The Co-operator’s late 2023 interview with Manitoba Agriculture Minister Ron Kostyshyn included a carrot for forage Crown land leaseholders. He said there would be new announcements in the New Year.
On Jan. 2, a press release arrived in media inboxes. Crown land changes were now in effect, it said, including that:
- Forage capacity will be determined when the lease is issued and will remain for the entire length of the agreement;
- A five-year extension on a 15-year lease term is available to leaseholders who complete and implement a forage management plan for at least the last five years of the 15-year lease term;
- Unlimited transfers of a 15-year forage lease or renewable permit to any eligible lessee for the remainder of the lease term;
- Legacy leaseholders will be able to nominate the next leaseholder, subject to the Treaty Land Entitlement and consultation assessment; and
- In the last year of the lease, outgoing leaseholders who choose compensation for improvements must obtain an appraisal from an accredited appraiser indicating the value of the eligible improvements. The appraised value will be posted at the time of allocation. If the lease is reallocated within two years of expiry, the successful bidder must pay the outgoing leaseholder the posted amount.
Producers “felt abandoned by the previous government whose changes to Crown land leases hurt their livelihood,” Kostyshyn said in the release.
That’s hard to argue, if you’ve paid attention to the Crown lands saga, at least for ranchers in the Interlake and Parkland. There unquestionably was a wave of outrage and distrust of government following changes ushered in by the Progressive Conservatives in late 2019.
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But if the wording of the Jan. 2 press release sounds familiar, it should. It’s pretty much word for word what was promised to producers after the Progressive Conservatives re-opened the file. Under then-ag minister Derek Johnson, those changes got the stamp of approval in late summer 2023, long before Manitobans went to the polls.
The careful wording, crediting the welcomed changes to the “Manitoba government” (blithely skipping over which government), isn’t surprising from a political strategy angle. But given the shaky relationship between forage leaseholders and the province in recent years, Kostyshyn and the NDP would be wise to prioritize unvarnished transparency if they want to rebuild trust.
A little linguistic misdirection might fly over most heads, but those reliant on Crown land know exactly what leaseholders were promised and when they were promised it.
Ranchers who helped Kostyshyn win back his seat did so with the understanding that the Crown land situation would improve under a new government. His mandate letter calls on him to “reinstate unit transfers to the Crown land program while also making leases more affordable to give the next generation of producers a fighting chance.”
The ag minister says the province is starting from “ground zero” on this file, that it will be “reviewing the present Crown land lease legislation that was brought in by the previous government,” and that it is “prepared to sit down with producers and go through the regulations.”
While all that sounds positive, leaseholders also have visceral memories of being burned by the government before, and vague promises without detail are unlikely to appease them.
The Crown land changes themselves were initially framed as a good news story. Then, there was the matter of the disappearing transition measure.
When regulations were first announced in fall 2019, leaseholders were told the unit transfer – which allowed them to transfer lease rights to a new owner upon selling their farm – would be eliminated.
But at least the first version of the regulations allowed one last transfer, with the new leaseholder accountable to the new system’s rules. Producers received that information at numerous meetings.
When the government later amended the regulations, adding a first right of renewal for established leases, that measure quietly disappeared. The province later argued that it had never been in play despite being initially presented.
Producers felt betrayed by the move and the response.
The NDP must work hard to rebuild leaseholder relationships. That begins with honesty over political capital.
