The B.C. legislature was in the final two hours of a mostly orderly spring session when fireworks erupted over Bill 24, the B.C. Liberal makeover of the Agricultural Land Reserve.
"One of the most massive wrongs I have seen in this house since elected," declared Lana Popham, second-term New Democratic Party MLA for Saanich South. "What we see with Bill 24 is simple, and I'm going to lay it out. It's about deception, it's about corruption and it's about greed."
The resort to unparliamentary language brought an immediate rebuke from the chair, deputy speaker Doug Horne: "The member will withdraw those remarks," he ordered.
"Deception?" ventured Popham.
"All the remarks," replied Horne, citing long-standing guidelines that have been recognized by Opposition and government alike in the B.C. house.
"Well, I'll withdraw 'corruption'," said Popham. "But I think 'deception' and greed' are acceptable. Is that not correct?"
Horne, again citing a rule that any five-year veteran of the chamber ought to know: "It's not debatable."
"All right, I'll withdraw that remark, "Popham grudgingly conceded, "but I think this chamber gets my drift."
Lest there be any doubt about her drift, a few minutes later she characterized the bill as "the most deceitful thing that I have ever seen" and was forced to withdraw a second term.
Then came "I won't say 'corruption' but I think that is what this is," which the deputy speaker let pass. Nearing the end of her remarks, Popham demanded that the government "stop lying about who supports this bill" -- which she instantly withdrew as well.
All this in the space of a 10-minute address on a bill that had been under public scrutiny for weeks. But as Popham explained, "I'm very passionate about this bill ... I came into this chamber because I love agriculture. I am passionate about agriculture."
She has strong credentials on the file, having been the founder-operator of an organic vineyard in the days before she was elected to represent a constituency in the provincial capital region.
After one more speaker from the Opposition side and with the clock approaching the government-imposed time for adjournment, Agriculture Minister Norm Letnick got up to close the debate on Bill 24.
That brought an outburst from NDP MLA Nicholas Simons, who'd expected to have one more chance to speak, he being his party's agriculture critic. The Liberals were "a bunch of corrupt liars," he charged, and when ordered to withdraw, he refused.
"The member knows that if he does not withdraw his remarks," Horne cautioned, "he'll be forced to be removed."
Whereupon Simons, rather than withdrawing his remarks, withdrew himself from the chamber. But after thinking it over, he returned to the chamber and withdrew the charge, just in time to cast a vote on the bill.
"I wanted to be on record that I am against this bill," he explained to reporters afterward. "Without withdrawing, I wouldn't have been permitted back into the house."
But clearly, the issue was an emotional one for the three-term MLA from Powell River-Sunshine Coast.
At one point in the brief scrum, Simons joked about having to withdraw his remarks because "I didn't want to work as a dishwasher." Moments later, he choked up, almost overcome: "It was emotional, it is still emotional, I think that the people of the province deserve better."
No question that the issue is a deeply felt one for the New Democrats, given the party's role in creating the Agricultural Land Reserve and its overseer commission in the first term of NDP government 40 years ago.
Especially galling, too, is the way that the Liberals -- particularly cabinet minister Bill Bennett, a longtime critic of the reserve and the commission -- seized the opportunity created by the party's surprise election win to make it easier to remove land from the reserve, particularly in the North, the Interior and the Kootenays.
Not surprising, then, that the New Democrats chose to make as much political hay as possible out of the Liberal move against what many of them regard as "a sacred trust."
Still, it strikes me that the Opposition could have made more instructive use of the last few days set aside in the legislature calendar for debate on Bill 24.
With the government signalling that it would use its legislative majority to pass the bill into law, come what may, at the end of proceedings on Thursday, the option was there for the Opposition to let the house move to clause-by-clause examination of the bill.
Committee stage, as it is known, would have permitted more detailed scrutiny of the meaning and intentions of particular passages in the bill, including last-minute amendments drafted to rectify concerns expressed by the agricultural community.
The process could also have shed some light on the Liberals' intentions for the regulations that will be spelled out by cabinet order at a later date, supposedly after "consultations" with the industry and other interests.
Instead, the New Democrats ran out the clock on debate in principle, a mostly rhetorical process that served to vent their frustrations without adding any understanding to the specifics of this contentious piece of legislation.
