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Boosting benefits of pits and quarries in Manitoba’s municipalities

August 24, 2017 – The Manitoba Heavy Construction Association (MHCA) has long advanced the notion of collapsing the Aggregate Mines License Fee and Aggregate Transportation Fee into a single Community Enhancement Levy, calculated on aggregate tonnage extraction. The proposed CEL is designed to provide municipalities that host quarries with higher, more predicable revenues they can use for local infrastructure priorities.

Within the last number of months, the MHCA has had constructive discussions with key rural municipalities around the further advancement of that concept.

“We think we are making progress to develop consensus on building a better, more progressive and transparent taxation system that improves the returns to the communities hosting aggregate pits and quarries,” MHCA president Chris Lorenc said.

Lorenc noted that some municipalities don’t collect the license and the transportation levies because of the administrative burden. The proposal would resolve that problem because the new CEL would be collected by the province along with the government’s existing pits and quarries rehabilitation levy. This, therefore, would see new benefit to many more communities.

“We think it’s a win/win/win proposition. The industry gains because the rules and fee structure are the same across municipalities, the communities gain with dramatically increased revenues to be used as they see fit and the province wins through a stable, cooperative aggregate production environment.”

The CEL proposal is part of the discussions being considered by a provincial pits and quarries advisory committee, composed of industry, municipal and provincial representatives. The committee’s recommendations are to go to relevant provincial ministers by November.