Green Party leader pledges to table new bill that would make all land investigations public

More than 100 people attended a meeting hosted by Green Party Leader Matt MacFarlane Monday night to discuss their concerns about land use and hear about a new bill he plans to table that would require land investigations to be made public to Islanders.

The amendment to the Lands Protection Act would make all reports and supporting documents related to investigations open for anyone to see.

MacFarlane said the aim is to help Islanders rebuild trust in the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission and the processes it uses to make decisions about land.

MLAs recently learned that a long-awaited land report from 2018 doesn't actually exist. A legislative standing committee issued a subpoena for the report, which was supposed to have looked into a number of concerns, including land holdings of Buddhist groups in eastern P.E.I.

"I think that the determination that that report didn't exist was a bit of a shocker," said Jan Matejcek, one of many who attended the meeting. "At this point my trust in the processes is very low.

"I think it's important to have more transparency and having the disclosure of the reports is very, very important. It's the same as a judgement at the court, why should that be confidential? I don't see a reason."

Retired CBC journalist Ian Petrie, who helped lead some of the discussion on land concerns at the meeting, said MacFarlane is on the right track to try and pull back the curtain on how IRAC makes its decisions.

"If we think it's important to limit the ability of wealthy people to buy up land then we have to try and get this right," said Petrie. "I think Matt is attempting to get it as transparent as possible in terms of how these decision are made."

MacFarlane said he plans to table the bill during the fall sitting of the legislature.

"I think it's a perfect time to bring more transparency to the IRAC process for Islanders to have some more confidence in the institution," he said.

"This is the body that makes decisions over our land on Prince Edward Island and we're going to have to ask some hard questions about whether it's doing that role sufficiently and appropriately."

Minister of Housing, Land and Communities Cory Deagle spoke during an open question period at the meeting.

Deagle said he is committed to making public the findings of another investigation into Buddhist groups' land holdings, ordered in February by the minister at the time Steven Myers.

Deagle also raised concerns directly to MacFarlane about his bill.