Farm-organization brief
For: general farm organizations (e.g., CFA, provincial federations, NFU) — early consultation before any public farm claims. Prepared w15; NOT SENT.
Why we're coming to you first
We published our farm numbers before asking any farmer to trust us — and the
numbers surprised us, so we corrected ourselves in public: the average Canadian
farm holds ≈$4.0M of land ($4.9M in SK/AB) — far above the equal share. Under a
naive version of our proposal, the average farm would be charged more than its
operating income. We wrote that down where anyone can read it
(analysis/farm-cut.md), and designed accordingly.
The design, for farms
- Charges are set by farm rental value at agricultural use-value assessment — your province already assesses farm-class land this way; the charge is sized like the cash rent a tenant neighbour pays, not a percentage of speculative land prices.
- Full deferral while the land farms. Charges can accrue and settle only when land is sold out of farming or passes through an estate. No operating farm pays cash it doesn't have.
- Tenant parity. Roughly 40% of Canadian farmland is already rented; renting operators pay ground-rent today to private landlords. The settlement asks owner-operators for the equivalent — and pays every farm household its members' shares in cash annually, regardless.
- No exemption — we're honest that we rejected it (it would recreate the farmland tax shelter) — and no development-value taxation while land stays in farming.
What we're asking
Tell us where this breaks. Succession, incorporation of family farms, hutterite colonies, supply-managed quota interaction, young-farmer land access — we'd rather hear it in a consultation than in a hearing. The objections file is public and your objections will be added to it, steelmanned, with names or anonymously as you prefer.