Class Action

[blackjack]

...put the lease land up for sale...but horse...i have a feeling you would be mighty disappointed in who would buy it...

[ivbinconned]

Here the holder of a lease pays for any improvments and still pays all the fees and taxes.

If and when the lease changes hands the new leaser has to pay for the improvments at a negotiated price.

Also horse one point I made that you have not commented on, so I will repeat it. The holders of grazing leases have to keep paying all the fees and taxes even in years of drought, when there is NO use and therfore NO income from the land.

I recently went 7 years where the use of my lease was nill! It will take a few good ones to regain my costs.

I make this point because of the difference between renting deeded land from a private person as compared to a crown lease.

[Horse]

IVBC do you pay by AUM or set acerage price, if you pay per AUM I rather doubt you pay more on good yrs than poor ones theAUM set here is a joke mabey 20-30 AUM per 1/4 most if not all here use more AUMs than they pay for There is supose to be 25% left for wildlife well in the dry yrs the wildlife went on a diet or moved into hay stacks and then the gov paid damages because the leaseholder took more than his share.I think the deaded land holder took it on the chin to so why should the gov lease holder get a cake walk?
And if that isnt enough then take your own advice and move to Alta.

[cowman]

Horse: I don't know why or how the situation evolved the way it did for grazing leases? I do believe the leaseholder should have some say in oil and gas exploration on the leases? If you let the oil companies just deal with government flunkies they would just do whatever, whenever they wanted to?
Several years ago a hunter challenged the grazing leases in court? The Rio Alto ranch was basically bought as a playground for wealthy oil man Doc Seamans and he intended keeping it as a private hunting preserve(16,000acres) for himself and his rich buddies? A native hunter was denied access and he took them to court. He won, but the whole thing was rather cloudy because of the fact he was an Indian...so not sure if that is still the accepted practice?
Without a doubt the grazing lease situation in Alberta is costing the tax payer a lot of money, but maybe is not such a bad solution? At least, for the most part, the surface rights revenue is going into the local economy and farmers pockets? Do we really want to put the leases up for sale or annual tender? You know who would have access to them then, right? A hint...not old Joe Rancher!
And in reality if you take away surface rights revenue a lot of these leases just don't make a lot of sense...certainly not enough to justify the high prices being paid for them? And what good are they for people a good distance from them?
My grandfather had a small grazing lease (480 acres). It quite frankly was nothing but a pain in the butt! I think you could only put 45 cows on it and because it couldn't be brushed there were always trees on the fence, cows with sore feet, every man and his dog thought it was a great place to hunt! He sold it about thirty years ago and said buying it was one of the dumbest things he ever did...now mind you there was no oil exploration on it!

[blackjack]

horse...why stop at the rancher...why not go after the natives as well...maybe they will share their oil and gas revenue with you...

[Horse]

Blackjack the natives have a title to thier property even if comunal. Following your argument why not share your salery ,because you worked for it it is yours but we share the govmt share of your salery because the gov is suposedto be me and you.
I realy cant figure out why a subsidy to the yanks and the europeans is bad but a subsidy to lease holders is not.
A subsidy is asubsidy is a subsidy.

[Horse]

horse if the natives have title to their property where you live they are a minority, unless of course they are Metis.

First Nations people living on reservations do not have title to their land, it is owned by the federal government and managed by band councils etc.

Off reserve natives such as the Smallboy band near Rocky Mountain House may very well have title to their land but it is not considered reservation lands.

[cowman]

If the federal government owns the Indian reserves then I would suggest it is time to give them to the Indians and stop the red ink? Because obviously this is not a winner for the taxpayer of this country?
Maybe the Saskatchewan professor who wrote the paper about how farmers are not viable in Canada and a drain on the economy could be hired to write one on the Indians in Canada? He would probably conclude that they weren't viable and get rid of them in the interests of the Canadian tax payer?
Does that sound reasonable?
I mean at least the farmer produces something called cheap food? What does an Indian Reserve produce?

[cowman]

cowman, it depends on the band. Siksika Nation east of Calgary is a shining example of what natives can do if they are allowed to manage their own lands without too much red tape.
Those folks have an environmental program that is second to none, they have excellent farming operations and an Ag Fieldman that knows his stuff and is respected by his peers across the province.
I have attended seminars on agriculture at Siksika and came away very impressed and thinking that many of us including numerous municipalities should take a page from their book when it comes to protecting the environment and utilizing their own expertise .

The stigma attatched to treaty indians has held many of them back from doing much of anything with the lands they live on. I blame the entire system, and hopefully the conservative government will attempt to revamp it.

Another area that is off topic that needs to be changed is the fact that the NWT etc. do not have control of their resources but have revenue doled out by the feds. This has held back progress in the north, they have the resources but no roads to get at them in many areas.

Being our brothers keeper hasn't worked so its time things were changed.