The government’s recent musings about selling off Alberta’s Land Titles registry system to the highest bidder should have all landowners and taxpayers concerned.
Former Service Alberta Minister Manmeet Bhullar says the department is open to exploring privatization to make capital improvement expenses.
According to the minister, the cost of modernizing is pegged around $29 million.
With Alberta now well into its sixth year of deficit budgets and now accruing debt, asking the private sector to pick up these expenses would seem like a shrewd move, but sadly it is nothing but short-sighted.
Currently, Alberta’s Land Title System is one of the few areas of government that is actually generating revenue.
Last year alone, it created $69 million in profit for the Government of Alberta.
Certainly, prioritizing spending and reinvesting a portion of this revenue to maintain a world-class system should not be an obstacle.
Now, as a member of the Wildrose, a party that believes in the power of the free markets, we are in favour of exploring where the private sector can meet the public’s demand for services and limit government’s involvement.
However, when it comes to the Land Titles system, it is a monopoly for the creation, transfer and extinguishment of real property interests.
To grant this monopoly to a private enterprise would be to hold government captive to the private holder of the monopoly and would work against the private economic interests of land owners, the province and taxpayers.
Simply put, selling our Land Title’s registry to a private interest to operate as a monopoly is not how we deliver good public services.
And if we look at other jurisdictions in Canada, we see that privatization has had mixed results.
In Ontario, an agreement has been in place with Teranet since 1991.
Along with unexpected challenges with changes in the system, Ontario now charges $20 for accessing information online. The charge in most provinces, including Alberta, is $0.
In fact, Land Title fees in Alberta remain the least expensive in Canada.
In November, Minister Bhullar called Alberta’s registry the “gold standard,” and his own deputy minister agreed, calling the system darn near perfect.
The Wildrose prides itself on putting forward new ideas and providing Albertans with a real alternative to the current government, but we also believe in common sense and if a program isn’t broke, don’t fix it.
It is our hope that in the coming months new Service Alberta Minister Doug Griffiths backs off from their misguided plan to sell off landowners’ interests to the highest bidder.
For the time being, Albertans can be assured the Wildrose will continue to stand up in the Legislature and defend their interests.
Bruce Rowe is the MLA for Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills and the Wildrose Service Alberta Critic.
