Saskatchewan Surface Rights
The Saskatchewan Landowner Advocacy Project
In a quiet way, without an announcement or saying anything to anyone, the Saskatchewan Surface Rights Project quietly kicked off earlier this year. The project was deliberately designed to get underway in a quiet fashion, distributing information to landowners about the way their rights are defined within provincial law. At the same time, we were working on a project to better equip a core of landowners who will be increasingly effective as landowner advocates in the province.
The purpose of the project is to bring Saskatchewan’s landowner-related legislative and regulatory provisions up to date. The province lags far behind Alberta in many regards, further evidenced by the fact that a 1960s Saskatchewan Royal Commission called for very specific changes in provincial rules, yet to this day, major aspects of that Commission have never been acted upon.
Our first mass distributed publication related to the Saskatchewan Project told the story of Brian Campbell, the Moosomin area landowner who found out the hard way that provincial crown corporations have a greater right to his land than he does. The publication had a print run of 155,000 copies. Additional publications will be coming in the fall and throughout the winter of 2010-2011.
Preparing a Group of Landowner Advocates
At the same time that this first Saskatchewan-oriented publication was arriving in mailboxes, on a weekly basis, a dozen landowners were participating in three-hour conference calls, learning about a wide range of regulatory and legislative issues. Each call featured an individual making a 60 to 90 minutes presentation on a specific topic, followed by a 60 to 90 minutes question and answer session.
Topics included surface rights legislation, the role of independent regulators, the relationship between regulators and the energy sector, property rights versus legislated permissions, how landowner organizations such as CAEPLA can be pro-development and pro-landowner at the same time, environmental and stewardship issues related to the abandonment of facilities and pipelines.
The individuals who led these sessions were licensed land agents, lawyers, or long time landowner advocates. The objective of the process is to ensure that the landowner advocates associated with the Saskatchewan Project are better equipped, able to address a wide range of issues.
This second round of weekly sessions with many of these same landowner leaders gets under way this summer. Once again, for thirteen weeks, a dozen individuals will be connecting by video conferencing for regular three hour training sessions. Topics at this second round include property rights, stewardship, surface rights legislation in Alberta, surface rights legislation in Saskatchewan, the role of regulatory bodies, the structure and practices of Ottawa’s National Energy Board, and the history of surface rights law in Saskatchewan and Canada.
These summer and fall sessions will be hosted by a variety of individuals who can credibly and succinctly articulate the issues at hand. Weekly session leaders include: Lorne Gunter, a well known national journalist with a particular interest in property rights; Thomas Merrill, a professor from Columbia Law School in New York; plus practicing attorneys from Ontario, Alberta, and Saskatchewan who have an established track record of litigation on landowner related issues.
Communication Strategies — Radio and the Printed Word
Even as the landowner leaders associated with CAEPLA are working to be better equipped, the communication strategies associated with the Saskatchewan Project will get underway. This includes a very short daily radio spot throughout the summer, followed by a weekly talk radio program in the fall. The radio program is scheduled to run six months, right through to the end of Feb/beginning of March 2011.
There are several other key aspects of the Saskatchewan Project that as they are initiated, will be posted at this webpage.