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Property assessment guidelines denying off-coal agreement parties additional depreciation upheld as intra vires.
The appellants, owners of coal-fired electric power generation facilities, challenged the vires of provincial linear property assessment guidelines that denied them additional depreciation on account of an off-coal agreement they had entered into with the Crown.
The appellants argued the guidelines violated the common law rule against administrative discrimination and were inconsistent with the purposes of the enabling statute.
The Court held that the reasonableness standard of review presumptively applies to vires challenges to subordinate legislation, as set out in the companion case.
The Court found the guidelines did discriminate against parties to off-coal agreements but that such discrimination was authorized by necessary implication under the broad ministerial power to establish valuation standards and regulations respecting specifications and characteristics of designated industrial property.
The appeal was dismissed, the guidelines being intra vires and consistent with the statutory purposes of ensuring current, correct, fair and equitable assessments.
