Alberta’s Real Property Rights Committee
On Monday, May 17, the Select Special Committee on Real Property Rights met for the first time in the Federal Building after being formed by the Legislative Assembly in mid-April. This committee is one of the many legislative committees composed of both UCP and NDP MLAs for a specific mandate to create a report to be delivered to the Legislative Assembly with its recommendations by December 15, 2021.
The formation of this committee is linked to the UCP Government’s 2019 election platform, which included a commitment to further entrench property rights into provincial legislation. Within the platform there were two specific proposed initiatives on property rights: treat government regulation of real property the same as government expropriation for the purposes of compensation, and allow private property owners to convert government attempts to regulate property into an expropriation action if desired. Whether or not the UCP MLAs will pursue implementing these two sections of the election platform is unknown.
The committee’s mandate is limited to consider specific portions that relate to Bill 206, Property Rights Statues Amendment Act, 2020, and determined the scope within their first meeting. This includes: whether legal remedies available to a real property owner who is deprived of the use of their real property are adequate; whether the real property rights should be expanded, or in the case of an individual, constitutionally protected; whether the law of adverse possession should be abolished; whether the expropriation processes provided under the Expropriation Act are adequate; and any other matter that the committee decides is necessary to ensure the completeness of its review.
There are several specific pieces of legislation that are also within the committee’s purview, such as the Bill of Rights, the Land Stewardship Act, the Responsible Energy Development Act, the Land Titles Act, and more. Officials from the Ministries of Energy, Justice, Agriculture & Forestry, Environment & Parks, and Indigenous Relations will be in attendance of the committee in the future to provide their expertise and technical advice.
It was suggested by NDP members of the committee to include other pieces of legislation within the committee’s scope, including coal mining policies. For the coal mining policies in particular, all members of the committee agreed that the issues with selenium affecting water sources did pertain to property rights, as downstream landowners could potentially face issues with their own property from selenium contamination. These suggestions were later rejected however, as there were concerns that the scope would become far too broad for the committee to complete its mandate by its deadline at the end of 2021. This was further rationalized as the suggested policy falls under the Ministry of Energy which has ongoing consultations on the aforementioned mining policies.
The first committee meeting in May sorted out the logistics of the committee, spending a significant portion of their time creating a subcommittee consisting of the Deputy Chair, 3 Government Caucus MLAs, and 2 Opposition MLAs. While debating the motion for the subcommittee, concerns arose from opposition members pertaining to the transparency of a subcommittee. Subcommittees are not recorded in Hansard and as such, the public does not have access to the debate and discussion within those meetings. Despite those concerns, particularly aimed at rural Albertans who have advocated for better property rights in the past, the motion for the subcommittee passed.
As the Select Special Committee on Real Property Rights continues to meet, there is high potential for serious legislative changes to be made through its discussion. These changes will likely impact landowners, as well as the municipal land use planning process and municipal autonomy more broadly. Currently, if people have concerns pertaining to property rights legislation, they are able to either contact their MLA or the government’s Property Rights Advocate Office. The office advocates to legislators including the committee on an annual basis on issues including land and house rights, abandoned or operating oil and gas infrastructure, neighbor to neighbor disputes, municipal planning and zoning decisions, mineral surface rights, and environmental contamination.
