Province retracts $580K property-tax levy on Irving crude-oil tank farm
CBC
Provincial property taxes of nearly $600,000, levied on Irving Oil's deep-water crude-oil tank farm back in March, was an error that did not signal an end to a four-decade-old tax exemption on the site, according to the New Brunswick government.
Instead, the exemption has been reactivated and the tax bill retracted.
In a series of emails explaining why provincial property-tax amounts charged to the tank farm appeared in March, but have since disappeared, the director of communications for Service New Brunswick said the property briefly lost its tax exemption classification in an inadvertent internal computer incident.
"There was an activity to the property account that reset the classification," wrote Jennifer Vienneau.
"It has been manually reset to the original classification."
In March, the province issued property tax bills to all landowners in New Brunswick and for the first time in 42 years, it charged Irving Oil for provincial property taxes on a number of parcels that make up its Canaport crude-oil terminal.
All commercial and industrial properties in New Brunswick, from corner stores to nuclear plants, pay two property taxes, local and provincial, unless specifically exempted by legislation.
The tank farm pays full municipal property taxes to Saint John, but in 1981 it was awarded an exemption from paying provincial property tax by the former government of Richard Hatfield.
The facility sits on Mispec Point, next to Repsol's LNG terminal at the edge of the Bay of Fundy.
It has a storage capacity of six-million barrels and receives shipments from ocean-going tankers that arrive from around the world multiple times each month. The tank farm feeds the crude to Irving Oil's Saint John refinery, about eight kilometres away by pipeline.
The property-tax exemption was meant to help Irving Oil weather a significant drop in North American petroleum consumption, caused by the 1979 oil crisis. Those troubles resolved themselves long ago, but the tax exemption has persisted.
In its most recent 2021 accounting of the cost of exempting Irving Oil's crude-oil tank farm properties from provincial property taxes, the New Brunswick Department of Finance valued it to be worth $674,929 to the company.
However, since 2021, provincial tax rates on business properties in New Brunswick have been reduced, and the value of the exemption in 2023 is closer to $580,000.
According to the finance department, the exemption's purpose remains to "support the competitiveness of infrastructure that is important for economic development."
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre will take to the stage Friday for what could be one of the most important speeches of his political career as he tries to convince delegates at the party's Calgary convention to keep him in the job.
As his flight departed from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport en route to Kuwait via Istanbul, Canadian crypto fugitive Andean Medjedovic was unaware that his globe-trotting lifestyle would soon be halted.
One of the largest taxi companies in Toronto will be down to three wheelchair-accessible cabs by the end of March, as advocates and providers say the city is failing to support accessible taxi drivers.
As a deep freeze continues to envelop southwestern Ontario at the same time municipalities deal with a pressing shortage of road salt, there's a renewed focus on finding different ways to melt road ice.
Dave Lawson is a proud Canadian who has bumper stickers that say "Canada is not for sale." He's fed up with grocery products plastered with maple leaves and patriotic logos that turn out to be American imports.
The Town of Badger has issued an evacuation order for some residents as water levels on the Exploits River continue to rise.
The head of a national seniors' advocacy organization says protecting nursing home residents from sexual abuse is an important but challenging issue.
New data shows Winnipeg's fire-paramedic service fielded hundreds of reports involving the city's homeless population, but one advocate says she expects that number to go down in light of the city's limits on where encampments can be.
Former students of the Île-à-la-Crosse Boarding School have reached a settlement in their lawsuit against the federal government.
Missing baby presumed dead after father charged with killing mother in St. Albert, Alta., police say
A man is facing charges in the death of a young mother in the Edmonton area and the presumed death of their missing nine-month-old daughter.
A school trustee in Prince George, B.C., says she's shaken and scared after being surrounded by police with their guns drawn and then put in handcuffs, in what RCMP say was a case of mistaken identity.
Despite an eleventh hour attempt to secure at least a few more weeks of freedom, a Calgary dentist was handed a three-year prison sentence for a decade-long insurance billing fraud.
Canada Computers & Electronics says a data breach has leaked information about some of its customers, though several say they are unhappy with the scant details the retailer has provided — including how many of them were affected, and when the breach occurred.