7.4 Municipal Property Assessment Corporation
MPAC/SEFM
| Year | 2012 |
|---|---|
| Issues |
|
| Impact following FLSC’s intervention | Agreement between MPAC and the Commissioner’s Office |
| Current status | Follow-up and accelerated complaint processing |
When people buy a house in Ontario, they are given the opportunity to choose which school board they want to support. This is done through the Land Transfer Tax Affidavit (LTTA).73
However, if the new owners do not indicate their school board support on the LTTA form, or in an application to MPAC, their school support is directed by default to the English-language public school boards.74 This situation has generated plenty of complaints since the first few years of the Commissioner’s term. The complainants were unhappy about this process, which seemed to favour the English-language public school system over the other three systems: the English-language Catholic school boards, the French-language public school boards and the French-language Catholic school boards. However, school board funding no longer depends directly on the number of taxpayers who channel their support to their board, but rather on a budgetary envelope from the province.
The Commissioner raised these issues repeatedly between 2008 and 2012, when he signed an agreement with MPAC.
Effectiveness of the intervention
The purpose of having an agreement between the Commissioner’s Office and MPAC was to improve the delivery of quality French-language services and expedite the complaints process.
Since then, MPAC has made improvements in the form that it sends to homeowners to make it easier for them to register their school support election. The commitment to respond to complaints received by the Commissioner’s Office within five business days continues to be honoured.
73. For more details, see https://csfontario.ca/en/enquetes/municipalites/societe-devaluation-fonciere-des-municipalites (page consulted in March 2017).
74. In accordance with section 16(4) of the Assessment Act.