STEPHEN RICCIO
MUNICIPALITY OF PONTIAC March 10, 2021
A recent recommendation that the National Capital Commission (NCC) pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Municipality of Chelsea over a tax dispute signals a possible outcome for the Municipality of Pontiac, who face a similar dispute.
The recommendation that the NCC pay $590,000 to Chelsea came from the Payment in Lieu of Taxes Dispute Advisory Panel (PLTDAP), a federal committee, two weeks ago. It stemmed from a disagreement between . . .
the municipality and the commission over Gatineau Park property assessing that began in 2018, whereby the latter has withheld a portion of tax payments over the past three years.
MoP Mayor Joanne Labadie said the municipality is standing in solidarity with Chelsea as the MoP awaits its own tax dispute hearing with the NCC.
She said that the PLTDAP would likely not begin hearings over the dispute between the MoP and the NCC for a year, and she added that given that the current three-year evaluation between the MoP and NCC began in 2020, the commission so far owes the municipality just one year of disputed fees.
“What is being disputed, this is for the 2020 tax year, for 2020 it’s $134,071,” she said. “So that’s substantial, it’s not pocket change. Of course in Chelsea it accumulated over three years and the evaluation is higher in Chelsea as well.
Labadie explained that the cause of the MoP’s dispute was a disagreement over how the two parties view Gatineau Park areas like parking lots. While the NCC seeks to have it assessed with the rate for conservation land, the municipality assesses those types of areas as recreational tourism.
“It represents about two per cent of our taxes and if we evaluated the average house of about, let’s say $300,000 … that would be about $42 approximately per household at an evaluation of about $300,000,” she added. “So everybody’s having to pay more taxes to make up the shortfall.”
Forty-seven per cent of the municipality is Gatineau Park, which Labadie said is more proportionally than any other municipality. Popular park attractions such as Champlain Lookout and Lac la Pêche are located within the municipality’s territory, which she said means that staff are consistently using resources to help with the park’s upkeep.
“Now it is considered conservation land, so we’re actually getting less taxes but we still need to provide services to the NCC,” she said. “They are property owners in our municipality and they’re entitled to all the same services that any other resident gets. And they bring an enormous amount of traffic through our municipality, and the cost of infrastructure is no different, as [Chelsea] Mayor Green and the residents of Meech Lake keep mentioning, the 1,000s of people who travel on Meech Lake Road. Well we have, especially during the pandemic, we have so many more people who are coming and trying to access the Gatineau Park through back doors.”
Labadie said that the park’s popularity during the pandemic has meant municipal employees have spent more time putting up parking signs and grading roads than they typically would.
She said that the way in which the NCC responds to PLTDAP’s recommendation regarding Chelsea will be telling.
“Because the recommendations of the [PLTDAP] are non-binding, the NCC does not have to listen to, to respect the recommendations. And then it would mean that we actually have to do a Supreme Court challenge.”
Ideally, Labadie said that such a challenge would be a joint effort alongside Chelsea and Gatineau, which she said is also still awaiting a tax dispute payment from the NCC.
During negotiations between Chelsea and the NCC, the commission committed to respecting the recommendations of the advisory panel. It has since announced in a statement that it will be reviewing the recommendations.
Labadie maintained that she is in full support of the municipality’s territory being a host to a large swath of conservation land, as she agrees with the NCC’s position that conservation land is in the public interest of all of Canada.
“I don’t dispute that … I agree that the park is a really important asset, I believe in conservation,” she said. “I do not dispute any of that, but I believe that the federal government should compensate the rural municipalities by at the very least making a payment in lieu of taxes, and have it be fair, recognizing that there is a cost of having a federal park of national interest in our municipality.”
