The Saskatchewan Farm Land Security Board has cleared a British Columbia merchant banking group of any wrongdoing involving land purchases it has brokered in the province.
Blackstone Farm Financial Corp. buys shares in incorporated family farms. In the four years since the company was formed, it has been involved in hundreds of millions of dollars worth of farmland deals, primarily on the Prairies.
The corporation’s activities in Saskatchewan set off alarm bells with the Farm Land Security Board, the agency that enforces the province’s rigid farmland ownership legislation.
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All three prairie provinces have legislation that restricts foreigners from buying farmland, but Saskatchewan is the only one that considers a foreigner to be anyone living outside the province.
Not assuming ownership
After talking to Blackstone’s lawyers, the board decided the company is not taking ownership of land in the few deals it has brokered in Saskatchewan.
“We’re becoming more comfortable with what they’re doing,” said Dan Patterson, general manager of the Farm Land Security Board.
“They’ve been very forthcoming with us and we don’t feel they’re hiding anything.”
If it was up to Bob Bjornerud, there would have been no investigation to begin with.
Bjornerud is a Saskatchewan Party MLA who introduced a private member’s bill last year to loosen regulations that govern foreign ownership of Saskatchewan farmland. The bill never saw the light of day.
“We’ve kind of got walls built around Saskatchewan.”
Farmers are getting older and the next generation isn’t interested in taking over the farming operations, he said.
“We need some fresh money in here and some fresh blood for that matter if that’s what it takes to help the farming situation.”
Last year, a farmer from Bjornerud’s constituency who was ready to retire agreed to sell his 1,500 acre seed farm to a buyer in Manitoba, but the deal was kiboshed by the security board.
“I have a hard time understanding why we’re trying to keep other Canadians out of here. It just doesn’t make any sense to me,” he said.
“I think it’s an archaic law that needs to be updated.”
Bjornerud wants Saskatchewan legislation to mirror regulations in Alberta and Manitoba where non-Canadians are subject to restrictions, but people from other Canadian provinces can still buy farmland. Manitoba amended its legislation in 1997.
“As usual we seem to lag behind in updating our laws.”
Patterson said there’s more to it than that. He said Manitoba doesn’t feel the kind of pressure that Saskatchewan does from the west.
“We’re a mouse living next door to the Alberta elephant as far as capital goes.”
He said the existing legislation forces Albertans interested in expanding their farming operations to relocate.
“That’s what is desired, that’s what is optimal. (It) is to not just get the capital and the new younger blood and the expertise, but to get residency,” said Patterson.
“That’s what is going to make our communities viable, not just someone else’s money changing our land titles.”
He said the legislation is more like a barbed wire fence than a brick wall.
“You can kind of stretch it and work your way through with the board’s help.”
If somebody proves to the board that they have credible plans to take up residency in Saskatchewan in a few years, the board can provide that out-of-province buyer with an exemption. Last year the board granted 224 exemptions for various reasons.
Bjornerud remains determined to change the farmland ownership legislation.
He said his private member’s bill is dusted off and ready to be reintroduced when the legislature reconvenes this spring.
