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Bill 9 - Land Agents Licensing Amendment Act, 2008

October 28, 2008 - Third Reading

Ms Blakeman: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’m pleased to be able to speak at third reading of Bill 9, the Land Agents Licensing Amendment Act. I had started out I think in second and raised a few issues, made some brief comments, and then had some reaction from people. I did quite a bit of work on the bill in trying to understand it and follow through on that: consulted with some additional people, did some additional research. I listened to some of the debate in committee but didn’t get a chance to participate.

Now we’re in third, in which I am really speaking to the anticipated effect of the bill. I have to admit, Mr. Speaker, that I’m not totally satisfied with the explanations that I’ve heard around this bill. I think some of my initial concerns have not in fact been answered. I know this bill is special to the Deputy Chairman of Committees, but it strikes me that we have conflicting issues here. Essentially, the request seems to have been that landowners wanted to choose who could represent them. Where the conflict starts to come is that if the landowners choose people that they wish to represent them, there’s still an expectation that the oil and gas companies are going to pay for these individuals’ services.

There’s some push back. I mentioned a couple of the names that I’d received letters from that are on the payers’ side, the oil and gas companies, with a little bit of push back, you know, that they’d now continue to be expected to pay for these individuals that are not on their company payroll or aren’t contracted to work for both the oil and gas company and the landowner.

It strikes me that what’s at the bottom of this is really education and consumer protection. This is not an uncomplicated business. I’ve just used a double negative there; my apologies to my English teacher. I’ve seen the number of different pieces of legislation that land agents have to be very familiar with in order to do this job well, and it’s a tall list. That isn’t to say that individuals that a landowner would choose to represent them would be uneducated in the necessary acts in order to represent someone well, but there’s no requirement that they be.

I guess my concern is always around consumer protection because when everything goes wrong, when everything goes south, the public looks to us and says: “Why didn’t the government do something? Why didn’t you anticipate that this is where it would go wrong?” A lot of our consumer protection legislation comes about because we’re the only ones that can do that. So here’s a situation where it’s been identified that it’s not working as well as people would like in the community, and they’ve asked for something different. Also a part of what was a catalyst for this was a court case that happened where someone was acting for a landowner and got taken to court and essentially lost, but in many ways they won because we now have a piece of legislation in front of us that will put into effect exactly what that individual was trying to do, which was to represent a landowner as the landowner’s choice.

My concern from this is that we’ve now created a second category, and that new category is the – wait a minute, let me get the exact wording here. We used to have a land agent being someone – well, the whole thing read:

(c) “land agent” means
(i) a person who
(A) on behalf of the person’s employer,
(B) as an agent on behalf of another person, or
(C) on the person’s own behalf, negotiates for or acquires an interest in land, or
(ii) a person who for a fee, which includes accepting compensation for travel and other incidental expenses, gives or offers advice to an owner or the owner’s agent with respect to a negotiation for or acquisition of an interest in land.

That whole thing, section 1(c), is now repealed, and what we get is:

(c) “land agent” means a person who negotiates for or acquires an interest in land
(i) on behalf of the person’s employer,
(ii) as an agent on behalf of another person, or
(iii) on the person’s own behalf.

What you’re really missing out of this is the fee portion, and it does in effect create this new category of land agent who does not necessarily work for an oil and gas company. The inference here is that they are chosen by the landowner. Fair enough. That clearly needed to happen. Landowners wanted that to happen. They wanted to feel that they could choose somebody, and they’re going to have the ability to do that in this act. That’s going to be the effect of it.

My concern is that we’re now expecting that the oil and gas companies will no doubt be expected to pay, and they may be expected to pay for people who aren’t certified in any way, shape, or form. There are no certification requirements here. Before, a land agent would have been someone who would have to receive that certification through the appropriate association, and there were certain standards that they had to meet there. That requirement is not there now. They don’t have to go through that professional association and meet that criteria. They could be, you know, a relative or a friend or a neighbour. They could be anybody. There’s no requirement that they meet certain standards or have certain education or training in order to perform this work. I think we will see trouble down the road when the oil and gas companies are reluctant to pay for someone’s services, and the landowner, who may well be facing some strained financial circumstances, isn’t willing to either, so now everybody is unhappy. We have someone who potentially wasn’t certified to do the job. Another possibility, not necessarily the same scenario, clearly, is that they can’t get compensation from either side, either from the landowner or from the oil and gas company, and they’re unhappy about that.

I do see this as a consumer protection issue because we want everyone to be as educated and prepared and vigorous as possible. I think that raises the bar, and we are not ensuring competencies here. There’s nothing in this act that is requiring someone performing this job to have a certain level of familiarity with the legislation.

I question whether we, in fact, have set the bar higher for full and fair negotiations. I think we didn’t. We didn’t lower the bar, but we took the bar away, and I think that’s going to be problematic in the future. Again, there’s no requirement that a standard of education or knowledge be met, and I wonder whether some of those people who want to do this work end up feeling like there’s a mark against them starting out because there’s no piece of paper. There’s no certification for them to wave at somebody and say: “No, no. Really. I know all of this because here’s the certification from the such-and such society. I know how to do this.” They have nothing that they can show to a landowner to say: yes, I know what I’m doing here.

On the one hand, that may allow people that don’t have competencies – true enough – but it may also put a person with competency but without the certification because they’re not a member of the land agents’ association to prove that they’ve got that competency.

So we’re hooped either way. I wonder why we couldn’t have looked at some sort of criteria that expected either a classroom or an apprenticeship or both to be set into place here. That’s my anticipated effect of this bill. I think there are going to be issues that arise out of this that are going to be about both questioning competencies of land agents and also a land agent’s inability to prove their competency because they have no certification, no piece of paper to show anybody, and I think there are going to be issues about who’s going to pay. None of those scenarios are particularly happy ones.

I think we were all seeking a more solid outcome as a result of that court case that happened. I think we were trying to establish a new category of land agent that wasn’t necessarily tied to the oil and gas industry as much as people seem to feel historically has been the case, and I don’t think we succeeded. I don’t think we satisfied everybody on this one. I think the bottom line is that it’s a consumer protection issue. I don’t feel that we did in the end protect the consumer, and we are going to end up having to deal with the repercussions of this. I think everybody worked hard on it, but I’m not sensing that we hit the right solution.

As a final note I want to say how pleased I was to be corrected. If the Speaker remembers, when I first started out talking about this bill, I said something about how there weren’t very many women involved in this and was immediately corrected by a number of women who, in fact, worked in this area. I think they ended up telling me that there was a whole bunch of them. There were lots, 169 or something. I actually read the number into the record at one point.

Just as a final note, how thrilled I was to find out that this is not only an area in which women have been working for some time but an area in which women have really excelled. This is detailed work. It’s about multitasking, and it’s about working with people and trying to come to a successful conclusion for everyone. The women that I met that work in this area are dynamite, so it was a great opportunity for me to get to meet some women that are working in a really cool sector. I was very glad that I made the mistake in the first place and that those doors opened for me.

Thanks very much, Mr. Speaker. I’m glad I got a chance to put my final concerns on the record. The bill is clearly going to go forward, and I’m going to support the bill. I just wish we could have addressed those issues because I think that’s where we failed ourselves and where we failed the people that are in the sector that were looking for both the new description but also some sort of standards and certification around that and some way of satisfying the oil and gas sector if they end up having to pay for those services.

Thanks again for the opportunity.

The Acting Speaker: Under Standing Order 29(2)(a) five minutes are available for anyone to comment or question.

Mr. Berger: I’d like to ask the hon. member across the floor who she would expect to pay for those services. The landowner is not going to the oil and gas company looking for someone to drill. It’s the other way around. So who would you put that onus on as paying for those services?

Ms Blakeman: Well, I’m not involved in these negotiations, but from what I’ve heard from people, there’s an expectation, very clearly, that the oil and gas sector is going to pay for this. The deal previously was that the oil and gas sector was paying for people that were either certified land agents or were working for the oil and gas company. Now you’re asking them to pay for somebody that is neither of the above, and there has already been an indication that they have some hesitation around that. I’m sure you’re just as privy to those letters of concern as I was. I’m sure you could have answered the question yourself because you probably got the same information I did.

That’s the situation that has been created here. We’ve moved beyond what the oil and gas sector had historically been willing to pay for, created a new category that they don’t have control over, nor can they verify certification, and there’s still an expectation they’re going to pay for it. I think that under those circumstances I can understand why they might balk a little bit, and the legislation does nothing to give them any certainty or any satisfaction.

Mr. Berger: My second question, then. We have plenty of negotiators out there that haven’t got the certification you’re speaking of. They happen to be the ones picked by both the oil and gas sector and the landowner sector. Can you explain to me and this House why those people shouldn’t be able to negotiate these contracts?

Ms Blakeman: I’m sorry. The member is going to have to go back and read all of my comments in Hansard. Clearly, he has not followed the arguments that I was making because that’s not what I was saying.

Mr. Berger: The comment was that it could be someone’s relative or a friend. Does it mean that they are unable to negotiate because they’re a relative or a friend? They still may have the ability and may have negotiated in the past and are very well versed in it and are both the pick of the oil and gas companies and the landowners, but they don’t have certification. Are they unable to negotiate, by your thoughts?

Ms Blakeman: No, clearly not, Member. I’m wondering why he’s having such a hard time grasping this concept. Obviously, a friend or a neighbour, a mother, a father, a long-lost ancestor is capable of negotiating on their behalf whether they’re certified or not. I’m not sure why the individual is having such a hard time understanding this. Perhaps he’d like to read the legislation again.