mandryk: sask. agriculture minister's denials on foreign farmland ownership bizarre
while foreign ownership of saskatchewan farmland is a major concern to the provincial auditor, the provincial agriculture minister denies it's a problem.
3 minute read
saskatchewan farmland is getting more pricey and the provincial auditor is suspicious foreign investment is involved. agriculture minister daryl harrison begs to differ.
brandon harder
/
regina leader-post
according to newly-minted agriculture minister daryl harrison, foreign ownership of saskatchewan farmland isn’t really a problem. but it’s perhaps the biggest problem in agriculture today, according to provincial auditor tara clemett and a whole lot of farmers.
any minister seemingly denying a well-explored problem raised by the provincial auditor in a formal report seems troubling.
but maybe the bigger problem for the saskatchewan party government is having an agriculture minister who doesn’t comprehend a serious issue in his portfolio — a surprising problem for a governing party that won every constituency in the october vote that had a farm within its borders.
the standards for this portfolio have been high.
consecutive agriculture ministers from bob bjornerud to lyle stewart to dave marit all demonstrated a knack for homing in on the issues that are most important to rural and farm voters.
the issues have often been difficult — none more so than the critical problem of rising farmland prices.
they’ve gone up by a nation-leading 391 per cent since 2001 and 259 per cent since 2016. that should be the one issue that would most pique the new agriculture minister’s curiosity.
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frankly, whether farmland is still affordable in rural saskatchewan is an issue that people have been talking about for years now. certainly, it’s a big reason why the number of farms in saskatchewan has declined 82 per cent to 24,523, compared to a peak of 138,713 in 1941.
everyone knows big money is behind bigger and bigger farms. however, what no one knows — including the auditor and the farmland security board — is how much farmland prices are being driven up by foreign interests.
“having foreign entities buying saskatchewan farmland does increase the risk that we don’t have saskatchewan and canadian residents that own that farmland, and it could be making prices higher than they should be,” clemett told reporters tuesday morning during the release of volume 2 of her 2024 report.
her report noted the farmland security board did not request proof of residency for purchases made by out-of-province corporations in nine of 18 purchases, and further noted 140 exemptions were granted in the last five years, many to european companies.
maybe that doesn’t seem horrific, given that there are 40,000 land transactions annually. and the provincial auditor admits she “can’t say the extent” of the problem.
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but, critically, her report notes the board has an “effective process except” it needs to insist on statutory ownership declarations, review transactions more quickly than five months after they happened, “set escalation procedures for non-compliance” and “determine how to effectively regulate farmland leases” where the problem may be much greater than ownership.
such recommendations seem perfectly reasonable, even stopping short of the more restrictive measures in manitoba and alberta, which require a review before finalization of land transactions instead of after the fact, as is saskatchewan’s approach.
but rather than help alleviate concerns by suggesting there actually might be a problem, harrison stuck to the nonsensical talking points he was fed by communications staff.
multiple times in the chamber, he emphasized that the auditor said there was an “effective process.” dutifully, harrison critically omitted the word “except” and didn’t properly acknowledge her recommendations.
later, he told reporters there is “no foreign ownership” (except for the 140 examples clemett cited). and he insisted “the audit did not find any confirmed instances of unauthorized foreign ownership” (except that the farmland security board didn’t even ask for proof of canadian residency on half of the out-of-province purchases cited).
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in fairness, clemett’s office can’t say to what extent foreign ownership and leasing are driving up farmland costs. and harrison may be right that some foreign entities could be mining or oil companies, or other ventures.
but it was irresponsible for a minister to simply misrepresent the intent and words of an officer of the legislature the way he did.
without fact or substance, what he mostly offered was flat-out denials to thoughtful, careful concerns in a provincial auditor’s report.
we’ve come to expect better from the sask. party agriculture minister.
mandryk is the political columnist for the regina leader-post and the saskatoon starphoenix.
our websites are your destination for up-to-the-minute saskatchewan news, so make sure to bookmark thestarphoenix.com and leaderpost.com. for regina leader-post newsletters click here; for saskatoon starphoenix newsletters click here
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