Saint-John-Council-Dec.-22-2014_4

Common Council Votes To Get Legal Advice On Canaport LNG Tax Deal

News February 17, 2015 1:23 pm Last Updated on December 8, 2025 1:59 pm

Common Council deciding to seek legal advice from the city solicitor on how the installation of a pipeline impacts the tax concession granted to Canaport LNG back in 2005. Council also voting to initiate talks with Irving Oil on the issue along with the proposed development of an export terminal.

City Manager Pat Woods says if there was no tax concession it would yield slightly over $8-million in municipal property tax revenue for the city however he says the unconditional grant would then decline in the order of $3 or 4 million.

Councillor David Merrithew says he want to see them, with the help of the province, determine whether this can be looked into. He believes it would be healthy for them to go to the owner of the terminal and ask to get into some real negotiations.

Meantime, Irving Oil supports the motion put forth by Common Council to have the city solicitor look at the LNG tax deal granted 10 years ago.

Chief Human Resources and Public Affairs Officer Kevin Scott tells us they are pleased the City is moving forward with an open discussion and they are more than willing to talk adding they recently invited the city solicitor and city staff to come out and have a look at the pipeline and see it in operation.

When it comes to a potential $8-million in annual revenue from the facility, Scott says we have to understand the tax assessment process on the new pipeline but they don’t think it fundamentally changed the LNG facility.