A dairy producer risks seeing his farm cut in two by the extension of Highway 70 to Lac-Saint-Jean. He fears that he will not be fully compensated for the harm suffered if Bill 22 is adopted.
“Whether the highway passes over me, but whether we are well compensated or displaced, we deal with it, but knowing that I am going to receive a pittance and that I am going to be sold like the last of the not solvent, it creates in me anxiety,” says Jean-Michel Gagnon, owner of the Gagnon Saint-Bruno farm in Lac-Saint-Jean, over the phone. He runs a herd of 100 Holstein cows and cultivates land of approximately 140 hectares.
Jean-Michel represents the fifth generation of Gagnons to operate the farm at 8e Rang, in Saint-Bruno, since 1901.
“We have already had several meetings with the [ministère des Transports], indicates Mr. Gagnon. We know that the highway corridor will split my land in two, that’s 100% certain. The final layout should be released next spring. »
PHOTO PROVIDED BY FERME GAGNON
Jean-Michel Gagnon, owner of the Gagnon Saint-Bruno farm, in Lac-Saint-Jean
According to the minister responsible for the project, Geneviève Guilbault, Bill 22 aims to provide more predictability regarding compensation to be paid in the event of expropriation and to reduce delays.
The detailed study of the bill in parliamentary committee ended on November 9. Dozens of amendments were adopted. Consideration of the parliamentary committee’s report and adoption of the amended bill should follow soon.
Under Bill 22 (PL 22), the real estate compensation to be paid to the expropriated party must normally be composed of the market value of the property to which is added a series of compensations, some capped, to compensate for the harms.
In comparison, the rules in force for 40 years regarding expropriation first determine the best and most profitable use of the property and then set the compensation on the basis of the optimal use of the value to the owner . In addition, the damage directly suffered is always fully compensated.
“Just taking away the value from the owner is already big,” says Mr. Gagnon. Normally, we paid for the best and most profitable use, not the market value. »
According to the future expropriator, agricultural land is now worth $2,850 per hectare in his hometown. According to a scenario under study, the Ministry of Transport will subtract approximately 20 hectares diagonally, for a total market value of $57,000 for 20 hectares of land.
ILLUSTRATION PROVIDED BY FERME GAGNON
The areas in blue represent the lands belonging to Jean-Michel Gagnon after the expropriation.
The future harms are numerous, according to Mr. Gagnon. Now landlocked on a small plot of land, his stable will be isolated from the cultivated land, which will be on the other side of the highway. There is no land available nearby to replace the 20 hectares he will lose, he maintains. Due to a lack of land to feed his animals and spread manure, his expansion plans are compromised, as he buys milk quota regularly, he emphasizes.
Article 102 of PL 22 does not recognize as damage caused directly by the expropriation the loss of profit resulting from it.
“If the farm becomes unprofitable,” he adds, “it could lead to the dismissal of my employees, and I will have to pay severance pay. »
“I’m not for sale,” he repeats. The government is buying me against my will. He has to compensate me. We must not take the market value, otherwise we will return to the era of the expropriations of Forillon Park in the 1970s.”
As a reminder, the Quebec government expropriated 225 families in 1970 to create Forillon National Park in Gaspésie. Most families have become impoverished. The financial compensation was far below the value for rebuilding a house. After a victory in court years later, steps were taken to reopen the first settled cases with the intervention of the province’s first public protector, Mr.e Louis Marceau, whose decision of September 15, 1975 in the case of the expropriated people of Forillon left its mark on the institution.
PHOTO BERNARD BRAULT, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
A plaque which recalls the memory of the expropriated people of Forillon.
The Press asked the lawyer who successfully defended 125 expropriated people from Forillon before the Court of Appeal for his opinion on PL 22. “I tell myself that if this reform had been in place at the time of the expropriation of Forillon, all those almost expropriated would have lost three, four, even five times the value of the property that was granted to them, argues Me Lionel Bernier, in an interview. The government experts were trying to pass the market value formula, while I was defending the value to the owner at the time. »
Well-founded fears?
“Will the farmer who will see his land cut in two be fully compensated? “, wonders aloud the Liberal MP for L’Acadie, André Morin, that The Press attached. Spokesperson for the official opposition on transport, this lawyer multiplied the questions during the fifty hours that the analysis of PL 22 lasted. “I was told that the farmer should not lose , he said in an interview. If he can no longer use his land, we will work to find him another one. This is the government’s response. »
“Unfortunately, I have to tell you: we will see,” agrees MP Morin.
For its part, the Ministry of Transport is reassuring. “This owner will receive the fair market value of their land. The law also provides for compensation possibilities in the event of loss of income, which would be compensated in the same way as in the Expropriation law current,” says its spokesperson Nicolas Vigneault, insisting that the final route of the highway has not yet been decided.