Value of grazing leases outside scope of review

Albertans still won’t know how much they’re being shortchanged from a so-called “cowboy welfare” grazing lease program despite an ongoing government review, the public accounts committee heard Thursday.

Environment deputy minister Bill Werry told the all-party legislative committee the lease program, initially started in the late 1880s, is a benefit for the province and his department is working to better communicate that to Albertans.

“We don’t believe that Albertans are being poorly served by what’s happening on the land base at the moment, but there is always room for improvement,” Werry told the committee.

The program is under review after a scathing report from Auditor General Merwan Saher last year found the province could be out an estimated $25 million in annual revenue from fees paid by oil and gas companies for access to public lands that are instead being funnelled to the leaseholders who use the land for livestock grazing.

Those findings showed existing rules allow an “unquantified amount of personal financial benefit to some leaseholders, over and above the benefits of grazing livestock on public land,” Saher told the committee Thursday.

Werry said the government isn’t considering any changes that would make disclosing the value of any compensation paid by industry to leaseholders a required part of new or existing leases.

“That’s outside the scope of our current review,” Werry said.

It also won’t uncover the total value of those payments, how many leases have oil and gas well sites on them, and what leaseholders earn when they sell those contracts.

The province doesn’t have the authority to collect that information under existing legislation, Saher noted during the committee. “That surprised us,” Saher said. It’s not clear if the province is considering any changes to the Surface Rights Act, but Alberta Environment spokeswoman Janice Coffin noted any amendments would need “significant stakeholder consultation with private landowners, public land leaseholders, as well as petroleum producers.”