WHEREAS section 317 of The Municipalities Act empowers municipalities to give notice to any person who “who purchases oil or gas originating in a well with respect to which the resource production equipment is used, that the owner or operator of the well has failed to pay the taxes levied on the resource production equipment” and  that “on service of the notice, the purchaser of oil or gas from any well identified in the notice shall, as any moneys become owing from the purchaser to the owner or operator of the well with respect to the purchases, remit the moneys to the municipality to the amount claimed in the notice.”

WHEREAS the provincial government no longer tracks who purchases oil and gas, therefore making it very difficult to find purchasers of oil and gas, which limits the remedies available to municipalities looking to collect tax arrears.

BE IT RESOLVED that SARM lobby the provincial government to implement tracking of sales information of oil and gas so that section 317 of The Municipalities Act can be utilized.

View response from the Ministry of Energy and Resources