E.F. Marshall, Chair of Research
o.b.o. Research Team
Ontario Landowners Association
Tom Black, President
Ontario Landowners Association
May, 2011
During the Harris era, in Ontario, the Ontario Property Assessment Corporation was created to be a corporation that would provide assessment services to the Municipalities as a separate entity from all levels of government. This Corporation was to be funded by the Municipalities eliminating provincial responsibility and eliminating the costs to the provincial government. It was legislated into life in 1997 to answer recommendations created by bureaucratic planning, in government, on how to consolidate and create an arms length assessment process. It was promoted as a Corporation that would present "fair market value" assessments to the people of Ontario.
Since 1997 the Ontario Property Assessment Corporation Act has been amended a number of times and included in those amendments the name was changed from the Ontario Property Assessment Corporation to the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation. And yet with all of the amendments and reports, conflict of interest still remain and so does, what can be perceived as the corruption. Take, for example, the 2010 Auditor General Annual report,
"...competitively. However, when the Corporation acquired goods and services, it often did not comply with good business practices, including its own mandatory purchasing policies and procedures. For example:
• Almost half of the goods and services that should have been acquired competitively were not. In addition, we found many instances where contractual agreements for relatively small amounts were amended numerous times, thereby increasing the value of some original agreements by more than $1million, or by as much as 1,500%, in some instances.[1]
When one combines the statements, from the Auditor General, and the funding formula from The Municipal Assessment Corporation Act, 1997, Section 12:
"Payments for services
12.(1)The Corporation shall require each municipality, other than a lower-tier municipality, to pay the amount required by this section in respect of each taxation year, beginning with the 1998 taxation year. 1997, c.43, Sched.G, s.12(1).
Amount
(2)Subject to subsection (3), the amount to be paid for a taxation year is calculated using the formula,[2]
one can only come to the conclusion that MPAC has complete control over their own funding and have property owners are at their mercy. It is with this thought that we would like to begin with the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation Act, 1997, and dissect parts of it, revealing that this corporation is in complete conflict with what its obligations are. This reflection is to put into prospective why this corporation should be dissolved and the supporting legislation quashed, turning the responsibility over to the Municipal level of government, albeit the Municipal level would have to be liable for discrepancies and erroneous assessments to protect the public.
Tom Black, President
Ontario Landowners Association
The Ontario Landowners Association shall defend and promote the principal of strong local governments, democracy, and natural justice and represent the interests of the rural community.
For Rural Ontario to survive, Property Rights and judicial reform must be enshrined into law at all three levels of Government, these being; Federal, Provincial, and Municipal.
Rural Ontario is under systematic attack by government bureaucracy and false environmentalism.
The Ontario Landowners have and will continue to expose and meet these threats with determination and resolve in the court of public opinion.
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