“If you don’t put on work boots in the morning, why should you own farmland? » asked Parti Québécois agriculture spokesman Pascal Bérubé on June 28. However, Radio-Canada discovered that its leader, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, owns 150 hectares of agricultural land in Témiscamingue.
At the end of a row in Saint-Édouard-de-Fabre stands an abandoned ancestral home and a few bales of hay on the Parti Québécois (PQ) leader’s vast agricultural property. The neighbors haven’t seen Mr Plamondon since last year.
On May 30, 2022, three months before the election campaign, the politician, a lawyer by training, with his partner and a few friends from Montreal bought this land, the size of one and a half times the Plains of Abraham, for an amount of $249,000.
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The leader of the PQ returned to Abitibi-Témiscamingue on his campaign bus on September 12, 2022 to present his agricultural program. He promised to take action against the expropriation of agricultural land.
The Parti Québécois proposes and undertakes to enact laws to limit the area that a non-farmer could own, explained Paul St-Pierre Plamondon. Today, a year later, the PQ still has not set this limit.
Since this summer, a major public consultation has been underway in Quebec to prepare a reform of the law protecting land and agricultural activities, as good farmland disappears every year under pressure from development and speculators.
On June 28, 2023, PQ MP Pascal Bérubé reiterated in an interview with Radio-Canada that measures must be taken so that only farmers who work on agricultural land can own it.
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The Matane-Matapédia member contacted by Radio-Canada stands by his words: Yes, I still believe it. Is buying its leader incompatible with the party’s position? “I don’t know,” he replies. As for Témiscamingue’s agricultural land, I don’t know what he is doing with it, says Pascal Bérubé.
Similar to the increase in the value of agricultural land in Quebec, the value of land in Saint-Édouard-de-Fabre has also risen sharply in recent years. Four years ago, the property was valued at $61,200 on the township rolls. In 2021, it was valued at $98,700. The following year it was finally bought by Paul St-Pierre Plamondon and his friends for two and a half times more.
“I’m not a speculator,” says Paul St-Pierre Plamondon
“I don’t expect to speculate,” the PQ leader assures Radio-Canada. I also don’t grab any land so that it becomes fallow.
Paul St-Pierre Plamondon explains that he leases the arable part (around ten hectares) to a neighboring farmer at a loss so that he can grow hay. In this way, he claims to have reactivated properties that had good potential but had been abandoned for a long time.
There is no ethical problem or contradiction.
Together with his partner and his friends, he wants to keep this country for a very long time. The group has launched a sustainable farming project using solar panels and rotational farming within ten years.
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The ancestral home in Saint-Édouard-de-Fabre in Témiscamingue, acquired by Paul St-Pierre Plamondon.
Photo: Thomas Gerbet
He also wants to save a listed building by giving the old house on the edge of the row a second life.
The PQ leader promises to “think” about the regulations.
Paul St-Pierre Plamondon says the seller gave them a verbal promise that they had an agricultural intention. In fact, in Quebec, for example, there is nothing stopping a small investor from Montreal who wants to diversify his investment portfolio from purchasing agricultural land in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, where it is the cheapest in Canada.
The only legal requirement is to be a resident of Quebec, explains former deputy agriculture minister from 2004 to 2008, Michel St-Pierre. Beyond that, there are no other restrictions.
According to Mr. St-Pierre, also co-president of the Jean Garon Institute, the government should add a condition mandating that the land be put into production and not left fallow pending possible rezoning.
“I will think about it,” said the PQ leader. That’s a completely legitimate question.
How can we distinguish the big player who speculates and blocks land productivity from the small players who want to try their luck in small-scale sustainable agriculture? How to draw the line would require some thought.
A public consultation on agricultural land from November
Last June, the CAQ government announced the launch of a major national consultation in three parts on agricultural land, agricultural activities and agricultural land. This final part of the discussion will open in November. The Legault government would then present a bill in autumn 2024.
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Agriculture Minister André Lamontagne seeks a balance between protecting the best arable land and promoting regional development, particularly housing.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Bianca Sickini-Joly
Like other political parties, the Liberal Party of Quebec proposes to regulate the acquisition of agricultural land by persons who do not intend to farm on land with high agronomic potential, and to define the permitted and prohibited activities.
Québec Solidaire introduced a bill to combat land grabbing in May 2022, banning the purchase of land by investment funds and introducing a register allowing the identification of the identity of land buyers. The party also wants to counteract the phenomenon of land being purchased without at least leasing it to farmers by introducing dissuasive measures against idle land.
The Parti Québécois is also calling for a map that would show us which lands are owned by third parties, neither in the agricultural world nor related to it, which currently does not exist.
According to the Union of Agricultural Producers (UPA), which analyzed land transactions in the agricultural zone, in 2022 half of the acquisitions were made by non-agricultural people, while in 2012 this share was 12%.