MOOSE JAW, Sask. – The next time Saskatchewan arable land is
re-assessed, it will be rated more on productivity and less on market
value.
That’s what rural governments wanted.
But with that good news comes the bad for some landowners.
The chair of the Saskatchewan Assessment Management Agency said the
shifts noticed after the 1997 revaluation will essentially reverse in
2005. That means some people will see the assessed value of their
property jump quite a bit, while others will see a decline.
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Bill Reader said people must remember that assessment does not equal
tax. The provincial government is responsible for property taxation,
based on the assessments provided by SAMA.
“The two departments responsible, as we speak, are working on what they
need to do to mitigate assessment shifts,” he told a district meeting
of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities.
Those tax tools could include using percentages of assessed value,
rather than 100 percent.
SAMA expects 114 of the province’s 297 rural municipalities will see an
assessment change of plus or minus 10 percent.
About 108 RMs will see their assessments drop. Seventy-five will see
increases, 35 of them of 20 percent or more.
“The overall assessment will stay the same,” said Irwin Blank, managing
director of technical standards and policy at SAMA. “There’s going to
be significant shifts.”
Blank said the changes mean all land with similar productivity will
have the same assessed value across the province.
In 1997, the local market index was introduced to give more weight to
local land sales in the assessment process. But the LMI caused concern
among farmers and farm organizations, who argued that it caused
inequities.
Blank said a return to using a productivity rating, which was in place
from 1965 to 1997, will solve the problem of inflated assessments in
areas of oil and gas production or those near cities.
He said he expects land along the east side, particularly in the east
central region, will see the highest increases under the 2005 system.
For example, the RM of Wallace, near Yorkton, could see assessments
jump 38 percent.
On a crop district basis, 5A, which includes Yorkton and Melville, will
see a 22 percent jump and 5B, including Wynyard and Canora, will see a
23 percent increase.
On the other side of the province, 7A and 7B, including Kindersley,
Wilkie and Unity, could see a 19 percent drop.
The RM of Moose Jaw is projected to experience a 31 percent decline.
The new assessment model will also include a provincial market index,
which converts the final productivity rating into a dollar value per
acre.
Under the 1965 system, the PMI was $1 per rating point. That will be
updated to reflect 2002 provincial averages under an as yet
undetermined base date.
Reader said about 20,000 sales would be included in that calculation.
He also told the delegates he is surprised how many people don’t
understand assessment and how it works.
“If you own real property you pay tax,” he said. “It has nothing to do
with whether you have a grader going by your house or kids going to
school … and that’s our system.
“It would take a cabinet with king-size balls to even think about
changing that system.”
Reader asked for the councillors’ help to explain assessment to their
ratepayers.
Feds vow more minor use funds
By Barry Wilson
Ottawa bureau
news
The federal government is promising to spend $54.5 million during the
next six years to help make more minor use pesticides available to
Canadian farmers.
The fruit and vegetable industry applauds the promise.
“Without a doubt, this is an important first step to let Canadian
farmers have the same tools as their American competitors,” Hamilton,
Ont., vegetable grower Ken Forth said.
The president of the Canadian Horticultural Council said the industry
will have to work with the government to make sure the money is put to
the best use.
He said a key will be to generate data needed to have minor use
chemical products submitted to the Pest Management Regulatory Agency
for approval.
Currently, many manufacturers consider Canada too small a market to
bother applying for registration of chemicals for use on lesser grown
crops. It means American farmers have access to more chemicals than
Canadian farmers.
“We are not looking to loosen standards,” said Forth. “Many of the
products we are looking for are actually safer. We just want the system
to work.”
The federal announcement was the first instalment of a promise by
Ottawa to spend $264.5 million on environmental projects as part of the
new long-term agricultural policy framework that will send $5.2 billion
out of Ottawa over six years.
On June 24, agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief announced the minor use
pesticide money, as well as $100 million over four years, to help
farmers across Canada develop farm environmental plans.
Details on how the money will be distributed are not yet available.
In the announcement, Vanclief said that farmers who identify
environmental weak spots in their operation and then move to strengthen
them are helping both their industry and their potential for profit.
“By addressing growing environmental concerns, we not only provide
benefits for the health of Canada’s air, soil and biodiversity, we also
give our domestic and international customers proof that Canada is the
leader in environmentally responsible food production,” the minister
said in the announcement.
Unlike most of the new policy funding arrangement, provinces are not
being asked to co-fund the environmental spending.
“That is direct money that helps mitigate problems our farmers have,”
Vanclief told reporters.
The announcement is a supplement to an earlier federal announcement
that in parallel with proposed new pesticide regulation legislation,
Agriculture Canada and Health Canada are making more money available to
the PMRA to speed up reviews of minor use product applications.
A minor use adviser also is being appointed within the PMRA to help
speed up the process and to deal with farmer complaints about delays.
