Manitoba Committee Hansard — Agriculture and Food Committee, Sitting 3 (30th Legislature, 4th Session)

30-4-ag3

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

Legislative Assembly of Manitoba HEARING OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE Chairman Mr. A. R. {Pete) Adam Constituency of Ste. Rose THURSDAY, June 9, 1977, 8:00p.m. Printed by P.N. Crosbie- Queen's Printer for the Province of Manitoba

,E: 8:00 p.m. �IRMAN, Mr. A. R. (Pete) Ada m Agriculture Thursday, June 9, 1977 ""R. CHAIRMAN: Order please. We have a quorum, gentlemen, and we will proceed. There were a people from out of town who were not here th is afte rnoon. I don't believe they are here this ni ng, either, but I will call out th eir names and if they are not here then we will start with the people J live in Wi nnipeg. There is Mr. Dunford, Mr. Robs on, and ther e is Mr. Tac zynski . They not being e I will call on Mr. Nemy. Mr. Fehr . Is Mr. Fehr ther e? Mr. Nemy. Proceed. MR. Morton H. NEMY: Mr.

Chairman, Honourabl e Min iste r, and gentlemen. I have had an Jortunity to peruse Bi ll 56, bein g The Farm Lands Protection Act of the Provin ce of Manitoba, ich is now before the current session of this Mani toba Legisla ture, and I feel tha t in speaking ore th is Committee , bei ng a cross-sect ion of members of the Manitoba Legislature, tha t I come 'ore you with more tha n just a passing knowledge of circ umstances and events which have led into 1 dra fti ng of this bi ll.

I am a practising barrister and solicitor in the Provi nce of Manitoba and have been engaged in th is pacity for approxi mately 20 years. I was a member of council of the Municipality of Assinib oia for 1e n years prior to citywide amalgamation, and during all of this tim e was Chairman oft he Property d Planning Committee of th e said munici pality, and I have acted as solicitor for the Farm Credit 1r porati on for many years and am currently actin g in tha t capacity and have had an opportunity to ;cuss farm matters with hundreds of Manitoba farmers, bot h large and small, from all areas of th e ovi nce.

Of somewhat more im portance is the fact tha t my law firm was probably one of the first fi rms to get :tively in volved with Eu ropean purcha sers buying farm land in Manitoba, and I am doing a large 1r tion of legal work at th is time for th ese people.

I have had an opportunity to vis it Eu rope with each and every Eu ropean purchaser of farm land in anitoba tha t I have acted for, at th eir homes as well as at th ei r places of business, on several ;cas ions during th e past four years, and have a personal in sight as to th ei r occupa ti ons, their living >nditions, and th ei r way of th inking, and their objectives with regard to land purchases in Manitoba.

In this regard, I would very much apprecia te an opportunity to head a delegation of some of th e embers of this Committee , tog ether with the Min iste r and staff for the Department of Industry and ommerce and the Mini ster of Agricultur e in order to give them a firs t-hand knowledge of the facts hich I am already aware of, and which are, to some extent, as fo llows:

(1) Tha t th e people who are purchasi ng land in Manitoba are not huge corpora tions and European (ndicates, but in each and every case, tha t I am aware of, are in dividual families or brothers and 1sters of one fa mily.

(2) That the great majority of purcha sers are now actively engaged in farming in Eu rope, and th at 1eir intention is to immigr ate to Canada at th ei r earliest opportu nity, or at least to send their childr en ere when th ey gradua te from school. And many are now taki ng agriculture at European schools, nd in fact ther e are fou r childr en at th e Unive rsity of Manitoba at the Agricu ltural College.

(3) Some of the owners of land in Manitoba have personally owned large industrial complexes and 1re very anxious to establish in Manitoba upon di sposal of th eir Eu ropean holdings. They have th e :now-how, the financ es and the necessary worldly contacts with which to make th eir presence in this 1r ovince signif icantly felt, and all they requir e is a little more encou ragement tha n has been shown to late .

And I might say as a sid elig ht tha t ri ght at this time, not knowing I was going to be here ton igh t, .here is a fam ily of Italians at my home who own 240 acres of land in this provi nce, who manufacture 'arm mach inery in Italy, and have come over here to see about establishi ng a plant in th is provi nce, md wh en they saw the clima te of what is happening with this bi ll, they are leavi ng tomo rrow morni ng IIVithout taking any fu rther action.

I have been asked by many Canadi ans and giv en many reasons why Eu ropeans purchase land in this and other provi nces, but in dis cussi ng th is aspect with Canadians and knowing firs t-hand th e conditions which now exis t in Eu rope, th e following are th e pri mary reasons for Europ eans inte rest in Canadian farm land: {1) Many of the land purcha sers in Manitoba originally escaped from Easte rn European countries now under Communist control, where they lost all of th eir land and personal possessions upon escaping to Western European count ries.

Most of these people escaped between 19 46 and 19 55 and now are deeply concerned at the possibil ity of Communist domina tion of several countries of Western Eu rope and wish to be in a posit ion to move on very short notice wit h an established home to go to.

(2) Many Eu ropean farmers who have purchased in Manitoba are faced with expropria tion oftheir farm land by nearby cit ies and towns or by government on behalf of in dustry, and it is th erefore vi rtually im possi ble to buy any farm land in Eu rope at a pric e tha t would make it an economically 43

viable operation for a fam ily farm. Agriculture Thursday, June 9, 1977

(3) Many fa mil ies have childr en who are now gradua ting from high school or indu strial agricu ltural schools and their land holdings in Eur ope do not allow them to transfer property tot childr en and afford the childr en and parents an adequa te living. lt is ther efore their intention, ov period of approxi mately five years, for many of these childr en to establish themselves on Canac fa rms now bei ng purchased in advance of this migration.

(4) Some of the largest ind ustrialis ts in Eur ope have purchased property in Manitoba and they in Winni peg and the surrounding areas approxima tely twice a year. They hope to establ ish m• more than a singl e far ming operation on land that they have purchased. And in this regard, sevE are making arrangements to move to Canada and most are already landed Canadian imm igr ants � are carryi ng Canadian passports, alt hough they are sti ll resi ding in Eur ope.

Dur ing the past several years Eur opeans who purchased land in 19 73 and 19 74 have settled their farms in Manitoba with their fam il ies and it has taken them at least two years to disp ose of th Eu ropean holdin gs. And therefore, I might say that a lot of your statistics are not correct becat their titles in Manitoba sti ll show them as residing in Eur ope, but in fact they are actually now ht with their fa milie s. The following are some examples of settlers now residing in Manitoba. (

a) Mr. and Mrs. Otto Wolf and fam ily purch ased approxi mately 1 ,18 6 acres in 19 73 and 19 74, a arrived in Canada in the fall of 19 74. Mr . Wolf is also fa rming his brother -in-la w's property appr oxima tely 1, 010 acres and he intends to come in 19 78. (

b) Mr. and Mrs. Klaus Wolf purchased 1 ,800 acres in 19 73 and 19 7 4 and they have been residi, at Brunkild, Manitoba sinc e the summer of 19 75. (

c) Mr. and Mrs. Kon rad Kuentzle and fam ily purchased 834 ac res and arrived in Canada in Man of 19 76. They were able to move here within six to eigh t months of purcha sing their property. (

d) Mr. and Mrs. Ul rich Schm itz own appr oxi mately 12 0 acres and are farm ing 1, 522 acres ownt by their Eu ropean friends who will arrive later. (

e) Mr. and Mrs. Wi lli Hesse own 16 0 acres, but are working all of the property purchased by thE parents and other relati ves for a total of 1, 335 acres. Their property was purchased dur ing 19 75 ar Mr . and Mrs. Hesse arrived in Manitoba in the spring of 19 76. (

f) Mr. and Mrs. Ulrich Hie si nger purchased 480 acres at Lowe Farm , Manit oba and they arrived October of 19 76. (

g) Fellmack Holdings Ltd. is a company registered in Manitoba but havi ng for eign owners and owns approxi mately 5,000 acres which were purchased in 19 .73 and 19 74 and is now being farmed t the Company's own employees, one bei ng the owner-'s son, single ownership. (

h) Hardwood Enterprises, also a for eign owned corporation register ed in Manitoba, purchase 3, 000 acres between 19 74 and 19 75 and now are bei ng farmed by a Resident Manager from Europ with hi s fa mily who is a shareholder of the operating com pany and is a Doctor of Agricu lture. (

i) Iron Oxes Corporati on, another for eign owned Corporation registered in Manitoba, owns 40 acres, also managed by a Resident Manager and fa mi ly, who is a Doctor of Agricultur e. (

j) Mr. and Mrs. Hans Sti effenhofer purchased 640 acres in 19 75 and they are - I say in th' process of movi ng, they moved here two weeks ago. They moved to Manitoba two weeks ago and an now residing on thei r farm . (

k) Mr. and Mrs. Klo eppel purchased 640 acres in 19 75 and moved to Manitoba in 19 76. I guess I could go on . All of the above purchased the land between one to four years before they arrived as it is virtual!) and absolutely imp ossible for any foreigner wish ing to move to Canada to purchase the land afte1 they are landed residents of Manitoba. Jt would be lik e asking a fam ily to move to Toronto 01 Vancouver without any prospect of employment and without a residential home to move into.

You are really asking these people to gi ve up their citiz enship or to move from a count ry, to apply for a Canadian citize nship, to sell all of th eir holdi ngs, to move the ir childr en here out of school, with no land holdi ngs here to move in to, which, of cou rse, this is what the Act, Bill 56, provides for. Many of the parties moving here and occupying their land have been a real sti mulus to the local communities in that they are replaci ng older retir ing people or occupying farms which were not previo usly viable operations. They have young childr en in schools, they take an active

part in community affairs, and most im portant they are buying a great deal of mach in ery, equipment, construc ting new homes and farm buildi ngs, and in general have been extremely good for the communities, e.g. Fellmack Holdi ngs Ltd ., who as I mentioned before, own appro xima tely 5,000 acres have purchased $1 mil lio n worth of eq ui pment in the Town of Dauphin. They have also buil t a 10 0,000 bushel elevator on the farm and numerous mach ine sheds and buildin gs. They have spent $200,000 in cleaning the land and in the process have burned down approxi mately 50 buildi ngs that were really uninh abitable.

This is not an isola ted case as I could repeat this story over and over again and I suggest it would be worth wh il e to check with resid ents of these local communitie s where these people reside, to better understand the substantial contribution that they are now maki ng. 44

Agriculture Thursday, June 9, 1977 Obviously some of the younger Manitobans are co mplai nin g about the pric e of land, which has m substant ially sinc e 19 72. But I submi t tha t this is not due to foreign purcha ses, but solely the ult of an infla ti onary tr end on just about everything dur ing th e past fiv e years. The re have been tr ictions in Saskatchewan for some years now, but farm land around Regi na has climb ed at th e ne rate as farm land around Winnip eg alt hough th ere have been no sales to forei gners in the gin a area.

Farm land in North Dakota and Minn esota is appr oxi mately $1 ,200 per acre and in Iowa d Wisconsin it is $2,000 per acre. The pric e of homes in the Wi nnipeg area, seen from my own personal records in my office, has >led sinc e 1970. A $20,000 home would now cost $60,000 or more. The land prices in sid e the rimeter have qua dr upled in recent years, and I th erefore grant tha t farm land has gone up, but a in I would repeat tha t it is not because of th e influence of Eu ropean purchasers and I contend tha t -m land will not come down in price even when the purchases have ceased.

On the economic side it has been extremely profitable for the young Canadian farmer to rent the operty rat her than purcha se it for the fol lowing reason: Good farm land in southern Manitoba sells for appr oximately $400 to $500 per acre on the erage. For a Canadian farmer to buy thi s property he would have to pay a minimum, and I say 10 but 1as gone down to about 8-1/2 percent interest thr ough the Farm Credi t Corpora tion , which would rst him appr oxi mately $50.00 per acre interest annually.

In add ition he would ha ve to pay from $3.00 $5.00 on ta xes makin g a total cost, without repayment of any princip al, of $53.00 to $55.00 per acre. 1ese farmers are now renting th e property from Europeans at anywhere from $1 8.00 to $22.00 per :re. The farmer who is renting is saving at least $30.00 per acre on costs alone whic h is goin g into his >cket and the Europeans have been happ y to net between 1- 1/2 to 2 percent on the ir investments, though some are netting approxi mately 5 percent where the purchases took place in 19 73 and 174.

Ove r the past thr ee years I personally, on behalf of my cli ents, have paid various municip alities ns of thous ands of dollar s - I could add hundreds of th ousands of dolla rs - in order to provide ie quate dr ai nage and culv erts, whic h are something tha t was a major problem covering vast areas • prime farm land in the Red River Valley.

I strongly suggest th at the Provincial Government look to this problem, as I am now convi nced tha t crop yields could be incr eased substant iall y thr ough ·oper draina ge and in add ition, floo ding, which is continu ally a problem, could be reduced whic h ould elimi nate th e necessity of the Manitoba Crop Insurance Board paying out huge losses where it )Uid , with some planning and expense , be elimi nated permanently.

Some dir ect criticism of the present Bill 56, in ad di tion to what I have already said, would be as >llows: (1) lt is very unfai r to expect anyone to come to Mani toba and purchase a qu arter

section of land rith any expectati ons tha t they could move here in the futur e with that small a holdi ng, as it is conomically an unfeasible situa ti on.

(2) The Act puts some valuation on timb er and grazing land, which would be valued at $75.00 per ere, the same as on farm land, and in fact ther e is no dis ti nction between the di ff erent kinds of farm md, and th erefore any restric ti ons should be based on assessment at the ti me of purc hase and not n acreage as is now th e case in Saskatchewan, which is on assessment.

(3) The re are several Manitoba Corporati ons who own farm land for th e purpose of operatin g iable ind ustr ial operati ons in Wi nnipeg such as catt le, chi cken or hog operations, etc., etc., but ertainly more than 40 percent of th eir in come comes from manufacturing, processing or retail sales 1th er than far ming.

(4) There are many farmers worki ng at other occupa ti ons dur ing the wi nter months and between he periods of seeding and ha rvesting whose in come is primarily derived from occupations other han farm ing. Many olde r farmers are unable to sell th eir property because of the very high capital gains tax and he gif t tax restr ictions in Mani toba. These older people wish to tr ansfer the property to the ir child ren tt a sum which in th eir estim ati on is ad equate for th eir retirement purposes, but they do not wish to :harge the m th e cu rrent market va lue of the land.

By doing thi s they are exposing themselves to ;ub stant ial gi ft tax and capital gain s tax and any funds th ey would receiv e from the ir child ren would >e consumed in both of th ese taxes.

And I do n't know whether you gentleman realize tha t the Federal Government ta xing autho rity �omes - if you val ue land and tr ansfer it to a son, where the father tr ansfers to the son for $200 an :tcre, the tax people come and say, "No, this land is worth $500 an acre," and charges the fathe r a �apital gains tax on the basis of $500 an acre, and ch arges th e father a gi ft tax on the $300 that he jid n't char ge his son. lt is just an imp ossible situation to place the land in the hands of th eir chi ldren, and th eir only alte rnativ e is to gi ve th eir childr en long-term leases.

With this new proposed Act, and with the gi ft and capital gains tax, the farmers are being put in a box where they do not know which way to tur n, as many of them own far in excess of one

section of land. I bring th e above to your atte ntion as I am constantly running into this problem as a Manitoba 45

Agriculture Thursday, June 9, 1977 lawyer and a lot of other lawyers in th e province are in the same posit ion. I WOL!Id submi t at moment th at it is one of the most perplexing prob lems whic h I am facing in tryi ng to advise retir ing farmer in this province. I would also state tha t the situation is one of a very serious natu re: should be gi ven the utmost concern and priority. I act for farming operations which are limi ted companies and where one shareholder is runn the farm, but is a mi nority shareholder.

I also act for li mited companies where the farm is be managed by non-shareholder s on behalf of the shareholders. There are many fa mily corpo rat ic where the father owns the majority of shar es, and the sons who are act ively farm ing th e land o have a mi nority inte rest because of th e gi ft tax and capital gain s tax problem. Does tha t meant they can't now expand th eir farms because the father is not farmi ng? The present Act does not co these situa ti ons.

As act ive as I have been in thi s fiel d, I am not agai nst some lim itations or rules and regulatic governing th e sale of farm lands in Manitoba, but wo uld not want to see

an Act passed tha t wi ll caL great conf usion, uncertainty and numerous legal and ad min istra ti ve problems.

Would it not be mu simpl er on all land purchases in Manitoba, whether city or country, excepting certain categories buildin gs, to add on at the time of purchase say a 20 percenttax to be paid at the time of purchase a repaid to the owner should the land remain in his or his company's name for say a certain period time - say 5 years. · I believe a tax penalty, whether it be on vacant city property or on farm land, would certai nly cu speculation, which I think is the intent , but I do not think tha t people who own property for a lo1 period of time should be put in the same category sinc e the cost price and the sellin g price 011 several years have no relationship whatsoever because of the very high inflation in recent time I should point out th at all monies col lected for rents from Eu ropean owners at the present time a kept in Canada and prim ari ly in Manitoba, and in fact , th ere are large sums of money coming in fro Eur ope into these accou nts in addition to th e land rentals and th erefore, contrary to opinion tha t l'1 heard here, none of th ese moneys tha t are co llected are leaving the province and cert ainly are n' leaving Canada.

In clo sin g , I believe th at the bill, as now dr afted, will cause numerous problems of adminis tra tic and unnecessary legal involvement by the province and certainly a great deal of hardship on vendo1 wishing to sell, and on new im migrants to thi s country wish ing to buy. I wo uld ther efore urge th Committee to give this parti cular legislation much more careful considera ti on in the dr afting of th Act , and it not be passed until this caref ul consider at ion is gi ven, as I certainly would n't want to see passed in its present form. MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much Mr. Nemy. Are th ere any questions?

Mr. Uskiw. Before w start th e question period I would advise Committee members to pull the mi kes close to them as th equipm ent here, the microphones are not as powerful as in Room 254. In order to get a goo' transcription speak loud and into the mik e please. The Honourable Min ister. MR. USKIW: Mr. Chai rman, I wo uld lik e to deal with a couple of points on page 3. lt seems to m' tha t before anyone can migrate to Canada one has to go thr ough the legal processes of the Department of Immigr at ion , and having done tha t then of course th is legislation does not restrict tha kind of an in di vidual .

Yet you make reference to it here to the extent tha t you feel they are restric ted You refer to im migrants, landed im migrant stat us, th at are bei ng affected by thi s legislation, whict they are not. MR. NEMY: I think the Act provides tha t they be a Canadian resident. MR. USKIW: Or a landed immi grant, whic h is the same thing isn't it? MR. NEMY: No it isn't. You can have ·landed im migrant stat us and still be living in Eur ope, and carrying a Canadian passport, Mr. Min ister, and st ill be li ving in Eu rope. MR.

USKIW: Yes, a Canadian is also restricted if he doesn't li ve in Canada applie s equally to both. MR. NEMY: Well, a Canadian would be living overseas because of job. His domicile would st ill be consider ed Canada just like a serviceman who is servi ng in Egypt. His domicile is consid ered wherever he cho oses in Canada. So I don't think the two are appl icable. MR. USKIW: The point I'm making is, if th e intent is to migrate then the bill does not restrict a landed immigr ant provi ding they are taking up residence and are operating those lands as farms.

So, I'm trying to pin point from your point of view wherein lies the problem. Why is it imp ossible to migrate fir st and buy after the point of arriv al? MR. NEMY: Because I don't think anybody is going to give up their Eur opean holding s and sell the i r home and sell th eir farm and move to Canada with the expectat ion of not knowing where he's taking his fam il y. MR. USKIW: No, but I raise the qu estion on immigr at ion, sir .

How can the y assume tha t they can come into Canada, buy a block of land, how can the y assume th at th ey would have appr oval by the Depart ment of Immigr at ion for the purposes of migrat ing. They could be locked out too. MR. NEMY: They seem to have, Mr. Min ister, no problem if the y are coming over here to farm Canadian farm lands. lt seems tha t this is one of th e categorie s tha t is wide open for Eur opeans as 46

Agriculture Thursday, June 9, 1977 ga s they can show that they have enough funds to carry on a viabl e farm ing operation and this has t been a problem at all with Canadian imm igr ati on, eith er at the Embassies overseas which I have 3n to, with these people or with Canad ian immigr ation in this country. MR. USKIW: Are you ind icating , sir, that they are getting some pre-c learance through the partment of Immigr ation when they make these inv estments? MR. NEMY: Well, I migh t say that they have talk ed to the m then they go back and they then make !ir officia l applica tion.

If they decided to liv e here and they bought land they the n go back and start 1ucing the ir assets over the ir , applying for Canadian imm igr ation and it takes usually two or thr ee ars to really get the fami ly over here. MR. USKIW: As a legal person, wouldn't you think that's rathe r a risky proposition, to invest )ney in another land in the hopes of moving to that investment and running the risk that you would 1t get a landed immigr ant status ever? MR. NEMY: lt's a far bigger risk to sell everything over there and move here wi thout any land or 1ywhere to bring his family to. MR.

USKIW: But, sir, I th ink we're going in a ci rcle here . They are buying the land first before they spose of th eir own holdings, so presumably they must have capital wi th whic h to buy th e land in anitoba, so they're not risking anyth ing except that capital . MR. NEMY: Or a loan based on the sale of th eir farm overseas, you know, I'm aware of many stances in which this has happened. MR. USKIW: They use th eir credi t in other words, in the interim peri od? MR. NEMY: That's correct, Mr. Min ister. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Enns. MR. ENNS: Mr.

Nemy, I'd like to advanta ge ofyour appearanc e beforethe Committee as a person, >a lawyer who has some backgr ound in deal ing with the tra nsfer of lands. We've heard a great deal 1 this past few hours about the problems of land from the point that potatoes should be grown on my rave, to the fact that the whole Jewish problem is that they bought land in Israel and that's caused 1at problem. And my question to you is, as a lawyer, the one who has been in the busi ness of dvising cli ents, from the day that we pass this Act, how wi 11 you advise clie nts to ci rcumvent the Act? MR.

NEMY: At the moment that may be a lot of trade secrets ... what we know and what we migh t o. I migh t say that the people I am acting for .... MR. ENNS: I'm sorry, the purpose is not to put you on the spot, but I think you just raised some of 1e questions of what is the status of landed immigr ants and what isn't. These are some of the nplic ations that I know wi ll take place und er the legi slation that we're passing. MR. NEMY: Many of the Eu ropeans are land ed Canadian immigr ants in the eyes of Canadian 11migr ation, sti ll still residing in Eu rope using Canadian passports.

They mi ght be here in the next ·ear and they migh t be here in the next thr ee or fou r years, but there is really no urgency as far as the >apartment of Immi gration is conc erned that they get here with in a certa in ti me. They are a landed �anad ian immig rants and as such could be subject to Canadian tax, de pending on where the ir noney is being earned, rathe r than European tax. MR. ENNS: One further question, Mr.

Nemy, has to do with the defi nition or the appr oach that the egisla tion takes towards a farm corporation as di stinct from the other business corporations . lt's mly been really in the last 15 or 20 years that farmers have for reasons of th eir own found it from time o tim e expedient to in corpo rate, and the corpor ation, as such is not a fixed thing. The nature ofthat �orporation can change even though the in itial in corpora tion involved maybe say two brothers or ihree brothers or something lik e th at. And yet this act doesn't di sti ngui sh, it kind of tars everybody by the same brush.

A two brother dair y farm ing corpor ati on in my constit uency in Rosser Exxon all of a sudd en becomes the same as or Texaco or a multi-national corpo rati on. The fear tha t I have is that that di stinction is not being made in the Act. MR.

NEMY: This is correct in that most people who in corpor ate, in corpor ate usually because of the abil ity to retain some of the earnings with in a corporation and lower th eir tax rate, which everyone has the right to do; and secondly, in order to make it easier to hold a property if there are say a fathe r and ch il dr en , it makes it a much easier situation for gi ft ing, it makes it a much sim pler sit uation for estate purposes .

And whe n we in corpor ate forei gn ownership, we are doing it for exactly the same reasons as any Canadian farmer would be in cor porating his land in the name of a corporation for the same economic reasons and to dis ting ui sh as between an in d ividual and a corporation, and a farm corporation seems to me to be a ludi crous sit uation, that you spell out that on one hand there's going to be a $1 ,000 fine and if it's a farm corporation there's going to be a $50,000 fin e, yet it could be an ind ividual, it could be one man owning a corporation whic h you are allowed to do now in Man itoba , and having a $50,000 fine against him and if he had left it in hi s own name, wh ich he would foolish taxw ise, he would be fined a $1, 000 under the Act.

MR. ENNS: Mr. Ne my the point that I'm trying to make is that you do see a kind of unfa ir emphasis or di scri min ation being placed in the definition of the word corporation as it appli es to farm corporations as you by experience know the m because you have undoubt edly been party to, in fact 47

Agriculture Thursday, June 9, 1977 have helped in co rporate many indi vid ual or two or th ree in d ividual farm groups in to incorpor a I\IIR. NEMY: Very much so and also in addition you have family farms who have inco rpo1 where as I mentioned in my brie f that the father can't div est hi mself of his interests because of th laws, cert ainly in this province, and he is in a situation where the sons, because of being a corpon and owned by the fath er who is li ving in the city and owns the majority of shares, they are prevented under this Act from buying any further land into the name of the Corporat ion. MR.

ENNS: Well, one fi nal question, which I really don't expect Mr. Nemy to answer, but I w suspect, sir, that you as a lawyer in volved among other legal practices, in a certa in amount of· experiences, you could entertain and hope to make considerably more money if we passed this MR. NEMY: I would say tha t everybody in every type of occupation have some sort of ve int erest.

I listened with some amusement that the people who spoke all dur ing the day oth erthar Farm Bureau, which I thou ght their br ief was excellent, but it's really pitiful to hear some of the br that were presented today and to hear whatthey had to say, dating back to a hundr ed years ago, a wonder how many people in this room who are forty and over whose fathers didn' t come from Eur and settle on farms. Very few I would think under the same type of condit ions only the thing was thin gs were a li ttle di fferent then , we were pulling plows with horses which were eating up most o1 crop to pull the plow. MR.

ENNS: You didn' t answer my question. MR. NEMY: I'd say that certainly I have an int erest. I have an interest in this Act because i1 portion of my legal practice. I have an int erest in the Family Law Act that's going thr ough too, a\ great int erest in that Act and I'm di sappoi nted a lot more people don 't have a great int erest in that 1 MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Pat rick. MR. PATRICK: Mr. Chai rman, I have a question for Mr. Nemy.

Of all the people that you acted or had tran sact ions with, the Eu ropean buyers, can you ind icate to the Committee how many farm ing and in your opin ion how many wi ll definitely be coming to Canada or Manit oba and wil l far ming. Can you gi ve us say percentages, in your opinion, wi ll most of them be coming or are so of them strictly in vestors or lookin g for a place to put money in a safe place. MR. NEMY: I wo uld say tha t all of the farm people who have purchased property, Eur opE farmers who purchased property in this pro vi nee , wi 11 either be here themselves or their eh ild ren 1 be here.

I wo uld venture to say that it is in the area of 75 percent of all purchasers are Europe farmers. The other 25 percent are busi ness men, some indus trial ists. Some very very la1 ind ustri alis ts. In fact some of the largest ind ustrial ists in Eur ope own land in this province and h� been looking over this provi nce for in vestment purposes for estab li shin g plants here.

I might say in honesty that I've had them before the Min ister of Agric ulture and before the Min ister of Ind ustry a Commerce and that after some meetings they establ ih establis hed their plants in Qu ebec a Ontario, which was cert ainly to my disappointment. MR. PATRICK: Mr . Chai rman, I have another qu estion to Mr. Nemy.

Have you acted for a professional people from Europe because from my own experience I know ther e have been somett were looking to invest thei r money in Manitoba, that you acted for who strictly came here to b property to inv est their money, not really to have their fam ily or themselves farm. Would ther e bE small percentage of those or . . . MR. NEMY: No I have not acted for any professional people per se. They are professional in tl sense that they are gradu ate chem ists, Doctors of Chemis try, Doctors of Agricu lture, Doctors Ind ustry.

They have a lot more doctor ship s over there than we have, so when you read their titll you'll see that a lot of them are Doctors of Ind ustry. But professi onally, as far as dentis ts or doctor s' lawyers, I mi ght know one indi vid ual that is a Doctor of Dentis try that bought land in thi s provinc MR. PATRICK: Mr .

Nemy you did nQt raise it in your br ief but most of the other people th appeared before the Committee so far have raised it and ther e ha s been very strong opinion that tt legislation shoul d not apply to any Canadian citizen; that the Canadian citizen should have any lim at all to buy any number of acres and so far many of the people who have appeared before ttr Commit tee said so.

Can you gi ve usyouro pin ion . ln your opini on would you feel a person from PIUI Coulee or Chic ago or New York or somewhere in Eu rope should have the same right to buythe sam amount of land as anyone li ving say here, as li ving in Eur ope or anywhere else, or do you think ther should be dif ferent legislation pertaining to Canadian citizens? MR. NEMY: I th ink that any Canadian citizen should absolutely be able to buy any land in thi province that he wishes.

If you are going to cut off Eu ropeans and the Canadian who is not farm ing you could create a situation in this province where the land prices say stay at $300 or $400 an acr e and thr oughout even other parts of Canada and certainly in Eur ope and the United States, where lane pri ces have just skyrocketed, land prices could be going up tremendously.

I wo uld think that ther what wo uld happen is that the American and the European wi ll sell out and come in here with jus· suitcases full of money as a Canadian farmer, as a landed resident im migrant, and buy up thousands of cheap acr es in thi s province, if you don't let the market look after itself. 48

MR. PATRICK : Thank you. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Einarson. Agriculture Thursday, June 9, 1977 MR. EINARSON: Mr . Chairman, I would lik e to embark with Mr . Nemy ... some of this has been 1ered, but I was interested in your comments in regard to this Bill pertaining to the penalties as it tains to an ind iv idual and a corpora tion.

I was wondering what your views - I mean you did give ne explanation of that, but where a farmer who chooses to operate as an ind ividual farmer or a nily farm, and then maybe tomorrow - and I pose it to you as I did this afte rnoon, to a farmer who cides he wants to form a corporati on, do you feel that the clauses that we have in this Bill are 1tified in sofar as the penalties are concerned, where it concerns a farmer on a ind ividua l basis, and f he decides tomo rrow to become a c.orpora tion? MR.

NEMY: I say you would have to be very careful in who you are going to in corpor ate, and you >uld have to make sure that the incorpo rators of the company, because you can't have sort of a tterfront type of a situati on, you would have to be very careful that the shareholder s who own this rporation are actively engaged in farm ing to the lease of 60 percent of the shareholdi ngs. This ,uld cause tremendous fa mily problems as I mentioned .

You know, there are all kinds of problems th this legislation and I don't whether other lawyers behind me, who aren't maybe even as actively volved in the forei gn ownership, but I am sure tha t they will have to agree with me, th at 1 th ink that e Act is very poorly dr afted . MR. EINARSON: Well, then, Mr. Chai rman, thr ough you to Mr. Ne my, is it not a fact that legislati on ts been changed recently that one person can be a company? MR. NEMY: This is correct. MR.

EINARSON: So ther efore, my point is this then , if a farmer is operating as an in dividual non >rporation the fa mily farm , and sudd enly decides, for various reasons, that he wants to form a >rporation on an in dividual basis, I am wonderi ng, tha t's why I am asking you the question in regard 1 the legislation that we have before us as it effects the indi vidual and the corporation in that �spect? MR. NEMY: Well he could sti ll inco rporate.

This Act would not prevent him from in cor porati ng as 1ng as he is actively engaged in farm ing and as long as 60 percent of the shareholders of that new orporation are actively engaged in farm ing that farm. But if it isn't tha t way, of course, in stead of aving a mi nor penalty im posed on them at the di scretion oft he Minister of say $1 ,000, they could be xposed up to $50,000 penalty, because they happen to be a family corporation rather than an tdividua l operating and owning this farm . MR. EINARSON: Mr. Chairman, then as a layman could I ask Mr.

Ne my if this is not discr im in atory 1sofar as the penalty is concerned under the basis in which I have posed the question to you? MR. NEMY: I don't whether it's - to me it is just poor legislation. When you are preventing people rom taking advantage of the Canadian tax laws, you are preventi ng people from taki ng advantage of 111 kinds of in heritance laws and passing gifts - it is very di fficult to gift 20 acres to yours on, but it is ery easy to gi ve him 10 0 shar es of a corpor at ion, so that he owns a portion of that farm . This is what his legislation is really preventi ng. MR. EINARSON: Mr.

Chairman, I ask Mr. Ne my, and I found your brie f very interesti ng- because >f the fact of your position as a lawyer in havi ng dealt with so many transactions of people from other ands coming to Canada to purchase farm land, to your knowledge have you had any agreements or ;ales of agreements that have been drawn up between Eu ropean people and Manitobans, that have 10t been adhe red to or there has been any problems ins ofar as the Manitoban getti ng his money for 1is land? MR. NEMY: Not one single agreement in four years has the farmer ever not received his full consi deration in a contract.

There has been one case wher e a farmer changed his mind even after the agreement was sig ned· and we didn' t press the situa ti on. MR. EINARSON: Mr. Chair man, in other words then Mr. Ne my, what you are sayi ng is you allowed the farmer to change his mind, you didn' t hold hi m to the agreement. Is that what you are saying? MR.

NEMY: I found tha t the attitude of the Eu ropean purchas er , and this is the truth, is that where a farmer had discussions with them and where he can't decide whether to sell his land to a forei gn purchaser farmer or tur n it over to his chil dren and pay the tax, the penalty, I have fo und on several occas ions, and the agents wi ll bear me out, that the European, not us, wi ll say, "We don't want the farm. We don't want the farm. We think it should go to the chi ldr en. " That is ali i can say about that. MR. EINARSON: Thank you, Mr. Nemy. MR. CHAIRMAN: The Honourable Mr. Uskiw. MR. USKIW: Mr.

Chai rman, on Page 2 you have th ree enumerated statements, and it seems to me ther e is a contradiction between (1) and (3) . MR. NEMY: What page Mr. Mi nister? MR. USKIW: Page 2 of your submission you say, "in each and every case are ind iv idual fami lies or brothers and sisters of a fami ly." And then on Item (3) you say, "Some of the owners of land in Manitoba have personally owned large ind ustrial complexes. " 49

Agriculture Thursday, June 9, 1977 MR. NEMY: Yes, but they are sti ll ind ividuals. There are men who own large ind ustrial compl1 in Eu rope by the mselves or with their ch ildr en and they have indi vid ually come over here purchased farm land . They are not large corpora tions. They are not large syndi cates of people are speculating on land. I would venture to say that if anyone in this room tried to buy the land t for $800 an acre, you will not be successfu l. MR. USKIW: My next point is on page 3.

I find it diff icu lt to believe your underli ned stateme1 Item (4), page 3, where you indi cate that these people, or some of them, are already landed Cana< immi grants and are carryi ng Canadian passports although they sti ll reside in Europe. understand ing of the law is that you can't get a passport until you have had th ree years of residenc Canada. How could these people who have not taken up residence in deed get a passport from Canadian government? MR. NEMY: I don't know where you have your information from, but they have ... MR. USKIW: Perhaps I am wrong and you might clarify for me. MR.

NEMY: They are carr ying Canadian papers, Canadian vi sas, tha t is the way they co through Customs with Canadian visas. MR. USKIW: Isn't it the law of the country, doesn't it require that one have th ree years of resid status before you can even apply for citize nship and until you are a citizen you cannot get a pass pc MR. NEMY: Yes, that should be, they are carryi ng Canadian visas, not Canadian passports MR. USKIW: There is a substantial di ffe rence ther e, is ther e? That should be visas? MR. NEMY: Vis as. MR. USKIW: The rules applyin g to visas are dif ferent then, are they, from those applying passports?

MR. NEMY: Yes. Yes. MR. USKIW: I see, okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. MR. CHAIRM AN: Mr . Joh nston, Portage la Prairie. MR. G. JOHNSTON: When you act for foreign buyers- and you have special ized in thi s area 1 some time, is that not right? MR. NEMY: I have become very knowledgeable in the area. MR. G. JOHNSTON: When you co nclude a deal, do you find that the experience that you have hi is that you have paid over the going market price to conclude the deal? MR. NEMY: We have been tryi ng to do just the opposite. MR. G. JOHNSTON: Well, can you perhaps elaborate on that answer.

Have you out-bid others c some of the occasions? MR. NEMY: I can't ever tr uly recall us ever bid dl ng against a Canadian farmer, not that 111 wouldn 't, but I can't ever recall the situation ever happen ing where we were up against sorr Canadian who wished to purchase this property. I heard this mentioned this afternoon from certa1 areas of the province. I am sure I've done a good majorityof the.sale s in thi s provinc e, I have neverru into it. MR. G. JOHNSTON: Another question relating to one of your state ments.

You said, and I thoug l wi th some pri de, that some large German ind ustrial is ts had purchased land in Manit oba, and some c them who had been here decided later on to est ablis h a busi ness in Queb ec or Ontario. Now thes ind ustrial ists that you may have acted for, what was thei r reason for purchasing land in Manit oba MR. NEMY: Well, one of the major reasons that they are purchasing land in Manitoba is that som of the largest ind ustrialists wish to move to Canada. Several have already moved to Canada. There i an electronics factory going up in Hull.

They own land in Manit oba and they were going to build here but because of problems that arose in the construction of the plant here they went on. There i1 another plant going up in Ontario, a big magnesium factory. This person has spoken to the Min iste of Agricultur e about a year and a half ago and to the Min ister of Commerce and they had severa letters from the Ambassador to Italy. They were very well known people. But they finally establ ishec somewhere else. MR. G. JOHNSTON: Well, thr ough you Mr. Chair man to Mr. Nemy, I am getting a littl e bi1 confused here.

I thought that the large ind ustrial ists that you had acted for had purchased farm land and now you are ta lking about ind ustrial sites. Is it an allied indus try where they need farm land? MR. NEMY: Well, for instan ce, there is an Italian fa mily that owns land in Man itoba and have a very large ind ustrial complex in Italy and, in add ition , have a very large farm where ther e are 2,000 mi lking cows on this farm with a round tu rntable that mi lks eigh t or twelve cows at one time. I've been on the farm and have seen the whole operati on. MR. G. JOHNSTON: In Italy? MR. NEMY: In Italy.

Th is is the type of thing that they were wanting to estab li sh here. MR. G. JOHNSTON: Mr. Chairman, on Page 8, the last paragraph on Page 8, and I quote fro the brief, and this is your words: "As active as I have been in th is field, I am not agai nst some lim itations or rules and regulations governing the sale of farm lands in Manit oba but would not want to see

an Act passed that wi ll cause great conf usion. " .::n

Agriculture Thursday, June 9, 1977 Later on you mentioned that you wouldn't mind seeing a 20 percent tax. I'm sure you're aware that ntario has a 15 percent tax on foreigner's buyi ng farm and recreational land there, and it has been in peration for two or three years now. lt has al ready been fo und that Ontario residents have been ,rming corporations and acti ng as fronts for people from other countries and avoiding this tax. nder our present laws, cou ld that not happen here? MR. NEMV: Yes, I guess it could. I don't know whether I personally would want to get involv ed in 1at type of situati on.

I think you are putting yourself in a very precarious position. But what I am �ally saying to thi s committee is that the people who are buying land in Manit oba are coming here. ,o, fine, make them post a bond. Make them pay 20 percent more for their land and have the 'rovi ncial Government hold it in a trust account. You know, do something. I know they are coming ere but they cannot pick up and move here without some preparation and this is what you are asking C�em to do. You are asking them to move here without any preparation and then make their westment.

Well, no right -thinking person, whether he is a farmer or anybody else and whether you ,re moving from here to Re gi na, is going to act that way unless you are a transient. MR. G. JOHNSTON: Mr. Chairman, to Mr. Nemy, I find that answer fai rly reasonable and I cannot 1u arrel with it. One last qu estion, on the last page of your brie f you make the point that all moneys :ollected for rents are kept in Canada, and pri marily in Manitoba. I suppose one could say that this ;hows good faith on the part of the people , they in tend to come here and use the money at a later late.

But I understand that in some countries, such as Italy, there are strict laws for ta king money out )f the country, and ... MR. NEMV: This is correct. MR. G. JOHNSTON: ... the refore your point doesn't necessarily mean that those prospective :i tizens are acting in all that good faith. I don't say they've got "hot" money here but they cert ainly :ion't want a retur n on their investment to show; is tha t correct? MR. NEMV: The first thing that happens with this money is they have to pay 25 percent tax (i ncome tax) on all moneys collected on rent, regard less of what the expenditur es are.

In other words, before expenses 25 percent of the gross rent of an in dividual European holder is paid in taxes to the province and to the federal coffers and the last thing the European wants to do, whether it's from a co untry where you can freely get money out of - the majority of purchasers probably come from Germany, and ther e is no problem getting money out of Germany - the last thing they want to do is take the money back to Europe. And I know of nobody that is doing this. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Joh nston, any more questions? MR. G. JOHNSTON: Well, Mr . Chairman, another qu estion to Mr. Nemy.

Obviously your interests lie and your client's int erests lie in keeping our present laws the way they are. Do you th ink that legi slators, whether Federal or Provi ncial, should not have a duty when they foresee a problem of unrestricted for eign ownership, that they should not do somethin g about it? · MR. NEMV: Mr.

Johns ton, I'll tell you that there is no problem because foreign purcha sers, way before this Act was dr afted, last fall when the price of grai n went down and the land kept going up, they stopped purcha sing here and so there may be only one-e ighth of the sales in Manitob a in Jan uary, February and March of this year, as there were in Janua ry, February and March of last year. What has happened is tha t everybody is still living with that $5.00 wheat wh ich is now down to $3 .10 , I think, it's fallen 50 cents in the last th ree months .

So what happened is farm land went up and everybody was excited and the people who wanted to get out, the reti ring farmer who, in trying to get out and have enough money to retire on he sold and the Eu ropeans who wanted to get out of Europe, he was starting to buy. But this is all finis hed. The price of land now is prohibiting the Eu ropean from coming in here and this Act won't make one io ta of change because if he wants to come in here and buy, he st ill wi ll. But the price of grain and the cost of farm land has stopped hi m. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Joh nston. MR. JOHNSTON: That's all. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr.

Ferguson. MR. FERGUSON: Yes, Mr. Nemy, 1 have only one question. Dur ing your transa ctions, have you fou nd that any or a portion of this land has been bought on the speculative basis? What I'm saying is, has it been resold within a period of one year, eight een months, or someth ing. MR. NEMV: Not one acre. MR. FERGUSON: Okay. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Henderson. MR. HENDERSON: Yes. I wo uld lik e to ask Mr. Nemy about on Page 5, 10 (1 ), there's a clause in there about if you're not satisfied with the decision of the Min ister, where you can take it to a judge and it says the decision of the judge is final.

Now you with your legal backgr ound and experience, would you think tha t tha t's right or do you think that there should be the ri ght to take this to a Supreme Court? MR. NEMV: I think that any legisla tion should have the general course ofthe provis ions of the law , 1 think that if you are unhappy with cert ain legislation, you should be able to use the full process of the 51

Agriculture Thursday, June 9, 1977 law and I th ink that the Min ister is putting hi mself in a position of real cri ticism, to put himself in position where he makes a decision. Because whatever par ty is in the House, regardless of wha1 party happens to be the party in power, regardless of who it is, they are going to say, wh ateve decision is , he's either against or it's tavoritism because of his political leanings, whether tha t's or not. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Henderson. MR. HENDERSON: Yes. Do you know of any other cases that come before just a judge am decision is fi nal.

Is there any other procedu res li ke thi s in Manit oba or have they all the right t1 before the Supreme Court it they so choose? MR. NEMY: Well, I've run into some bad situations with the Marketing Boards. MR. HENDERSON: Can they not go before the Supreme Court it they want? MR. NEMY: Well, yes, you could take it in to court. There is no such thing as it stops, you know, judge with no app eal and I gather that there is no appeal from the decision of a judge - wh atE court that mi ght be. MR. HENDERSON: In this case? MR. NEMY: In this particula r case.

At least with the Marketing Board you can take it and go to due process of law, you know, if you're unhappy with the decision. MR. HENDERSON: Are you familiar wi th Saskatchewan's regulations? And you sold lane Saskatc hewan, are you fami liar with them? MR. NEMY: No, only to the extent of the $15,000 assessment which I would say that assessment is cert ainly a much more realistic way of approaching evaluation. MR.

HENDERSON: Do you know, is it not in Saskatchewan's regulati ons that if land is bough Saskatchewan and it the person doesn't come in within thr ee years, he has to resell it or disp ose a that he's given a th ree year option with in which to come in or to dispose of the land. ls that not righ have you ever heard that? MR. NEMY: I think tha t's correct in that people who own in excess of this amount of farmla r 15,000 assessment, I th ink they have until 19 92 to di spose of their property but I can't be sure MR.

HENDERSON: Well then do you th ink it would not be a good clause to have in legislati on if were to prepare it, and maybe with the posting of this 20 percent bond , so if he didn't come in, would forfeit this, that that way it would leave it tr ee tor him to buy the land and have a number years to come in and if he di dn' t come in, he'd forfeit this 20 percent you're talking about? MR. NEMY: Well, my deali ngs have been with mostly people who definitely intend to move he and the people that I deal with would certa inly want to see this type of legislation and would ha nothing against it.

They would have nothing against spend ing the extra 20 percent knowi ng in t back of their minds that they are definitely going to move here and if they are not, they wouldn't bL MR.

HENDERSON: Well I think everybody around this table is, and I hope everybody around tt table is in agreement with the tact that a man could come over here as long as he was going to farrr and I th ink this is a sensible idea to give him a certa in length of timet o come with this penalty clause th ink this is what people are worried about is non-r esident owners who do not intend to becon resident ; this would be a good penalty clause tor them, the way I look at it. MR. HENDERSON: I'm against that too.

I'm against somebody sit ting in Eur ope for the next� years and owning farmland in this country just as much as anybody who dr afted thi s Bill. MR. HENDERSON: That's all, thanks. MR. CHAIRMAN: I have no one else who wishes to ask questions. I thank you, Mr. Nemy, for y01 presentation. MR. NEMY: I wish to thank this commit tee tor giv ing me the opportu nity. MR. CHAIRMAN: If I. may have the attenti on of the committee. I sti ll have one presentation fror Carman and I wi ll seek your guidance as to whether we should allow this person from Carman, wh has to travel quite a di stance , to go back home - Mr.

Klassen. Is it the wish of the committee that w hear ... it's been the usual practice that we listen. Then I wo uld call Mr . Paul Klassen to corn forward please. MR. KLASSEN: Th ank you, Mr. Chairman. As you see, I have not brought my notes with me Usually when I have them with me it's quite a bit lengthier than when I haven't got them with me I would lik e to speak to you gentlemen tor a few min utes and express some of my concerns. ! am 1 real estate salesman, working for a real estate company. I have been inv olved in selling farms fo th ree and a half years.

The first farm we sold was my father's farm and really what I want to try to do il put a human face on these Eu ropean buyers that are coming here, whom I deal with everyday. I car see the concern that we have of people who th ink that money that comes from Eur ope - I've hearc this expressed many ti mes - the money you are using here is not clean money and so should n't be allowed here. The fi rst point I'd lik e to make is that the money that used to co me out of Italy has slowed dow n considerably and very little bit trickling thr ough.

I wo uld also like to say tha t I think that a lot of this prejud ice that we have is of an ethnic nature and which I think is deplorable in our society. I th ink that

Agriculture Thursday, June 9, 1977 ople who despise the people of the Jewish, the Negro, and perhaps even the Mennonite faith, are ople who are, to say the least, very bi goted, and also people who have never met people of this faith d di sco ursed with them. And another thing is people say to me often, well, you know, we beat the Germans in the War and 1w you're getting them to come and take over our country . I've spoken to some of these people 10 ut this and hear the same thing over and over - that we were doing what we were told as were .ur people. So I think that we should let this thing die, 30 years ago.

I would lik e also to underline one thing that I would lik e to very strongly suggest and tha t is tha t we ve the people an option to come and buy the farms and if they do not farm them, to tax them or take bond so tha t we can rectify the situa tion . I think that the Saskatchewan laws are very progressive in is regard and I wo uld lik e you gentlemen to seriously consider some of these things . I myself as a tlesman, am not particula rly worried about this law either way. There are very many landed 1migr ants here.

They are buying land , but I think to be fair to them, we should somehow try to reach >me kind of acc ommodation. As far as speculation is concerned, one of my legal people tol d me this week when I offered him 1other chunk of land to some buyers in Europe, he said, well, they phoned back that they didn 't want 1e land and that they actually would li ke to sell theirs, what they had bought , and believe me at lday's market they wi ll not be making any money on this speculation. Thank you, gentlemen. MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Klassen. Are there any qu estions of Mr. Klassen?

Hearing none, want to thank you very much for your presentation, Mr. Klassen, and I would cal l on Mr . J. K. Knox, :PR. I wo uld li ke to ask you, Sir, is thi s a joint presentation? MR. KNOX: Yes. MR. CHAIRMAN: Are there going to be two speakers or just ... MR. KNOX: No, I will present our presentation. This is a joint presentation of the Canadian Pacific iroup and Canadian National Railw ay Company. Mr. Antymiuk is here from Canadian National. MR. CHAIRMAN: That wi ll be fine. Proceed then, Mr. Knox. MR. KNOX: All right.

I am appearing on behalf of the Canadian Pacific Group of companies to tddr ess to you some of our concerns about Bill 56 as that Act is presently drafted. As their concerns tre not di ssi mil ar, the Canadian National Rai lway Company joins with Canadian Pacific in this lresentation and except where I have made specific references to one company or the other, my emarks may be taken as applying to both. Our understand ing of the purpose of this bill is t at its intention is to endeavour to insure that tgricu ltural land in Manitoba, in the main, remain in the hands of farmers living within the province.

Ne at Canadian Pacific and Canadian National th ink tha t the dr afts man of th is legislation may have nadverte ntly encompassed with in this Bill provisions which would curtail or restrict busi ness . mdeav ours within the Provi nce that may occur now or in the futur e that this government or, in deed, my government, would be int erested in seeing developed so as to in crease eloyment and enhance the prosperity of all Manitobans. lt is in this context that I propose to outl ine some of the busi ness activities that we see that could possib ly be inhi bited or restricted by this legislation in its present form.

Canadian Pacific Lim ited has two operating di visions tha t I believe you are all fa mi lia r with : CP Rai l and CP Telecommunications. Canadian Nati onal Ra il way Company is simi larly structur ed . These busi ness enterprises operate under federal autho rity and, of course have the power of expropria tion.

While I doub t that the provinc ial legis lation could, in the end, be said to inhib it the acq ui sition of farm lands by the se busi ness enterprises to carry out their authorized powers of building rai l li nes, railway yards, microwave relay sites and the li ke, it does seem to me that it would be unfortunate if any legislation was passed which co uld possi bly lead to someone read ing this proposed Bi ll in suc h a way as to create a potential conflict between federal and provincial authorit y.

Further, the Federal Railway Act is already in place deal ing with the taking of such land by either CP or CN to not only protect the public int erest, but to also provide the owner of any land so taken with compensation. I think it should also be noted that under

Section 14 of the proposed Bill, Crown agencies, which would in clude Manitoba's telephone and hydr o companies, are exempt from the provi sions of this Bil l. They, too, would li kely acquire arable lands from time to time fo r their fa cil ities. I wou ld assume that it is th e intention of the government to treat all legitima te busi ness enterpri ses which provide a public service, whether they be owned by government or private sector, equally under the law.

I wo uld the refore ask that the telecommunic ation and railway operations of both Canadian Pacific Lim ited and Canada Canadian National Railway Company be in cl uded in those enterprises that are exempt from the provisions of this Bill under

Section 14 . I would also lik e to bring to your att ention the defini tion of land set out in

Section 1 (1 ) (

c) of the Bill. Agai n, I assume that tha t defi nition in advertently in clud es more than farm land to which the Bill is dir ected. For example, it would incl ude sand and gravel pits and timb erland. lt would affect the 53

Agriculture Thursday, June 9, 1977 locating in this province of enterpri ses requir ing such resources. Both CP Rail and Canac National now have, for the purposes of providing ball ast for their rail operations, considen acreage in sand and gravel pits. I don't think that it was the intention of this bill to restrict 11 holdings of any person, save with respect to farm lands intended to be used for farm purpose Now there are other inhib itions on development within our province that can be affected by· defi ni tion of land. This is parti cularly so when the land de finitio n is consider ed in concert v sections 3(2) and 3(3) of this Bill. The purposes of

section 3( 2) and 3( 3), as I understand th em, i: prevent related corpora tions or shareholders from cir cumventing the 16 0 acre limi t on their farm I! holdings. To ill ustrate possible inh ib itions, I confine myself here to activities in which the Canad Pacific Group or Canadian National is engaged in. I am sure that th ere are others. I have already brought to your att ention that both Canadian Pacific and Canadian Natio telecommunic ation and rail di visions are part of the same corpor ate entity.

The effect of t he afores provisions, that is land and tak ing the associated companies together in this Bill, would be that : telecommunic ation di visions of these companies could acq uir e no fur ther land to enable them provide thei r services to the public because the rai l di visions already occupy in excess of 16 0 acr Canadian Pacific Investments Lim ited holds all the shares of Marathon Realty Company Lim itc Canadian Pacific Hotels and several other enterprises.

Because of this, corpor ati ons so controlled Canadian Pacific Investment Lim ited would together be treated as a group under sections 3( 2) a 3( 3) of the proposed bill. As a group according to this proposed legislation, they could r cumulatively hold after April 1, 19 77, anyadditional land with in the purview of the Act in excess of 1 acres. Again, none of these enterpris es are engaged in acquir ing farm land for the purposes farm in g's sake.

Instead if they acquir e such land it is for the purpose of developing ind ustry 1 manufac turing, residential housi ng or hotels, or any number of thi ngs that would provide jobs for t development of our province and last, but perhaps not least in crease the tax base. Marathon Realty is a land development company. lt is not unusual for shopping centres or oth developm ents to occur on the peripher y of cities, towns or vil lages.

Indeed the actual land in whi1 such a development is located may in fact be within ad joining munic ip alitie s and thus at thetime th1 are desir ed be land with in the defini tion of thi s bill . Simil ar development could occur with respect to our hotel in dustr y, particularly motor in ns, sue as the Red Oak Inn at Brandon.

Not infr equently, so as to minimi ze the effect upon residenti locations already in place, enterprises such as rendering or ferti lizer plants are located sligh t outside the city, and again at the tim e such land is desi red , they too would be acq uiring land with the defi nit ion of the bill.

Again, I would not imagine that it is the intention of this government to ho that with in such a group of companies, that because for example, Marathon Realty owned a 16 0 acn of land, another segment of that same company, perhaps the hotels, co uld not build a resort hot, with in the province, or the Canadian Pacific Investments Lim ited, thr ough a wholly-owne subsid iary could not locate a rendering or fertili zer plant, or simil arly enter the forest ind ustry. I'm not of cou rse suggesting that the Canadian Pacific Group is im media tely contemplating an of these activities.

What the Canadian Pacific Group is simply tryi ng to do and Canadian Nation1 too, is by relating to their own present and future endeavours to show to this Committee that in the view this Act goes beyond its stated intention and could in hib it development in this province by an group of companies or indi viduals simil arly constituted - that is that are made up with the sam corpor ate structur e as Canadian Pacific. Now, I realize that in answer to part of our submission, some mi ght refer to

section 13 of the Ac and say that much of what I have said is near conaecture and that if cir cumstances did arise sucl corporations co uld apply to the Min ister for an exemption as envisioned under

section 13 . The: mi ght also say that the problems relatec;t to land located im media tely adjacent to a city, town o vil lage and not already zoned under the Planning Act could be secured by option and a zonin! change appl ied for with the effect that the land would then be without the defi nition of land with in thc bill.

All these thing s are perhaps possib le, but I would point out that the uncertainty as to the fina acq uis ition of the land desired, together with the li kely incr eased costs that could resul in thE acqui siio n of the land itself may well disc ourage busi nesses from locating in the province. Further the Plannin g Act, deal ing as it does with Land Use, as disti nguis hed from Lane Acq uisition per se is already in place. What we question is why? In the cir cumstances we have outli ned, the acquir ing of the land by busi ness for other than the use of land as farm land should be fettered by this bill.

We submit that further and better consideration be given both to the defi nition of land and to the provisions of secti ons 3(2) and 3( 3) so that the types of development which I have outli ned are not fettered by this Bill. Lastly, there is another part of this Act wh ich I think should be brought to your atte ntion and that is

part icu larly in the case of Canadian Pacific Limi ted. There are occasions wh en, for the mutual convenience of both, CP wi ll create small portions of land with a municip ality or perhaps an individual. Canadian National Rai lway Company, I'm informed, engages in simil ar tr ansact ions.

Agriculture Thursday, June 9, 1977 1ain' they are not acq uiring land for land purposes and they are not acq ui ring more land, or perhaps 1hould say land of greater va lue than they pre viousl y owned. However, under the restricted ovisions of t his legislation, such exchange of land for corpor ations that now hold 16 0 acres or more )Uid be prohib ited. We would, therefore, suggest the limit ation of acreages of land within this bill be nended so that exchanges of land, such as I have outli ned , are not prohibited by this legislatio n.

Now we did n't thi nk it appropr iate at this tim e for us to offer suggestions as to precisely how the 1c tions of concern shoul d be amended sir.c e dou btless several others will be appearing before you ith other recommendations of substance tha t would have to be conside red before any precise 1ange in terminology could be dr afted. This, then concludes the joint presentation of Canadian Pacific and Canadian National with 1spect to Bill 56. We hope tha t our submis sion and the suggestions therein will receive your 1vo urable considera tion . MR. CHAIRMAN: I'd lik e to thank you Mr. Knox.

Are there any questions from the Commit tee? Mr. :>hnston. MR. G. JOHNSTON: Mr. Knox, I think the Commit tee apprecia tes the problems that you have oi nted out by the two companies you represent. Could you tell the commit tee wha t are the land oldi ngs of the CPR and the CNR in Manitoba? MR. KNOX: Canadian Pacific Limi ted, whic h is the Rai lway and Telecommuni cation Company 1ould hold - I don't know precisely, sir - but they would hold qu ite a few thousand acres I would nink, because each mile of railway track requir es for its rig ht-of-way, 12 mi les. MR. G. JOHNSTON: Other than rig ht-of-way. MR.

KNOX: I don't have those precise fi gures with me but I don't think they're overly sign ificant 1ny longer. MR. G. JOHNSTON: Well, does CP Lim ited have any farmland that could be for sale or be held for uture use other than sites for telecommunic ation and the lik e that you have desc ribed . MR. KNOX: Not tha t I'm aware of. I don't believe, sir, ... if the qu estion you're asking me is 111 hether they hold any farms in Manit oba, I think the answer would be no. MR. G. JOHNSTON: What I'm really asking is under the terms of the CPR original charter they 111 ere gi ven large grants of land in the provi nces.

So what I'm asking is, in Manit oba does teCPR have any of this land left tha t co uld be suitable for farming and they're holding for futur e sale? MR. KNOX: Not that I'm aware of. There might be some portions tha t are near the right -of-way or were station grou nds or thin gs of that lik eli hood but they're not operating in any farms. MR. G. JOHNSTON: And I ask the same question with respect to CNR. MR. KNOX: I'm advised that the answer is the same. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. En ns. MR. ENNS: Mr. Knox, you represent the most interesting witness that we've had perhaps in front · of this Commit tee.

You are representing the CNR and the CPR Telecommunications gr oup. MR. KNOX: I'm representing the CPR. Mr. Antymiuk is here for the CNR and I'm presenting the briefs. MR. ENNS: But in asmuch as you're making the briefs, you're epresening their joint brie f. lt would not therefore be unfai r for me to say that you are act ing as a senior civil servant on behalf of the Federal Government making this brief, in representing CNR 's interests, as one of the major Crown Corporations of this co untry .. MR. KNOX: I'm sure the CNR is a major company in this country. MR.

ENNS: And so we have the situation where a senior Federal Civil Servant is making representations agains legislation being proposed by the Manitoba Government. MR. KNOX: We're making specific comments on Bill 56, whic h I've just delivered. MR. ENNS: Well, Mr .

Chairman, it's the inc ongruity of it that strikes me, that perhaps the CPR corporation whic h often is identi fied as the arch internat ional conglomerate, you know, private enterprise group, in association with one of the major Crown Corporations that this countr y's proud of, the CNR, should be both combi ned into one representation , making comments of a critical nature pointing out some deficiencies in this bill. Tha t's really the interest that I have in add ressing you at this time. I'll let it pass. MR. CHAIRMAN: Are there any further qu estions? Hearing none, I wish to thank you, Mr.

Knox for appeari ng in front of this Commit tee. MR. KNOX: Very well, tha k you. MR. CHAIRMAN: I'll now cal l on Mr. WUAL TER J. Kehler, Barrister. Wi ll you pleasetake the stand. MR. WAL TER J. KEHLER: Thank you, Mr. Chair man, my name is Waiter Kehler, and I'm a legal attorney by professi on and a senior partner in one of the larger Wi nnip eg law fir ms. lt seems to me almost as th ough, fi rst of all after having sat through other presentations throughout the day, I will be saying thi ngs that you have already heard.

Secondly, tha t co ming around the second time with Bill 56 -I think the very last time that I appeared - a before commit tee such as this was the previous Bill 56 when I appeared as an insur ance lawyer. I have si nce become a commercial lawyer and I am prepared 55

Agriculture Thursday, June 9, 1977 to become whatever other lawyer is necessary. But in all events I should have though t that you rr have retired the number to the Hall of Fame by this ti me. A MEMBER: lt's become very respected . MR. KEHLER: In all events I am engaged in the practice of co mmercial law and have been · good number of years and number among my cl ients a great many Manitoba farmers. I might l also come from several generations of Manit oba farmers so that I have a little bit of fi rst-11 experience in the past at least. I am probably one of those young would-be farmers who never there.

In recent years I have also acted in a very substantial number of transactions where lands � been purchased by corpor ate purchasers and particularly non-resident purchasers, both in di vic or corp orate , and I think I can fairly say that I have had a broadr anging experience with the ac developments in that parti cular field. I want t hasten to stress, however, that I appear before · entir ely on my own behalf. I carry no brief either for any political group or for any public or pri\ organization or for that matter for any cl ient. And my personal views as I express them are in d1 only that.

Now, my brie f as I prepared it was expected to go before the Law Amendments Commit tee pro and perhaps you wi ll find that it is rather specific on indi vidual sections of the bill. However, I also I some general observations that I might have stressed more if I had known I was appearing before Agricu lture Commit tee as such. However, I appr eciate that wh ile your Commit tee is sti ll prima interested in dealin g with proposed amend ments to a specific bill that has already been in troduc that there is some room for some general observat ion based on the experience I have had.

I trust tl will help also to put some of the det ails into perspective. Now I'm assuming fir stly a sinc ere attempt on the part of the Legislatur e to di rect itself consider ation of restraints inv olvin g farm land as di stinct from other types of land. I deal with tl more specifically in my brief but I am assumin g the in tent to be to consider what restrictions shot be placed upon non-farmers in the ownership of land that is or can be used for farm in g. My speci comments are relevant largely only if that is in deed the in tent.

Perhaps this does not really come ir question by your commit ee, but it im mediately appears so by reason of the present

definitions witt the bill. If those are changed then the matter becomes much more sharply focused. Based on my experience, I am especially opposed to the attem ptto control thr ough this bill, la1 that is not now in use in some form of agricu ltural activity. The way the bill now reads it appears to n the result could be much more far reaching and to the extent that that is uni ntended, I presume th amend ment wi ll be easy.

To the extent that it is intended, it can hardly be associa ted with tl protection of farmers at all, while at the same time gi ving them a peculiar advantage in respect · other types of land tha t is completely ir relevant to their occupa tion. My professional experience has exposed me to a second major area of concern that in part flo 111 from the above comments but nonetheless is more closely related to land use as farm land. I ha\ been inv olved in a number of transactions that deal with undevelo ped land wh ich has never bee used either for agricultur e or for that matter for any other specific purpose.

With the use c tech nology and equi pment now avai lable, some of these parts of Manit oba can be successfu l! converted into farm land. There is equipm ent now avai lable for the clearing and breaking of lan which wi ll render it qu ickly useful for the growing of crops. There are now fertili zer blends and grai deriv atives that can make soil produc tive that was not previously thought to be so.

Development c this type, however, is a very expensive venture that must be carried out essentially on a cash basis This is not a prospect that is open to the ordinary farmer because he simply cannot ac cumulate th1 cash to undertake the development and I know of no sources from which it can be borrowed Moreover, I know of no real int erest on thE! part of present Manit oba farmers in that type of activity. A the same time, I think it can hardly be tr eated as a priori ty item for the expendi tur e of public fundl either, particu larly when one considers the cost as against the benefit.

Consequently such lane would continue to lie dormant in definitely if not developed thr ough otner sources of capital. I can seE no int erference with the farm ing ind ustry by this type of development sinc e it will take neither lane nor jobs from anyone else. At the same time the capital injection, the jobs created by the clearing work and by the subsequent farm in g, and the economic activity generally generated by the farm operations on such land itself, must all be beneficial to the province.

I am concerned that in the desir e to protect farmers from the leverage of non-farm capital, that you be aware of at least this one major type of development which, to me at least, would appear to have only positiv e results. lt is generally my view that in your consid eration of restrictions upon land ownership , you should act so as not to discou rage the injection of capital inv estment in to the farm ind ustry. I fear that Bill 56 in its present form wi ll bring that result.

I KACT FOR A GRE AT MANY FARMERS IN Manit oba and virt ually without exception the ones who conti nue to be successful are the ones that are expanding. The farm business has become so capital in tensive that it has become virtually imp ossible for one ind ividual to finance all parts of it. This is particu larly so for the younger farmer whom you have been indic ati ng thr oughout the day to be your princip al concern. I suggest that the time has come to

Agriculture Thursday, June 9, 1977 scard the concept that a farm ing busi ness must consis t of both land ownership and farm operation. 1uggest that the two should be regarded as separate matters and that today's economic conditions ctate that the farmer be consi dered as a farm operator who may either own or lease the land from hi ch he makes his li ving as a farmer. This would only apply to the farm ing ind ustry the same Jproach that has been used in most other in d ustries for years.

I submi t that it has, for some years 'JW, been a bit of a mistake to th ink that one is not really a farmer unless one owns the land that he as under cu ltiva tion. If the concepts of farm ownership and farm operation are separated , then I submit there should be 1u ch less concern as to the source of the capital of the farm ownership. Indeed, as to farm land wnership, the farmer should be considered in the same way as any other investor would be.

He 10 uld, in that aspect, be, after all, only an investor who is looking to preserve his capital to hedge gainst in flation, to ach ieve a return on his inv estment and perhaps experience long-term growth. As farm operator, the farmer takes the risk of production and the risk of the market and that is qu ite a lifferent matter. Perhaps if I can interject another ill ustration. I practice law for a livin g but nobody would consider hat I must own the offices from which I work.

I must work from a law office but it has never been :onsidered part of the practice of law that I must own the build ing or the land that I practice my law in. see no special reason why the farmer must be consid ered also to be a land owner and I submi t that it 1as become even more sharply focused throughout the cour se of today that what is really needed is a :ontrol upon land use and some in surance that those people who are the users are protected from he caprice of the owners or from fai lure of tenure or things of that nature. To me, the way to control hat is an entirely di fferent way.

To to do that, one should control the leases. I, in my experience with ::uropean investors, at least, th ink they would find no di fficulty with this. One of the major concerns :hat I find them expressing to me is that the lease be one that be sound and workable. They are not 1nter ested in short-term leases in my experience. The leases that I prepare are ordi narily five years; a number of them have been ten years; some have been even longer. They are as concerned as the farmer who enters into them from the other end that that farmer remain in busi ness. If he doesn't, it becomes a problem for both parties.

I suggest that if the farmer has a concern, that concern is that that lease protect him as well as he wou Id be protected as an owner. I think that that can be ac hie ved but it would require a much di fferent kind of a bill than this one obviously is. Now, if viewed in this ligh t, I suggest that the types of controls that are placed upon farm land ownership are much different from those that are needed if one wishes to force the farmer to be both land owner and farm operator. I am suggesting si mply that in all events, this is no longer a practical goal, particu larly for the younger farmer.

Restriction of ownership will at best only hold land available at cu rrent values for people who cannot afford to buy it at half the price. Even if the result were to reduce market values by - half, it would sti ll not help the younger farmer. Let me il lustrate by example. The bette rf armers that I speak to now mai ntain that they require in the neighb ourhood of 1, 000 acres to operate a truly viable farm and obviously it varies a bit from area to area. To operate that acreage would requir e at least $150 ,000 worth of farm equipment and probably more.

The big ger the farm gets - and I understand when it gets upward of 2,000 acres, the rough guid eline currently is about $1 00 an acre - very few farmers would ever be in a position to finance $450,000 in order to get in to the farm ing busi ness. Considerin g the act ual return along with the risk, almost none of them would do it. In pract ical fact, there is no way they can begin to borrow that amount from any source. Usually as much as they can hope to do is to finance the equipm ent costs that they have to have to operate at a size that is viable at all.

Now, if we cut the land cost in half - let's suppose that were the result of ownership control - and I submit it wouldn't be - the young farmer would sti ll need $300,000 to get into busi ness. For someone who is 25 to 30 years old, this is equally imp ossible from a practical standpoi nt.

At best, ther efore, I suggest that any depr essant effect on land pri ces that either the farmers who have appeared before you might antici pate, would end up being a benefit only for the largest and best establ ished operator who, I gather from the comments I have heard, is probably of equal concern to people in the farm ing ind ustry. lt is my submis sio n that if your purpose is to advance the farming indus try, your princi pal purpose should be to assist the young person wishing or desiring to get in to this occupation or the one who is newly in it.

I have seen many cases where such persons have received an opportu nity to become estab lis hed in the farm ing busin ess through lease arrangements where they would have had no opportun ity via ownership. That, in turn, im pli es a non- farmer source of investment capital that this bill will curtai l. In consider ation of specific sections of the bill, I also propose to point out that, in my opinion , there will be a negative effect upon the credit facilities avai lable to farmers if the bill passes in its present form.

I submit that fi nancial in stitutions must logicall y be forced to reduce their li nes of credit once the mark et prospects are curtai led, particula rly sinc e there are restrictions imp osed in the event of realization upon a security. 57

Agriculture Thursday, June 9, 1977 Final ly, it is also my expectation that the bill in present form would tend to fragment the r productive land and exacerbate the problems we already have with under-deve loped land. Fort i reasons, and against this backgr ound, I propose that ther e should be a number of spe' amend ments as outli ned hereaft er. ! n suggesting these, I agai n wish to point out thatthey are my, views only but they are based upon pretty broad ranging experience in this field in the last few ye Now, to the bill specifically as it now reads - and I refer to it on a

section by

section b� chron ologic ally in respect to those sections that I feel warrant another look. lt is suggested that bill should fir stly make clear whether under

Section 1 (1) {

a) where you define a corporation the parts are in tended to be in the alternative or if both criteria must be met. That's a simp le li ttle dr afi problem but it should be made clear, I think. The definition of a corporation in my view creates two further problems at least. Fir stly, the w farm ing - wh ile the word farmer is defined, the word farm ing is not defi ned in the bill. Second ly, defi nition has serious implic ations in my view for the fam ily farm corporations that now exist.

I noted that by Sect ion 13 ther e is provision for estab lishing further defi nition s, however, sinc e st basic words as corporation and farmer are defined, it is submi tted that the word farm ing is ba enough to also requir e a defini tion in the Act itself so as to make clear wh ich persons can safely in clud ed in a company's shareholdi ngs and whic h ones cannot. For example, people engaged ranching are called ranchers. Are they include d as farmers or are they not?

Simil ar questions mi! arise about poultry raisers, egg produc ers, dai ry men. lt is submit ted that some specific definiti should be included so that the parameters of who is intended to be affected by the bill can be a lit more closely det ermi ned. lt is my view that the restriction upon stock holdi ngs under the second part of the defin ition c seriously affect the fa mily farm corpora tion. This has been referred to already but, again, most of t people that I act for have in corpor ated in recent years.

In many cases thi s is required by lende other times because th ey're brothers or partners acting and farm ing together. In other cases, the has been a specific desir e to in volve members of the fa mil y, particu larly younger ones byconvertil into a corpor ation. Last, but not least, the inc orporations have also taken place as part of estate planning progran and I might add very often the tax legislation is a major considera tion. The result of this is that tl father as the original farmer may.no longer hold a majority interest, even though the company primarily engaged in the farm ing business.

He exercises his control through a minor ity ' redeemable preferred voting shar es. He would not meet the criterion of havi ng more than 60 percet of the holdi ngs in the company. The remaining shares would normally be held by his wife and h childr en. In the classic case, the wife's principal oc;cupation ordin arily would be construed � housewife rather than farmer. The childr en would probably be students rather than farmers and, i my experience, this is the classic fam ily farm corpora tion case.

Sinc e these are almost the rule mor than the exception, they would presumably be prevented from adding to their farm hold ings unles ther e was either a co mplete corpor ate restructuring or else if you amend the bill.

To requir restructuring would hardly be in the interest of the present farmers. lt is my experience that farmer will very often try to int erest their childr en in staying with the fa mil y far ming busi ness by taking ther into participation in its ownersh ip at an early age before their career choice has been final ly settlec You have defined the word farmer and I have already commented that you should then also defin' what farm ing is so that one can determine what a farmer in deed must do. Now, let's go to the defi nition of land and agai n I think that's been referred to.

The bill purports t< be designed for the protect ion of farm lands but, in fact, the definition includ es practically all of tht land in Manit oba except urban lands which are already subject to a specific restricted zoning or lane actually inv olved in mi neral extract ion. There may be di ff ering vi ews about the prudence o expanding governmental control upon all' types of land but, whatever the merits of that may be, I anr submi tt ing that this bill is not the right vehicle for dealing with the other types of land that could be affected . Let me il lustrate with two main examples already mentioned.

Fir stly, recreational land and secondly, undevelo ped land. Assuming one wanted to control the use of recreational land and dete rmine who should be entitled to hold it, the conside rat ions to be appl ied would obviously be entirely di fferent from those that would apply to grain growing land. Moreover, it would seem a pe culiar approach to permit farmers to ac quir e unlimi ted holdin gs of recreational land

whereas all other persons would be limi ted. For that matter, the limi ts upon other in di viduals, if Canadian, would be lik e havi ng no limi t at all if one were referri ng to lake front cottage property. On the other hand, this legislation might well exclude the possib le development of a large resort hotel if one wanted to in clud e such amenities as golf cou rses or riding trails and the lik e.

No part of the remain der of the bill di rects itself in anyway to recreational land use and very obviously that is a type of land use whic h should not be related to farmers at all, except perhaps, in the few instan ces where land now bei ng used for growing agricu ltural crops is converted. Another ill ustrat ion of the widene ss of the defi nition is its relationsh ip to undeveloped land. I have

Agriculture Thursday, June 9, 1977 �ady referred to that in part. I have had a number of ins tances of client s who made land purchases olvi ng land that had been of no produc tive use previously. This means the land whic h was perhaps rered by scru b bush and/or contained a lot of rock or something of that kind. No real value for its 1ber; no real val ue as ranch or grazing land because there was bush and no grass; no val ue for >wing grai n because there were too many rocks and too much bush.

In these instances, however, 1 soil itself, with the aid of the correct co mbi nation of soil nutrients would allow for good ricu ltural possibil ities. lt is submitted that corpo rate and/or non-resident in vestors ought to be couraged to acquir e this type of property and develop it rather than bei ng prevented from doin g . I say this because I am certain that there is no other way which such land will be developed in the reseeable futur e. Land clearing and development costs presently run from $10 0 to $200 an acre.

I know fairly osely what the costs of this are if one wants to do a caref ul job because I happen to act for probably e largest land clearing contractor in thi s province, and the largest in Canada. I submi t that it would >t be economically viable to clear land in very small portions because the type of equi pment that is �cessary to do a proper job doesn't allow for it. This is the type of work that must necessarily be )ne on a larger scale in order to be economically feasi ble. Moreover, the cost of land clearing is sing very rapidly, prima ri ly because of rapidly escalating fuel costs.

I know of no source of fi nancing ith in Canada for this type of project and in this type of situation the additional problem is that the :;tual land cost is low so it may ee possible to obtain financing to assist in the purchase of the land self. Beyond tha t, however, the cost of the land clearing would, in virtually every case, have to roceed on a cash basis. I know of no local farmers who would even entertain the thought of such evelopment of agricultur al land on a larger scale basis.

There probably are a few but I have cert ainly ' meet them. uYet, I can cite a number of examples from my own practice of non-resident land purchasers who .ave been in a position to fi nance this type of development and have been prepared entir ely on their 1Wn to accept the risks of do ing so. Let me illu strate by th ree examples. Client "A" has purchased a larger parcel of land. About one-qu arter of that land has never been troperly cleared. I contai ns scrub-bush int erspersed with usable farm land. The scrub-bush was of 10 value for any other purpose.

I might say the land that had been under cu ltivation had been in use or some number of years. The soil underneath the scrub-b ush, however, is reasonably good. My :lient, at hi s own expense, has arranged to have this land cleared for te benefit of Manitoba tenants 11ho will be converting that new land as well as the old additional land from use as marginal grain land .o very promising land for the growth of corn and/or potatoes. The result is that the province has �ained a good many acres of farm land that it did not pre viously have and which no one had jeveloped or appeared int erested in developing.

The actual operation of the farm ing busi ness on . that land will still be undertaken by Manitobans. lt is difficult for me to see why that type of clevelopment should be discour aged. Client "B" is a somewhat simi lar example but at even greater magnitude. This client purchased a large tract of lan d, vir tually none of which had ever been used as farm land before. I migh t also add that it had for some years been in the hands of non-resident owners, prior to my client's purchase, but that is an merely in cidental.

This land also had no other use because it was covered with scrub bush and contained a lot of rocks. There has never been any sign ificant amount of farm activity carried out in this im media te area and in deed the province's record keeping for agricultur al purposes exclud es the area all together as agricultur al land. My clients, at a cost of several million doll ars to themselves alone, are br ingin g this land in to agricu ltural use.

In do doing, they have worked closely with the best agricultur al consultants available in this province, as well as elsewhere, and they are optimistic of creating a viable farm ing operat ion. However, they are taking the entir e risk themselves. Agai n, in that case, the Province of Manitoba stands to gain thousands of acres of farm land whic h did not exist before and in which no local farmer, or even resident Canadian, had expressed any interest.

The clearing work is bei ng done by a Manitoba contr actor, so that the many hundr eds of thousands of doll ars involv ed in that aspect are being invested in to the Manitoba economy. The land is under rental contr act to Manitoba resident farmers. The crops grown wi ll be marketed in the same way as all other crops that are grown in Manitoba. Again, it is difficult to see ahy that type of development should be di scouraged but it would be expressly forbidden under the provisions of th is bill, except by Min isterial order, upon which I want to comment further. Client "C" is a simil ar example.

In this case, Client "C" is presently a non-resident. He is young but with considerable tr aining and experience in the field of agricultur e and he desi res to immigr ate to Canada to engage in the farming business. In his case, he is in a position to purchase a larger tract of ttally undeveloped land and cover the cost of converting it into farm land. However, he does not wish to take all the steps necessary to secure landed im migr ant status in Canada and the residency requir ements, without knowing with certainty what he is able to buy if he should come here. And 59

Agriculture Thursday, June 9, 1977 moreover, the problems about lin ing up the land clearing to get this kind of land are such that un he can determine it in advance, he is in the position where ther e are a lot of other places he car Unless he is clearly permit ted under this type of bill to come to Man it ob a, he just won't consider it his money, his talent for the future, will go elsewhere. These ill ustrations are again in di cated to under line a particular problem area that perh involv es a fairly lim ited potential.

However, at the same time, I suggest that these type: transactions could not possib ly be regarded as harmful to the people already in the farm ing busir in the province. In the ill ustrations I used, it happens that the land, in most cases, was already ir hands of non-re sidents but that is of no particular concern, I should th ink for it really doesn't mat No interest had ever been shown by local resident farmers in this type of land, nor would any of th1 to my knowledge, have been in a position to ach ieve the kind of result that is being ac hie ved by fact that these transactions have taken place.

On the oth er hand, the province has had a large injection of cash arid, for the longer run, the f� land inventory has been incr eased. At the same time, new busi ness enterprises have been crea from which the province wi ll be in a position to collect tax doll ars. I am submit ting tha t the defi nition of land should be narrowed to bring it in to line with what 1 rest of the bill appears to intend.

To me that should rule out land that either has a dif ferent type of L altogether, that does not relate to farm ing by whatever defi nition one appl ies, or to land that perha has a potential for agricultur e but where that potential cannot reasonably be expected to be realiz in the foreseeable futur e without the use of outside capital. Finally, on the defin itions, the words "resident Canadian " I suggest could be defined simply a: Canadian citizen or a landed im migrant with no other provision as to periods of resid ency.

To me, tl way the thing now reads, it just clut ters up the bill because what you're saying now is that one mL have resided in Canada for at least 183 days in each of the years dur ing which he has resided Canada. But if he has resided for less than that number of days and is a landed immigr ant, then hest qualifies if he has been here for at least half the number days in that period of residence. That ' fir stly, very conf using, but, as I get it, if I m a landed immig rant - and I agree with Mr.

Ne my thatthe1 are people who are not now what I would cal l "resident" in Manit oba but who have landed immi gra1 status - they presumably could come to Manitoba for two days, one of whic h they spend in tt United States. Then they could conforta bly buy their land and next week they could be gone agail and the bill wouldn't have done anyth ing. I'm suggesting that the residency requir ements help the bill in no way and they could simply b left out and you would avoid confusion and litiga tion .

Section 1 (2). I appreci ate the problems of interpretat ion inv olved in deter min ing a person' occupation. I would object less to the Min isterial discretion created in this subsect ion if th mandatory penalty provisi ons in

Section 12 were less severe. However, as the bill now stands, th1 di scret ion lies entir ely with the Min ister to decide either positively or negatively in respect to i particular subject person. If the Min ister decide s negatively, then it would presumably involve a cast where there would be an im media te breach of

Section 2, that is, the controls on the amount o ownership. The result would be that a person who might well have thought tha t he was primar ily � farmer is deemed by the Min ister not to be a farmer and can be subjected to a fine of up to $5,000, 01 even im prision ment up to six months. I suggest that thi s is much too harsh a result and consequently needs amendment, both from the end of how a pri nci pal occupation is determined, and from the standp oi nt of the enforcement and penalty provisions of the bill.

Determination of princi pal occupation is not necessarily that easy, in practice, as can be ill ustrated by the follo wi ng examples of persons personally known to me. Mr. "A" has his head office in a major downtown building. From that office he operates one of the largest farms in the province. I think it' s the largest grain farm. In ad di tion, he functions as a consultant to ind ustry and other farmers on agricu ltural matters. He has also been in volved in the teaching of ag ricultu re at the university level. He engages heavi ly in commodities trad ing.

He would seldom actu ally operate a farm mach ine personally and , in deed , would li kely spend by far the majorit y of his tim e away from the actual land tha t he either owns or leases. The qu estion arises whether he would be consider ed a farmer, for the purposes of this Act. I mi ght add that he is still a younger man, who I antici pate would want to add to his farm holdi ngs. If he did so, and the Min ister decided he was not a farmer, he would immedi ately become liabl e for a sizeable fine, and perhaps impr ision ment. Mr.

"8" is both a highly respected agricu ltural consultant as well as the head of his own farm ing operation. There is no question that he is actively and sub sta ntial ly engaged in farm ing in Manitoba. His far ming operations involve a large number of acres. However, I am not sure he would actually spend more than half of his time in the dir ect operat ion of his mach i nes or the specific management of his own farm ing busi ness. The rest of his time would be involv ed in acting as a farm consultant for others. The question arises whether he would, for the purposes of this Act, be regarded as a farmer. Rn

Agriculture Thursday, June 9, 1977 Mr. "C" is an older man who has very substantial land holdings in Manitoba as well as a ranch in ·itish Columbia. In add ition, he has urban commercial holdi ngs in British Columbia and other vestments in other parts of the world. Certai nly, with in Canada, he spends most of hi s time in respect to management of the farm and e ranch. However, that is st ill not all of his time. Two questions arise.

Fi rstly, does the ranching get incl uded in the consid eration of whether he is farmer or, second ly, in his case as in many others, when does a farmer become a businessman; or is e inde ed ever anything other than a busi nessman? Wh ile it can be argued that this is a matter for 1terpretation by the courts, it seems to me that the bill should be much more specific so that there an be a predetermination of whether one qualifies under the Act or not. This raises the whole problem about how close to the land a person must be to be cou nted as a lrmer.

In my exierience, the best farm operators are those who perhaps spen d the least amount of me actually operati ng thei r farm machines. Farming has become a very sophis tic ated and emanding busi ness, and the most produc tive and efficient and profitable farmers are the ones who re most adept at doing such things as buying successfu lly and sellin g succ essfully in the ommodities market, finding the best deals on equipm ent, seeds and ferti liz ers, and keeping th eir .cc ounting in best order, and arranging the best financing and cash flows.

The farmers who do these hing successfull y are the farmers who are succeed ing,

whereas the ones who are not good at these tctivities are becoming in creasingl y margi nal. All of this has nothing to do with who owns the lan d but has a lot to do with the abil ity to operate >uccessfully what has become a very dema nding busi ness.

To leave the entir e dis cretion with the 111 inis ter - and I cast no aspersions upon wha tever Min ister it will be - but nevertheless for one )erson to dete rmine who should be classed a farmer or should be classed a busi nessman would I ;ub mit, in effect, penalize the best farm managers, because they would run the largest risk of being ·ejected from the classification of the person whose pri mary occupation is fa rming. This would place them in im mediate cont ravention of the Act, if they acq uir e more land.

Section 2 is the heart of the bill, obviously, and I'm suggesting that the Act should be amended to change the restrictions from a straight acreage basis to some other more equitable and workable basis of restric tion. I submit a restric tion as to siz e does not best protect the farm ing in dustry from outside incur sions, nor does it create the best results for the co mmunity at large. By restri cting as to size, I suggest, a premium is placed upon the most expensive land. The most expensive land, in turn, is usually the most developed and the hig hest qua li ty that the province has.

That is the land most desi red by the local farmers and the type of land that they would be the more concerned to see fall into the hands of non-r esidents, or of corpo rati ons, than would be the case with less choice property. For example, I, as a lawyer, could purchase a

section of grassland, marshland, or bushland, for perhaps as lit tle as $5,000.00. Alternatively, I co uld purchase a

section of choice farm land for, say, $3 50,000.00. Both are treated exactly the same under the Act. I submi t that no farmer in Manitoba would feel th reatened by my purchase of the bush land, nor would the provi nce lik ely be injured but, by purchasi ng the choice farm land, I might very well int erfere with the farm ing ind ustry itself. I have had much experience with non-resident investors. I find that they invest in this countr y primarily for the purpose of capital preservat ion and long-term gain. They specifically do not purchase for purposes of short-term speculation.

They repeatedly stress that they are not interested in short -term speculation because they do not know the market well enough and they are too dis tant to be sensit ive to changes in the market. They say that they can do their speculation at home where they can watch it most closely. Their purpose in comi ng here is long-term inv estment of a safe nature that hedges against in flation, exactly the type of thing that real estate inv estments, whether they be farm or other type, provide.

If they are restricted by size only, then the obvious answer is to buy the best quality of land possible in order to in vest the most dolla rs. I predic t that the result of the type of restriction provided in this bi ll will result in the fragmentation of the cho icest farm land, particu larly that located closest to urban centres. On the other hand, land that really needs more developing and is not the most hi ghly productive, will be probably reduced in value by this same reasoning. That, in tur n, will lessen the chances of its upgradin g.

The examples I have previ ously ill ustrated of undeveloped land will be of absolutely no interest to a corpo rate or a non-resident investor on the basis of a qu arter section. The inv estment of funds, however, will contin ue to be of interest and all that wi ll happen is that the money will be invested in exactly the type of land that the local farmer who has become concerned about the non- farm investor is more fearful of losi ng. A number of possible alternatives could be suggested . One of these would be to place a limi t, based on either market value or assessed value.

Another way of restriction would be by way of some special form of taxa tion. Most sensible of all, I would suggest, would be to provide for a review system on an indi vid ual transaction basis so that the real equities of indi vidual transac tions could be taken 61

Agriculture Thursday, June 9, 1977 in to acco unt so that those transactions which are cause for concern could be prevented and t which are not can be permit ted . My next concern is with

Section 4, which deals with the exceptions to

Section 2. The excep created by this

section create problems relati ng to the retroactivity provisions. Th is has air caused considerable problems tor both vendors and purchasers, and their advisors, myself inclu The problem is that ther e were transact ions in progress at Apri l 1, 19 77. Until the bill is final iz, is uncertain whether the exceptions apply to those tran sact ions. If they do, then the fai lure to clo : to complete the transaction giv es rise to breach of contr act clai ms. On the other hand, it exceptions do not apply, then ther e is a contr avention of the Act along with the very stiff penalti im poses.

At present, on the one hand my clients are running the risk of clai ms for damages for bre of contract and, on the other hand, they are ris king fine and/or impr isonment. I appr eciate that the retroact ivity provisions were inserted to prevent a flood of transac tions � the bill was intr oduced but before it became law. No doub t, the removal of the retroactivity provisi would permit a few more transact ions.

However, 1 2/3 percent of all the available land in the provi has been transferred to non-r esident s in the last 10 0 years and it is unlikely that much of remaining 98 percent would really be affected by the matter of a few weeks. In point of fact, a great flood of tr ansact ions has not resulted , even though ther e was a lo warn ing in the Speech from the Throne that some kind of legislation was coming. Rather, there been sharply dec reased interest in farm purchases in Man itoba until such time as some forn legislation is final ized. And that is exactly what one should expect from prudent investors.

Those people who are in a liqui d position and conseq uently are able to go to any number of di ffer locations with their inv estment dol lars. Prudent investors will naturally hold back to see what the n rules of the game will be, parti cularly with something li ke land whic h is not a liquid type of inv estm at all. Hence, they have been and wi ll simp ly wait to see or, if they are not prepared- to wait, they 1 and already have been going elsewhere.

I would suggest in the alternative a better appr oach would be to see such legislation as 1 Legisla tur e deems fi t, and then affix a specific date ther eafter beyond which tr ansfers of land will r be processed th rough land titles offices without a specific approval, which could then deal with t whole matter of when the transaction was actual ly made and when the ri ght to title arose.

Section 5. The exception provided here relates to acq uisitions by corpora tions. That is lendE essentially who end up owning in excess of the limi ts by reason of realization on its securities, ban I and other lending in stitutions. I wo uld point out that a much more flexible arrangement is needec the farm ing in dustry is not to be seriously affected in the longer run.

Obviously, this exception wou most affect banks and other lending institutions. · Undoub tedly, lending institutions would, in all events, want to liquid ate any land they would ha acq uired by reali zat ion upon the security, with in much less than two years. ln practical fact, howevE I suggest that they may not merely always be able to do so, particular ly when ther e is an ownersh control which is known to the potential buyers. In my experience, most farmers borrow heavily from banks or cred it unions and the li ke.

Farmir is extremely capital intensive and very few farmers are able to self-fi nance beyond a very sm� margin. In the majority of cases, the best security that the farmer can offer is the land he owns anc am referri ng now to oper ati ons financing much more than to the term financing for the purchase c land. Hence, in nearly all cases where the farmer owns land, you wi ll find that hi s banker will hav either a fi rst or a second mortgage. The mortgage security is very often not taken for term financin but rather for operations fi nanci ng.

If the farmer fa lls into default, it is most usually because c adverse crop or market conditi ons. Those ordi narily affect not only the ind ivid ual but also hi neighb our. The result is that there is a low�r rate of realization upon security by way of mortgage sal proceedi ngs and a hi gher rate of actual foreclos ures resulti ng in the lender obt aining title than woull be the case for urban properties. lt then follows that if a lender is under a time limitt o sell the land , tha will tend to disco unt the offers that are made upon it.

I outl ine this to you, not from any intent to la� before you the plig ht of the lenders, but rather to poin t out that the lenders are sophi sticated enougt to realize that this restriction means a reduction in their security value. Conseuuently, it would on I� be prudent for them to reduce both the proportion that they wi ll lend against equity as well as the ratE at which they will lend. I suggest tha t that's exactly what you will see happen ing.

An an adjunct to the effect upon credit, I would also point out that if I am right in my expectatior tha t the bill in its present form wi ll tend to enhance the value of highly developed land and dec rease the value of underdeveloped land, then I would expect those Manit oba farmers now operating the lesser developed lands to suffer even more. Agai n, the lending in stitutions will base their li nes of credit upon current market values.

I expect that market values of the very land that requi res the most help will be the fir st to dr op with the concu rrent result of reduced borrow ing capabil ity and hence a compou nding of the development and efficiency problem . My next concern is with

Section 9 and we're now into the enforcement and penalty sections. I submit that

Section 9(1 ) is much too broad in terms of the di scretion wh ich it leaves with the Min ister.

Agriculture Thursday, June 9, 1977 ere is no requir ement that the Min ister must have reasonable cause to believe tha t there has been a 1tra vention before he is entitled to inv estigate. This leaves it open to the Min ister to investigate a ·poration or an in di vid ual whether that corporation or indi vidu al has made any manif est recent �uis ition s or not. Subsection (2) places no restri ction upon whic h books and records may be demanded. There is restriction to the effect that only such books and records which would actually pertain to the quisition of land shall be produced.

When read together with subsection (1 ), it permits the Min ister, th or without cause, to conduc t an investigation of anyone so long as he purports to do so for the rpose of determ inin g whether or not the person or corporation has acquir ed land in contr avention the Act. Further to this, he can demand the production of all of the corpor ate or in divid ual records \ether they have any relati onship to land acq uisitio n or not. This appears to me an in credib le >'as ion into the private affairs of citizens for this type of statute.

One does not find this type of thin g her than in respect to taxa tion statutes or the cri mi nal law and, even there, there is generally the .ving provision that there must be reasonable cause to suspect an offence. These provisions are particularly a problem for corpor ate directors, solicit ors, or registered 1ents and the lik e. Suppose, for example, that I act for a major Canadian corporation whose offices, >wever, are in a province other than Manitoba. I may be the registered agent in the province si nce Jr company's legislation requir es that there be one.

I may, for example, even be a dir ector of that >rporat ion. Under the provisions of this bill, the Min ister would presumably serve his demand Jrsuant to

Section 9(2) upon me as registered agent. By Sect ion 9(3) , if I fail to comply with the emand, I am perforce guil ty of an offence and lia ble on

summary conviction to a fin e even though a emand to produce all of the corporation's records might involve a buildin g full of docu ments, all of hi ch are located elsewhere than in Manitoba. I say this , not in any capricious sense, because it is a ery real problem when one has corpo rate entities holdin g land because, whil e the majority of orporations are small and tigh tly owned, some certai nly are not.

So when one is tal king about the reduction of records, that can be a pretty onerous thing and surely the bill , and even the intent of the ill, cou ld be maintained by tig htening up those enforcement provisions to deal with wha t is really 1tended to be dealt with. The problem becomes even greater if one is deal ing with a corpora tion owned by non-residents, 1hether that corpora tion has made or is suspected to have made a land acq ui sition or not. For >xample, I can have a non-resident, say hotel owner in the City of Winnip eg, as a client, a corpor ate 1ne.

Under the provisions of this bill as they now read , the Min ister - and I am not suggesti ng that his Min ister would do that but any Min ister of Agricultur e hereafter -c an force me to produce all of hat corpor ati on's records when those records may not even be in the country and have nothing to do vith farm land. I am submi tting that that surely could not have been the intent and consequently the >ill should be corrected. To go on with the problem, under present Manitoba and Canadian corpor at ions law, the majority >f dir ectors of a company must be resident in Canada.

I suggest that unless the provisions in respect :o offences and penalties are tig htened up, at least to the poin t where the Minis ter must act in good 'aith and upon reasonable and probable grounds, the majorit y of di rectors of non-resident :ompanies wi ll be forced to resign. This wi ll create all kinds of chaos. The result would be that while fir stly they might find their Canadian di rectors in places remote from Manit oba which could hardly help, or they migh t simply dispens e with Canadian dir ectors.

That migh t cause them to lose their stat us as companies within Canada but, as I und erstand our Real Property Law in Manitoba, that, curiously, would not affect the right to title of the land whic h they now hold to conti nue. So I am suggesting that this is a part of the bill that simpl y needs a little more thought.

Section 12 . lt is submit ted that the penalty provisions und er the proposed bill are much too severe for the nature of the subject matter. Sinc e the bill already provides for machi nery to req uir e dis position of the land acquir ed in contrav ention of

Section 2, it is suggested there is no real need to provide for jail terms or large fi nes. lt is suggested a more sensible appr oach would be to provide some form of penalty tha t wo uld relate itself to the cost to the Province of Manit oba of det erminin g the contravention and obtai ning the necessary orders to going about a di sposition of the breach. There may be a case to be made for the situation where there has been frau dul ent activity or where there have been multiple offences knowi ngly made. However, this

Section at present makes no di stinction between a fraudulent breach or a purely acciden tal one. lt also makes no di stinction between the small breach and the large one. To ill ustrate, I am entitled under Bill 56 to purchase 640 acres of land. That is one section' however' not all sections consist of exactly 640 acres. If ittur ns out that the farm I buy has 642 acres, I am im media tely .in breach of

Section 2 and subject to the sanctions under

Section 12 . To me, that is a far dif ferent situation from a case where I attem pted to ac quir e 6,000 acres and fraudulently attempted to conceal that purchase from the Crown. I am submit ting that amend ments should be made to the penalty provisions to moderate them in their enti rety but also to make their appli cation a li ttle more equit able in the in divid ual case. lt's fine to say that there is a range of fines but I suggest that in my case if I end up with a

section that has an extra acre or two in it, 63

Agriculture Thursday, June 9, 1977 even $1 ,000 as a minimum fine is a pretty big penalty for that kind of a situa ti on. I suggest then other ways of dr afting this

section that would allow for much more equitable provi sions. Now, in conclusion,

Section 13 of the bill already provides for .t he Lieutenant -Governo Council to make regulations

Document details

Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	30-4-ag3
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	30th 4th hansardpdf ag3.pdf
Language	en
Format	pdf
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	11c7ae0e04dff87a5799c80b151716b39311b1c7

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