Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• A self-represented property owner sought to dramatically expand the scope of her judicial review by adding new decisions, new parties, and claims for misfeasance and civil conspiracy against the Agricultural Land Commission.

• Proposed amendments to quash additional enforcement orders were denied because the petitioner failed to exhaust the Commission's internal appeal process and exceeded the 60-day statutory time limit for judicial review.

• Declarations sought regarding permitted farm operations on the property were refused as they targeted a non-party (District of Saanich), fell outside the Commission's statutory authority, and sought hypothetical future-looking relief.

• Claims for compensation framed as declaratory relief were found to be impermissible on judicial review, as damages cannot be awarded in such proceedings.

• Nearly all of the petitioner's affidavits were excluded from the record, with only one paragraph (paragraph 80 of Kinney Affidavit #2) admitted on procedural fairness grounds.

• The sole amendment permitted was the addition of a claim for costs on a full indemnity basis, as it caused no prejudice and would not delay the hearing.

The ongoing dispute over fill deposits on agricultural land
Nancy Anne Kinney owns property located in Saanich, B.C. with a municipal address of 5895 Old East Road (the "Property"), which is situated within the agricultural land reserve and the District of Saanich. The depositing of fill, as a permitted farm use of the Property, has been an ongoing issue between Kinney and the Provincial Agricultural Land Commission (the "Commission"). On May 28, 2018, the Commission became aware of fill being deposited onto the Property. In June 2018, a Commission official served a compliance notice and stop work order on Kinney, requiring the immediate cessation of importation and deposition of fill material on the Property for the purpose of land development work. On June 18, 2018, Kinney appealed that order, but the Commission's appeal panel confirmed the stop work order in a decision issued on July 26, 2018 (the "2018 Decision"). On February 26, 2019, the petitioner requested that the appeal panel reconsider the 2018 Decision, and on April 23, 2019, the appeal panel refused the request for reconsideration.

Subsequent enforcement actions and the 2023 decision
The dispute did not end there. The April 3, 2023 decision (the "2023 Decision") concerned the appeal of two compliance and enforcement decisions: a varied stop work order issued by Commission C&E Officer Steven Laing on December 14, 2021, and a penalty order issued by Commission Chief Executive Officer Kim Grout on January 25, 2022. At the hearing leading to the 2023 Decision, Kinney advised the Commission that she would comply with the varied stop work order pending the outcome of a non-farm use application she intended to submit, but she was not going to withdraw her appeal because it was "inexorably linked" with the penalty order appeal. The 2023 Decision found the penalty order to be reasonable and proportionate, and cancellation or reduction was refused.

The original petition and repeated adjournments
On May 16, 2023, Kinney filed a petition for judicial review (the "Original Petition") seeking to have the 2023 Decision set aside, and a declaration that soil placement at the Property is a necessary specified farm use. Alternatively, she sought an order directing the Commission to reconsider the appeal of a December 14, 2021 stop work order and a January 25, 2022 penalty. She initially self-represented, then retained legal counsel on January 5, 2024, and later filed a notice of intention to act in person on August 8, 2025. On March 27, 2025, the petition was amended (the "Amended Petition") to seek judicial review and setting aside of the 2018 Decision, along with an extension of time to seek judicial review of the 2018 Decision, in addition to setting aside the 2023 Decision. In the Amended Petition, the sought-after declaration concerning soil placement on the Property was abandoned. The hearing was set and adjourned on multiple occasions — first from the assize week of February 24, 2025, adjourned by consent at the petitioner's request on February 3, 2025; then re-set for the week of August 25, 2025, and again adjourned by consent at the petitioner's request to the assize during the week of December 15, 2025; and ultimately rescheduled by consent to the assize during the week of April 7, 2026, after no judge was available to hear the petition during the December 2025 assize.

The application to further amend the petition
On February 25, 2026, Kinney filed the current application seeking to file a Further Amended Petition containing 117 pages. In support, she filed five, 4-inch binders containing thousands of pages of material. At the hearing, she provided the court with additional materials. Despite being advised by Justice LeBlanc that she would need to focus her submissions and direct the court's attention to those aspects of the record that supported her application, Kinney did not direct the court's attention to anything specific in the record, and her submissions included broad complaints about how she had been treated over the last ten-plus years by the Commission and others. The Commission opposed the relief sought, arguing the amendments would dramatically broaden the scope and fundamentally change the nature of the proceedings, and that the proposed pleadings were prolix, verbose, incoherent, disorganized, and confusing.

Expansion of judicial review to additional decisions
Kinney sought to quash several additional enforcement orders — including the June 11, 2018 stop work order, the December 3, 2019 remediation order, the December 3, 2020 failure to remediate order, the December 8 and 14, 2021 stop work orders and varied stop work order, and the January 25, 2022 $100,000 penalty order — and to direct the Registrar of Land Titles to cancel a remediation order notation registered against the Property's title on May 12, 2021. The court found that the additional decisions were subject to the Commission's internal appeal process, of which the petitioner had not availed herself. Beyond relying on her self-representing status, Kinney had not provided a reasonable basis to explain why the internal processes were not followed, nor had she provided a reasonable explanation as to why steps were not taken earlier to have these decisions reconsidered. Allowing the amendments would substantively entail a new judicial review outside of the 60-day time limit prescribed by s. 57 of the Administrative Tribunals Act. Furthermore, the proposed amendment sought relief against the Registrar of Land Titles without naming the Registrar as a respondent, and the court was unable to find a legal basis within the Further Amended Petition that would support the relief being sought against the Registrar. The court declined to permit these amendments.

Declarations regarding farm operations on the property
Kinney also sought a declaration that her farm remediation project constituted land development works within the meaning of section 6 of the Agricultural Land Reserve Use Regulation, B.C. Reg. 30/2019, and was therefore a farm operation as defined in section 1 of the Farm Practices Protection (Right to Farm) Act, conducted as a normal farm practice, and a farm use within the meaning of section 1 of the Agricultural Land Commission Act. She further sought declarations that the project could not be prohibited by any municipal bylaw, did not require any application or approval from the Commission, could not be the basis for any enforcement action by the Commission, and could not be the basis for any enforcement action by the District of Saanich. The court identified three fundamental problems: first, the petitioner sought declarations that would bind the District of Saanich without notice, as the District was not a respondent to the judicial review; second, the declarations were outside the Commission's statutory authority and were not available on judicial review under s. 2(2) of the Judicial Review Procedure Act, which limits declaratory relief to matters "in relation to the exercise, refusal to exercise, or proposed or purported exercise, of a statutory power"; and third, the declarations appeared to be future-looking declarations insulating the petitioner from potential future enforcement, and courts will decline to grant declaratory relief when the issue is hypothetical, academic, or not sufficiently concrete. The amendment was denied.

Misfeasance, civil conspiracy, and compensation claims
Kinney further sought declarations of misfeasance in public office against individual ALC officials named in the petition, civil conspiracy against the ALC, the District of Saanich, and Mike Romaine acting in combination, and a de facto taking of her property rights by the Commission. She also requested that her claims for damages proceed to trial on an expedited basis, with findings of fact from the judicial review binding on the parties, and sought a declaration that she was entitled to compensation for losses caused by the Commission's unlawful conduct, with quantum to be assessed by a Master or Registrar. The court found these claims contained the same statutory and procedural issues — the petitioner sought declarations outside the scope of the Commission that were not available on judicial review, and sought declaratory relief and orders against parties to which no notice had been given. Although framed as claims for declaratory relief, properly read, they were claims for compensation, and a claim for compensation or damages is not available on judicial review. Additional procedural problems included seeking costs of what appeared to be an unrelated proceeding in this judicial review, and seeking findings of fact on contested evidence in a judicial review proceeding. These amendments were denied.

Costs on a full indemnity basis
The only amendment the court permitted was the addition of a claim for costs of the proceeding on a full indemnity basis. While the Commission opposed this on the basis that there is traditionally immunity protecting quasi-judicial tribunals from costs awards, Justice LeBlanc found that while this type of cost award is rare, it is not prohibited, and there was little prejudice in permitting the petitioner to plead that relief. Permitting the amendment would not delay the current hearing and would not extend the time necessary for hearing the petition.

Production of additional materials
Kinney sought an order pursuant to s. 17 of the Judicial Review Procedure Act directing the Commission to supplement the record with a wide range of additional documents, including internal emails, complaints and communications from a neighbour, correspondence with trucking companies, BC Assessment consultation emails, and documents evidencing Mike Romaine's government connections and communications with the ALC and Saanich. The Commission confirmed its position that the Sarioglu Affidavit contained the record of proceeding of the 2023 Decision. The court found there was a lack of evidence that would suggest records had been withheld, and that the additional materials sought appeared to be "extra disclosure documents." Much of the additional evidence pertained to the petitioner's conspiracy and misfeasance in public office allegations, which the court had already concluded could not be determined on this judicial review. The court declined to grant an order directing the Commission to supplement the record by including the documents listed at paragraph 4(b) through (j) of the notice of application. The question of whether the complete record of the 2018 appeal proceedings should be produced was adjourned generally to be determined by the judge hearing the judicial review, as it remained unknown whether the 2018 Decision would be the subject of judicial review until the petition comes on for hearing.

Admissibility of the petitioner's affidavits
Kinney sought leave to file and rely on four affidavits. The court found that Kinney Affidavit #1 contained largely inadmissible evidence on a judicial review, including legal analysis, requests of the court, and speculative statements. Kinney Affidavit #2, which was over 400 pages, contained similar problems including speculative statements and legal argument. However, the court permitted the petitioner to rely on paragraph 80 of Kinney Affidavit #2, as it contained the petitioner's evidence related to procedural fairness, a matter she had raised in the judicial review. The front page and the signature page along with the page containing paragraph 80 were to be included in the hearing record, with any other visible paragraphs being redacted. Kinney Affidavit #3 primarily contained evidence post-dating the 2023 Decision and was not relevant to a judicial review of that decision. Kinney Affidavit #4 exhibited information concerning Mike Romaine, and as the amendments contained in Proposed Paras. 7–10 had been denied, it was not relevant and would not assist in a determination of the Amended Petition on its merits.

The ruling and outcome
In a decision dated March 20, 2026, Justice LeBlanc of the Supreme Court of British Columbia largely ruled in favour of the Commission. The court dismissed the petitioner's application to file the Further Amended Petition, denied the request to compel additional document production (except for adjourning the question of the 2018 Decision record to be determined by the judge hearing the judicial review), and denied leave to file the petitioner's affidavits except for paragraph 80 of Kinney Affidavit #2. The petitioner was permitted only to add a claim for costs of the proceeding on a full indemnity basis. The remainder of the relief sought by the petitioner in the notice of application was dismissed. No specific monetary award was ordered in favour of either party on this application; the underlying judicial review of the 2018 and 2023 Decisions — including the challenged $100,000 penalty — remains to be heard at the assize scheduled for the week of April 7, 2026.