27 people who actually represent the make-up of P.E.I., by region, gender, age, abilities, ethnic origin, sexual preference, etc. The process is designed by an independent, an expert in random selection, which begins with a sample of about 10,000 people. The expert will be an outside facilitator. This will relieve us of our suspicions of possible political interference. The independent facilitator will allow Islanders to be confident that the citizens’ assembly is an independent group operating separately from government. This level of independence will dominate right from the release of funding until the final report is sent to the legislature.

Islanders for Proportional Representation welcomes the formation of citizens’ assembly, an organization designed to be representative of the diversity of the P.E.I. community. For us it will be a welcome foretaste of what our future legislatures could look like.

Marie Burge is a staff person with Cooper Institute, an organizational member of Islanders for Proportional Representation. Fred Horne is an individual member of Islanders for Proportional Representation. Donna Dingwell represents the P.E.I. Federation of Labour, an organizational member of Islanders for Proportional Representation.

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The specific wording of Motion 71 - Establishing a citizen's assembly for proportional representation, which passed on October 28th, 2021, is here:
https://docs.assembly.pe.ca/download/dms?objectId=44e0d8e7-0a92-466c-8fda-6a5361eab73e&fileName=motion-71.pdf

Greens and Libs need to get their acts together....soon

I am a person for the people. Trust me.

As usual, the sensible take on this recent controversy.

The question that demanded asking Dennis King knows that the best defence is a good offence. So when the Official Opposition asked a question about his wife’s business receiving a $100,000 federal tourism grant, he

From Citizen’s Alliance morning post.
EDITH LING’s presentation to the NFU’s WOMEN'S DISTRICT 1, REGION 1 CONVENTION.

For the past 50 years or so, PEI’s # 1 industry has been controlled and dominated by a ruthless, immoral oil company. Read that again Islanders. They pay no tax. They receive loans and grants. Profits are hidden outside our country. “Their” farmers and phony farm organizations are treated and controlled as slaves, puppets, tractor drivers.
Some of the unseen consequences include widespread poisoning and destruction of our water, land, flora, and fauna.
Our politicians are literally terrified to even utter the name “Irving” in public. They spew nonsense and outright lies regarding potatoes.
We also have an independent group of farmers. They are honest, loyal to PEI, and committed to sustainable farming practices and the protection of our environment. In return, our Premier and Ministers ignore, degrade and insult them. Here is a snippet from Edith Ling’s presentation below:
“The National Farmers Union takes no money from Government and so we can say what has to be said, when it has to be said.”
Gather your courage Islanders, find your voices, and back up the NFU. Fight back.

From the forthright, fierce and caring Edith Ling (imagine if she were Premier!), with her gracious permission, her address to the National Farmers' Union District 1, Region 1 Convention, from Wednesday, April 20th:

WOMEN'S DISTRICT DIRECTOR'S REPORT TO THE DISTRICT 1, REGION 1 CONVENTION

Milton Community Hall

April 20, 2022

Good morning, everyone. It is great to be able to meet together this year with fewer restrictions than we had last year at the time of the District Convention. Covid has made things difficult for many organizations and the NFU is not unique in this regard. Although it was possible to carry on meetings such as our National Convention via Zoom for the past two years, it is so much better to be able to meet in person. So welcome to this, your District Convention.

As Women's District Director, I attended District Board meetings during the year as well as meetings of the Coalition for the Protection of P. E. I. Lands, and I also work on the Coalition for the Protection of P.E.I. Water. During the year the NFU had meetings with the Premier and with the Leader of the Official Opposition
Because of Covid restrictions, we were not able to hold our annual lobster supper for the past two years. Hopefully, we can soon do that again.

The National Farmers Union takes no money from Government and so we can say what has to be said, when it has to be said. We are often the targets of attack - be it personal or an attack on the organization itself. Well, I am here to tell you that the NFU is not an insignificant farm organization. On the contrary, we do represent a very significant number of farm families in this Province, who operate farms of all sizes, producing all commodities. We have been accused of being racist. There is nothing racist at all about trying to ensure that farm land in this Province remains in the hands of farm families who will live on the farm and keep the land in agricultural production. It is apparent that the derogatory remarks made by some people towards the NFU and its leadership are nothing more than a smoke screen to evade the issues rather than meeting them head on and properly answering the questions. I would want the perpetrators of these actions to know that their demeaning remarks will not stop the NFU from standing up for what is right and from working on behalf of all farm families in this Province and beyond.

We have found it is becoming increasingly difficult to reach the Premier and some Cabinet Ministers to request a meeting or get an answer to a question. Dozens of phone calls over a period of a few months went unanswered before we were able to meet with the Premier. This is not acceptable. It is high time that politicians realize who their employer is and extend due respect to the people who elected them. So, you can decide for yourself why no politicians are on our agenda here today!

As you are aware, the Lands Protection Act has been amended. We were advised by the Minister of Agriculture and his lawyers that we will have to wait to see if the amended Act will eliminate the circumvention of the Act which we have witnessed for years in the past. When asked how long he would wait to correct the situation if it is found that the amended Act is not strong enough, the Minister of Agriculture replied with the usual vague political answer. Time will tell if the amended Act is strong enough to put an end to the violations of the Act.

Potato Wart - This situation has proven devastating for many farm families in the Province. Although table stock potatoes can now move into the US market, the seed industry is in a critical situation as seed cannot be shipped to the US or to any province in Canada. Many questions remain unanswered -why were trees not planted in the index fields in 2000 and in subsequent years? Will they be planted in these fields this year? Why was Cavendish Farms allowed to plant the highly susceptible variety Russet Burbank in these fields only five years after detection? What are the requirements that the US agreed to recently which resulted in the opening of the border for table stock potatoes? Why has this not been made public? There is no transparency there. In downplaying the seriousness of the potato wart situation, the Manager of the Potato Board, Greg Donald stated that he could put all the wart potatoes that had been found in his half-ton truck box. Well, I would suggest to Mr. Donald that one potato is one too many in this case. We need an eradication plan for potato wart, not only a management plan.

It is clear that the Irving empire is in the driver's seat in this Province on this and on many other issues. It has been interesting to watch the steps being taken which will lead to this province becoming a processing province. Just imagine the additional control Irving will have over the farmers then. Now we learn that the Minister of Agriculture and also IRAC consider the current owners of Red Fox Acres Ltd. (owned by Rebecca Irving) to be in compliance with the provisions of the Lands Protection Act as they have divested some land by way of a global lease to Lady Slipper Farms. Lady Slipper Farms is an Irving- owned corporation in N B. So she takes the land out of one hand and places it in the other. Nothing has changed - the land is still in Irving hands. What a deviation from the provisions of the Lands Protection Act! I checked out the meaning of "divest" in the Oxford dictionary. This is what it says: "Divest" is defined as to deprive someone of power, rights, or possessions - to rid oneself of something. What happened here is a blatant disregard for the laws of this Province. We never did see the Brendel Farms report although the Agriculture Minister promised it would be made public. That is not transparency. Island Holdings Ltd. has co-presidents and co-chief executive officers. They are Robert K. Irving and James D. Irving. James K. Irving is the Chairman and the shareholders are Grand Forest Holdings Inc. in New Brunswick. Island Holdings Ltd. has been attempting to buy land in the Freetown area. The request has been declined on two occasions and rightfully so. It will be interesting to see if they can invent a way to circumvent the Act once again. The Minister of Agriculture is reported to have said it could be because the advertising of the land was not done according to IRAC rules. There is a much bigger reason than this why they should not get the land.

We are in a serious situation in this Province when we have a Government which got elected on the mantra "For the People". Once in office this was soon forgotten but will probably be unwrapped again in time for the next election.



In the meantime, let us keep telling it like it is and continue to work for programs and policies which are in the best interest of our farm families.



In closing, I would like to pay tribute to District Director, Doug Campbell who has worked tirelessly in that position for the past six years. It has been extremely rare that Doug and I have not seen eye to eye on any issue. If that ever did happen, we always were able to come to a mutually agreeable solution and move ahead. It was a real pleasure to work with you, Doug. Thanks to our Secretary Dan and Treasurer Darlene for all their help during the year. Thanks too to the Local Presidents and our national representatives for your help with the work in this District over the past year. Special thanks must go to Marie Burge who is always willing to help the NFU in any endeavour. We know she is a busy woman who works on many other issues, and this makes us even more grateful for her help. After sixteen years in this position, I feel I have more than completed the course. However, I remain strongly committed to the philosophy of the NFU and will be glad to help out in any way I can in the days ahead. It has been quite a ride, and a tremendous education. Thank you all!



Respectfully submitted,



Edith Ling



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And I am sure the NFU here thanks here for all she's given the organization, wishes her a little more free time without her NFU duties, and will miss her contributions immensely.

The most secretive, misleading, and thus corrupt Provincial government in all of Canada. An untrustworthy court system, law enforcement is silenced and afraid. Honest, courageous Islanders, please step forward, clean house.

COMMENTARY: P.E.I. cabinet secrecy leads to lack of accountability | SaltWire Martin Ruben, FCPA, FCGA, who runs a consulting business in Victoria-by-the-Sea, P.E.I. and has a background in public sector and not-for-profit corporate ...

TEN YEARS of hard work and dedication, delivered by the Central Queens Branch of the P.E.I. Wildlife Federation and caring volunteers, gone in one day. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS SICKENING DESTRUCTION OF FISH AND WILDLIFE? When is enough, enough?
DS

P.E.I. government investigating damage it caused near ski park waterway | CBC News The province is once again investigating damage to a watercourse, this time at the Mark Arendz Provincial Ski Park in Brookvale.

PREMIER DOUG CAMPBELL. Imagine having a leader who is truly honest and truly cares about PEI’s people, land, and water.
Words cannot truly describe the people who are governing our Province.
DS
NFU wants ‘eradication strategy’
Resolution passes calling for 34 potato wart index fields to be removed from production
The Guardian (Charlottetown)22 Apr 2022STU NEATBY stu.neatby .pe.ca
• THE GUARDIAN
Doug Campbell STU NEATBY
The P.E.I. chapter of the National Farmers Union would like to see potato wart index fields – fields in which potato wart has been detected since 2000 – removed from production entirely.

At an annual convention of the NFU at North Milton community hall on April 20, members passed a resolution calling for a potato wart “eradication strategy” in P.E.I. The resolution also called for the 34 fields in which potato wart has been detected since 2000 to be removed from agricultural production.

The resolution also called for contact fields adjacent to index fields to only be permitted to grow potato varieties that are immune to potato wart.

Speaking to members, NFU district 1 director Doug Campbell said potato wart index fields should have been removed from production decades ago. He suggested this could have helped the province avoid the recent 16-week export halt of fresh potatoes to the U.S. market, which was prompted by two detections of potato wart in October 2021.

“The science was, and is, there. And had it been followed 20 years ago, infected fields would have been immediately planted out in trees never to cause an issue again,” Campbell said.

“Science can't save us from ourselves. It can't save us from greed, short-sightedness, denial and ineptitude.”

Campbell's speech was also highly critical of large-scale “monoculture crop production” of potatoes and of the role of Cavendish Farms in the processing market. The NFU has often been at odds with the P.E.I. Potato Board, the industry organization that was most vocal during the fresh potato export halt.

Currently, resistant potato varieties can be grown in index fields five years after a detection if soil testing shows low levels of potato wart resting spores. Russet Burbank, a variety favoured for the processing industry, would not be permitted in these fields.

Potatoes grown in these fields cannot be shipped out of province but can be shipped to local processing facilities.

The two October 2021 detections were not from fields that had not been previously infested with potato wart. Both were classified as “regulated” fields by the CFIA due to some level of contact with a previous index field. Journalist Ian Petrie, writing in the Island Farmer, has reported one of the two fields was owned by Cavendish Farms; potato wart management protocols were followed, a representative told Petrie.

Canadian Food Inspection Agency officials have said the total acreage of the 34 index fields adds up to 1,578 acres of land. The potato wart management plan is managed by the CFIA, but the province of P.E.I. does have jurisdiction over land use.

It is unclear why index fields have not already been removed from production. In 2001, then-progressive Conservative Agriculture Minister Mitch Murphy told the P.E.I. legislature a field that had had a detection of potato wart would be taken out of production and that the plan was “to reforest that field or plant it in trees”.

P.E.I.'S current PC Minister of Agriculture Bloyce Thompson said he is open to removing index fields from production but does not know why this was not done years ago.

“That was the talk,” Thompson told Saltwire after question period at the P.E.I. legislature on April 20, referring to Murphy's remarks in 2001. “We don't have any documentation to say why it wasn't. I don't know why it wasn't.”

Thompson's own deputy minister told a standing committee in December that he would be in favour of removing index fields from production. Both Liberal MLA Robert Henderson and Green Opposition Leader Peter Bevan-baker have urged Thompson to remove index fields from production this season.

How can a farmer with a good reputation stand before Islanders and spout such bu****it? Our system is corrupt and disgusting.
DS
Dubious divestiture
Thompson admits frustration at divestiture that allowed land to remain Irving-owned
The Guardian (Charlottetown)20 Apr 2022STU NEATBY POLITICAL REPORTER stu.neatby .pe.ca
STU NEATBY • THE GUARDIAN
Green Opposition Leader Peter Bevan-baker questioned Agriculture and Land Minister Bloyce Thompson about why he did not rectify the “loophole” in the Lands Protection Act that allowed an Irving-linked corporation to circumvent the Lands Protection Act.
P.E.I. Agriculture Minister Bloyce Thompson has admitted frustration with how the Brendel Farms divestiture process, which he ordered, was conducted.

Thompson, who ordered Red Fox Acres Ltd. to divest 2,200 acres of land in October of 2020 after the company was found to have contravened land legislation, was questioned by Green Opposition leader Peter Bevan-baker during question period on April 19.

The divestiture schedule, which Thompson said was completed by the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission but which he sent to cabinet for approval, allowed Red Fox Acres Ltd. to lease the land to Lady Slipper Farms Ltd. Both corporations list Rebecca Irving, daughter of Mary Jean Irving, as a director. Red Fox Acres is still listed as the owner of the 2,200 acres of farmland, located in the Bedeque-freetown area.

Mary Jean and Rebecca, along with Mary Jean's daughter, Elizabeth, were listed as directors of three other landholding corporations that attempted to buy the same 2,200 acres of land in 2019. This land sale was denied by the cabinet of the previous Liberal government because it contravened the Lands Protection Act.

"The Irvings are leasing out the land to themselves," Bevan-baker said during question period.

"Do you view this as acting within the spirit and intent of the Lands Protection Act? And can you confirm that the Irvings are still within their landholding limits?"

"This has been a frustrating file for myself for quite a while,” Thompson said in response.

Thompson noted the Lands Protection Act, a controversial law that places size limitations on landholding corporations, was updated in fall of 2021 – almost a year after Thompson announced the divestiture of Brendel land.

“I feel that within the strength of our Lands Protection Act 2.0 that this shouldn't happen again, Mr. Speaker. And I'm prepared to see that going forward and hope that this never happens again," Thompson said.

Thompson told Saltwire Network the divestiture of the 2,200 acres at the centre of the Brendel sale occurred through a global lease agreement. These agreements are often used to allow farmers to lease land to other farmers due to crop rotation cycles but can also allow farming corporations to own more than the maximum 3,000 acres limit set out under the Lands Protection Act.

Bevan-baker disputed that the lease arrangement constituted a divestiture. He also asked for Thompson to table the plan for divesting the land.

In an interview after question period, Thompson again

said he was informed by IRAC that Red Fox Acres had come into compliance with the Lands Protection Act in February of 2021.

“That sat on my desk for quite a while,” Thompson said, adding this was sent to cabinet for approval in October of 2021.

“I'm between a rock and a hard place. The regulator is telling me they're in compliance, and I have to believe that. I had every legal advice from government to take a look at that. And that was the case,” Thompson said.

Thompson did not elaborate on the specifics of why IRAC deemed the lease of land from Red Fox to Lady Slipper to have constituted a divestiture, beyond saying that IRAC had looked at the shareholders of both companies to determine whether the ownership was common.

“That's something you'd have to ask IRAC,” Thompson said when asked to provide details about the divestiture.

Saltwire requested details on the divestiture from IRAC on March 28 but was told the questions should be directed to Thompson's office.

“Government makes the decision about global leases, as it does for land sales. The commission receives and processes applications for global leases and makes recommendations that are forwarded to executive council for a decision,” wrote Kim Devine, a senior communications officer with IRAC.

In November of 2020, Rebecca Irving and Red Fox Acres applied for a judicial review of Thompson's decision to have the Brendel land divested. Saltwire contacted Jonathan Coady, legal counsel for Irving in this application, to ask for confirmation that Red Fox Acres had entered into a global lease agreement with Lady Slipper Farms Ltd.

Coady's response appeared to dispute Thompson's remarks but offered little elaboration.

“I checked with (Red Fox Acres counsel) Geoff Connolly, and your statement about a global lease agreement is not correct,” Coady wrote in an email on April 14.

“Neither Geoff nor his client has anything to add.”