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Motion 506 – Ecological Integrity in Land Reclamation

Ms Blakeman: Thank you very much for recognizing me. I’m very happy to stand up in the House in support of Motion 506. It’s no surprise to me that it was brought forward by the Member for Livingstone Macleod. For anyone that’s ever been in that constituency, they surely understand that it’s God’s country. I’m just a tad biased because my family originally came from that area.

He raises a number of very valid points. As we deal with a province in which there has been a lot of disturbance of the land through mostly oil and gas development but for a number of other reasons – exploration, seismic, you know, forestry roads, that sort of thing – we’re learning some lessons. I think we’ve had to learn some lessons through consequences where we have seen that when you disturb the soil, basically, you open it up, and any seed that falls into it, that’s what can take hold and grow, in some cases very invasive species and, in fact, noxious species. It can and does have long-reaching and detrimental effects on our natural environment.

I’m thinking of loosestrife, for example, which was immensely damaging to our wetlands. A really great plant; I had one in my garden. Man, did that thing grow, and it produced hundreds of thousands of seeds. It was so effective, and it was fabulous. My garden was filled with flowers until my neighbour came over and said: please get rid of that, and when you do, burn it and make sure that you pick every single seed out of the soil because it is prolific and invasive. It was. It took me years before I had finally got the garden rid of it because every spring it would come up again. I thought: wow; that’s in a garden in a city with somebody that is watching it and trying to deal with the fact that it is such a prolific seed producer.

The problem with loosestrife is that once it took hold in wetlands, it just choked it out exactly in the same way it did in my garden. It just took it over, choked it out, and made just about any other native species very difficult to compete with it. It was not a good food source for the local animals. We were replacing, you know, good, easy-to-access nutrients for the animals and waterfowl that were frequenting the wetlands with this very woody stalk that was nowhere near as nutritious. That’s one small example of how it can really get away from us.

I’m very supportive of what has been brought forward in Motion 506 by the Member for Livingstone-Macleod. I’m the Official Opposition critic for Environment. I’ve talked to a number of the groups that I deal with on this from the environmental and conservation side, and they are supportive of this as well. I think it makes sense, but sometimes we have to pass laws to remind ourselves to do the right thing, and this may well be one of those times.

We’re expecting that if this motion passes and the government implements it, we could see benefits like, as I’ve mentioned, retention of the local biodiversity, certainly in the grasslands the appropriate grass. We’ve already lost significant grass out of the area that the Member for Livingstone-Macleod represents because the long grass we don’t really have anymore. It doesn’t really exist. It’s gone. It has been taken over by the shorter prairie grass. If you’re in some of the museums down that way, I think particularly Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump – is that where it is? – there’s an excellent example of the root structure. The root structure of the long grass is long; it’s, like, three feet into the soil. With the short grass it’s much less; it’s about six inches. The long grass just didn’t compete, and it’s gone. We really, essentially, don’t have it anymore.

I think, for some of the reasons that I’ve mentioned, that it does give our native flora and fauna an opportunity to continue to thrive, that it’s going to increase the reseeding potential – we’re not usually doing fertilization in those areas, but it would certainly reduce it if you’re using an indigenous planting to the region – and trying to get as close to what was there before if you can’t actually get what was there before. I’ll hearken back to my references there to the short and long grass. The shorter grass is as close as you’re going to get to what you had before in the long grass. This is, I would argue, a common-sense motion. It’s something the government should be going forward with. It is supported by the environmental and conservation groups.

I had one question. The member amended his original motion partway through. I’ll just read the whole thing so that I can get to it:

Be it resolved that the Legislative Assembly urge the government to use site-specific native grasses and forbs in all future land reclamation projects on native landscapes to ensure the preservation and integrity of our plant ecosystem.

The amended part is “on native landscapes.” I’m not sure what was there before, so I’m not sure of the significance of the change there. Maybe he could get one of his colleagues to explain that if he gets a chance.

I remember a number of conversations with my uncle, who was for many years in the seed business, and he used to do a lot of reclamation projects. I remember being shocked at hearing that often there was no requirement of him to seed in a reclamation project anywhere close to what had been there before. Of course, he was a businessman, very successful, and he did what was most cost effective, which was not always the native planting. Even back then I remember being disheartened by that because it meant that – he was selling seed for reclamation along the sides of highways and things, so covering a lot of land, and to hear that we weren’t even trying to get back to anything close to what had been there before was pretty disheartening because we’d essentially changed the landscape. I think one of the lessons that we keep failing to learn is that you can’t fool around with Mother Nature because sooner or later she’ll get you for that. I think this is falling into line with that, and understanding and coming as close as possible to what is the native biodiversity is a darn good idea.

On behalf of my colleagues – I think all of them support this. I certainly do.

Mr. MacDonald: I’m in favour of listening to the debate.

Ms Blakeman: Oh, okay. We’ve got some of them that are going to listen to the debate.

I’m going to certainly be encouraging my colleagues in the Official Opposition to support Motion 506. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak.