Expropriating should never be easy. Dispossessing a citizen of his or her assets — even with compensation — must remain an exceptional procedure.
If the government has granted itself such a power, our bulwark against its misuse is the high cost associated with it in order to make it a justifiable measure only in the rarest of cases. With its Bill 22, Quebec proposes to reduce the cost of expropriation by reducing the amount of compensation paid to affected owners.
It should be noted that Quebec has already seen the pain that an unfair expropriation regulatory framework could cause to those affected by these procedures.
In 1969, no fewer than 12,000 Quebecers were forcibly relocated by the federal government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau to build Mirabel International Airport. This tragic event has left its mark on those who experienced it directly. Separations, family disputes, alcoholism and even suicides were the direct consequences of this decision.
When the Government of Quebec decided to codify the legal framework for expropriation in 1973, this episode was still sufficiently fresh in the collective memory to be mentioned during the debates of the National Assembly during the study of the bill.
It is this same law — since amended and interpreted by the courts — that today defines the terms of expropriation in Quebec.
By making expropriation a costly process, the current law protects the citizen. First, its high cost means that there is a better chance that all the solutions have been explored before opting for the coercive appropriation of a citizen’s land. Then, the high compensation makes it possible to ensure that the expropriated person obtains fair compensation for the dispossession that the State imposes on him.
It should not be forgotten that the just nature of the compensation is necessarily different depending on the point of view of the expropriated party or the expropriating party. For the government agency wishing to force you to hand over your property to them, the lower the amount, the better. For the party forced to divest itself of what belongs to it—whether it is its factory, its residence or its farm—it is normal to seek to obtain the greatest amount possible.
It must be recognized that, considering the highly intrusive nature of the action, the expropriated party is the principal affected by this decision. It therefore seems entirely justified that the calculation of the compensation compensates for the damage suffered.
This is moreover why the current system provides that an expropriated citizen receives, by way of compensation, the market value combined with the potential use of the property in question.
What the government would seek to do, however, is to change the law to the benefit of the expropriator rather than the expropriated, by paying only the market value of the land as it is in its present form. . This could have a detrimental effect on the number of new development projects in Quebec.
To fully understand why, let’s take the hypothetical case of a landowner of several hectares who would like to build residential buildings there. He hires architects, engineers, surveyors and other professionals to develop his project. Its land may not have been modified yet — construction has not yet begun — but it is clear that the amount that would have to be spent in order to convince its owner to part with it increases as time goes by. as plans progress.
However, in the new regime that Quebec would propose, the potential of this land and the project on which the owner is working would not be taken into account in the calculation of the indemnity in the event of expropriation. Only the market value of the land, as it is, would be.
We can also understand that such a legislative change would reduce the attractiveness of investing in Quebec given the risk of arbitrariness that is added to the equation.
Over the next few months, all that is teeming in the municipal world will try to swallow this snake by evoking the “savings” that will be achieved by the cities. However, this ignores the very high cost that will be borne by the owners who will be dispossessed in the name of these so-called savings.
In short, this bill will allow municipal administrations to achieve their wish by making a limited number of people pay the price of the “common good”…and at a discount. This is a moral hazard rarely seen in Quebec and it must be curbed immediately.