Tribunals Ontario

Tribunaux décisionnels Ontario

Assessment Review Board

Commission de révision de l’évaluation foncière

ISSUE DATE: June 2, 2026

FILE NO.: DM 190492

Assessed Person(s): 1693533 Ontario Inc.

Appellant(s): Metro Ontario Inc.

Respondent(s): Municipal Property Assessment Corporation Region 18

Respondent(s): City of Port Colborne

Property Location(s): 124 Clarence St.

Municipality(ies): City of Port Colborne

Roll Number(s): 2711-010-021-14300-0000

Appeal Number(s): 3535620, 3524011 and 3549983

Taxation Year(s): 2024, 2025 and 2026

Hearing Event No.: 792482

Legislative Authority: Rule 45 of the Assessment Review Board’s Rules of Practice and Procedure

Parties

Counsel/Representative

1693533 Ontario Inc.

No one appeared

Metro Ontario Inc.

James Brook

Municipal Property Assessment Corporation

Kashifa Aslam

City of Port Colborne

Kristina Domenicucci

REQUEST FOR: An Order for Disclosure

HEARD: April 9, 2026 in writing

ADJUDICATOR(S): Hayleigh Cudmore, Member

MOTION DECISION

OVERVIEW

Introduction

1Metro Ontario Inc. (“the Appellant”), is a tenant operating a grocery store at 124 Clarence Street in the City of Port Colborne (the “Subject Property”). The Appellant has filed an appeal pursuant to s. 40 of the Assessment Act, S.O. 1990, c. A.31 (the “Act”) for the 2024 and 2025 taxation years. Pursuant to s. 40(26) of the Act, the Appellant is deemed to have brought the same appeal in respect of the 2026 taxation year.

2The basis of the appeal is that the Subject Property’s current value is incorrect. Specifically, that the fair market rent is too high and the Gross Leasable Area is incorrect.

3The Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (“MPAC”) and the City of Port Colborne (“the Municipality”) are responding parties to this appeal proceeding.

4MPAC has filed a motion requesting an order for the disclosure of the Lease of Metro Ontario Inc. (in and around 2016/2015-current) (the “Lease”), by the Appellant.

5MPAC asserts that the Appellant is required to disclose the Lease. The Appellant is prepared “to provide lease summaries and extracts” upon ensuring that property confidentiality safeguards are in place, but not the full Lease. Consequently, the Appellant opposes MPAC’s disclosure request. The Municipality did not provide submissions.

RESULT

6The Motion is granted, in part.

ISSUES

7The sole issue the Board must address is: Should the Board order disclosure of the Lease?

ANALYSIS

The Legal Test to be Applied

8The Board’s Rules of Practice and Procedure:

Proportionality

5. These Rules shall be applied in a manner proportionate to the importance and complexity of the issues in a proceeding and with a view to resolving appeals within the four year cycle.

Disclosure

45. All parties must provide a copy, in paper or electronic form, of all relevant documents in their possession, control or power to all other parties in the proceeding, except for privileged documents, or documents that cannot be disclosed by law

9The test to be applied regarding disclosure has been set out in Walmart Canada Corporation and Target Canada Corporation v Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, Region 01, 2018 CanLII 67789 (ON ARB).

18Relevance is determined in relation to whether a document is relevant to an issue in dispute. However, this is not the only criteria that the Board will consider when determining whether a document, which may be relevant, should be disclosed. Rule 45, itself, provides an exception for privileged documents. In addition, Rule 5 provides that “These Rules shall be applied in a manner proportionate to the importance and complexity of the issues in a proceeding and with a view to resolving appeals within the four year cycle’. Therefore, the requirement to disclose relevant documents must also be applied in a proportionate manner. Rule 45 does not include specific criteria to assess proportionality. However, the Board finds that the criteria in Rule 29.2.03(1) and (2) of the Rules of Civil Procedure (Ontario) are applicable, namely:

1. the time required for the party or other person to answer the question or produce the document would be unreasonable;

2. the expense associated with answering the question or producing the document would be unjustified;

3. requiring the party or other person to answer the question or produce the document would cause him or her undue prejudice;

4. requiring the party or other person to answer the question or produce the document would unduly interfere with the orderly progress of the action; and

5. the information or the document is readily available to the party requesting it from another source.

6. whether an order for disclosure would result in an excessive volume of documents required to be produced by the party or other person.

The Board observes that this is a non-exhaustive list. There may be other criteria identified on a case by case basis.

19In applying the above criteria, the Board must balance these considerations against relevancy, i.e. the degree to which it appears that the document is relevant to an issue in dispute, and, if so, how probative this evidence may be. The onus to establish that a document should be disclosed pursuant to Rule 45 rests with the party who requests the disclosure.

20In addition to the above, it should also be noted that Rule 45 only requires disclosure of documents in a party’s possession, control, or power. A party is not required to produce new information, or obtain documents that are not within its possession, control, or power.

10The Board developed its Practice Direction on Disclosure Requirements for General and Summary Proceedings (“Disclosure Guidelines") to assist parties in ensuring that adequate disclosure is provided, and to avoid disputes respecting disclosure whenever possible. The Disclosure Guidelines include a Disclosure Schedule outlining the most common issues that arise in appeal proceedings under s. 40 of the Act, and, for each issue, provides a non-exhaustive list of disclosure items considered to be relevant, and, therefore, should routinely be disclosed. Schedule “A” of the Disclosure Guidelines provides for disclosure of “leases or lease summaries as appropriate for the five years ending and concluding with the valuation date, if available;” for appeals concerning Fair Market Rents under the Income Approach in relation to current value.

Request: Lease of Metro Ontario Inc. (in and around 2016/2015–current)

Submissions

MPAC’s Submissions

11MPAC submits that it “requires the documents and information requested to address the issues raised in the appeal, to prepare its expert valuation reports, to come to an informed view of the 2016 correct current value for the Subject Property, and to meet its statutory burden under s. 40(17) of the Act. The information requested is not otherwise available.”

12MPAC submits that it requested the Lease several times both directly, and through a formal disclosure request made through the Board. On November 4, 2024, MPAC served its Statement of Response without having reviewed the disclosure requested.

13MPAC submits that the Board’s Disclosure Schedule identifies that leases are relevant when an appellant raises fair market rent as an issue.

14MPAC submits that “The information and documents requested are readily available,” to the Appellant and that the disclosure requests are proportional to both the importance and the complexity of the issues, and to the value in dispute.

Appellant’s Response Submissions

15The Appellant argues that production of the lease is not proportional or relevant. The Appellant argues that the request is a demand for the 1983 anchor lease and four decades of amendments, far outside the Board’s Disclosure Guidelines and disproportionate to the issues in dispute, arguing that historic leases are not probative to the issues.

16The Appellant argues that lease summaries provide all of the material economic terms necessary for Fair Market Rent analysis. The Appellant argues that the Lease is not the best, or most widely accepted way to get the necessary information.

17The Appellant also argues that legacy leases, such as the one at the Subject Property, are not typically produced and that clauses from the historic lease executed in 1983 are not relevant. The Appellant’s expert provided that in his work he relies on lease summaries, and that older legacy leases, by contrast, are often fragmented, redacted, or incomplete, and do not provide additional probative value beyond what is already available in the summaries. He further provided that the Lease does not provide anything that he would need to produce his expert opinion on Fair Market Value.

18The Appellant submits MPAC’s request for a full lease agreement in and around the valuation date is impossible because “no such lease exists.”

19In terms of proportionality, the Appellant details the difficulty assembling the full historical Lease and concludes that “that compelling production of the full Lease would add burden without benefit.” The Appellant argues that it would “suffer prejudice in having to reconstruct a 1983 lease chain across retired systems and paper archives, with inevitable gaps,” and that its “burden far outweighs MPAC’s claimed prejudice.”

20The Appellant also submits that ordering disclosure would create disproportionate burdens in future appeals, particularly for older anchor tenancies.

MPAC’s Reply Submissions

21The Board did not receive Reply submissions from MPAC.

Findings on Disclosure Request

22In determining whether to order disclosure, the Board applies a two-part test. First, the Board considers whether the information sought is relevant to the issues in dispute. Second, the Board considers whether ordering disclosure is proportionate to the issues in dispute. The Board will address each in turn.

Relevance

23The income approach is the correct methodology to determine the current value of the Subject Property. The Lease contains information about the property’s ability to generate income in the form of rent and is, therefore, relevant to determine the 2016 current value of the Subject Property.

24The fact that the Appellant’s own analysis of current value does not rely on parts of the Lease does not negate its relevance. It is not for the Board to say what, if anything, MPAC might find useful in this otherwise relevant document. Further, Rule 46 of the Board’s Rules of Practice and Procedure provides that the disclosure of a document is not an admission of its relevance or admissibility.

25The Appellant correctly points out that MPAC lists specific information that it requires from the Lease in paragraph 29 of its materials. The Board notes that to date, no disclosure has been provided. Regardless of this enumerated list, there are any number of things that could be found in a Lease that could affect MPAC’s opinion of value, and the Board should not deny a party the ability to verify source documents.

Proportionality

26The Board finds that the production requested is not overly broad or voluminous so as to preclude production on these grounds. The Lease, although made of several component parts, is one document.

27The Board acknowledges that the Lease is a historic lease spanning back several decades. This does not change that it is the document in effect during the relevant time period.

28The Board agrees with the Appellant that the relevant years as set out by the Disclosure Guidelines, are 2011-2016 and it is not clear why MPAC requested the Lease from “in and around 2016/2015–current.” For this reason, the Board will order disclosure of the Lease in effect in 2015 and 2016 but not beyond that, as there has been no argument put forth by MPAC for relevance beyond that date.

29The Board does not accept the Appellant’s argument that the Lease does not exist. The Appellant’s own Statement of Issues provides, “The Appellant reviewed the lease agreement and submitted that the correct leasable area for the subject grocery store is 28,268.” Further, the Appellant’s expert provides that he reviewed digitized lease extracts in August 2025. While he notes various redactions etc., it appears that some of the legwork of finding and digitizing old versions has already been done.

30After the Appellant makes its best effort to produce the Lease, if there remain parts that cannot be found, unredacted, or otherwise cannot be produced, the Appellant can advise MPAC accordingly.

31The Appellant argues that disclosure of the full Lease from an anchor tenant with a lease agreement spanning multiple decades is a departure from established disclosure practices and could have the systemic effect of creating disproportionate burdens in future appeals, particularly for older anchor tenancies. While the Board acknowledges that certain practices may become commonplace in litigation, this is not enough for the Board to deny disclosure.

32The Board’s Disclosure Schedule does not say that providing a Lease Summary necessarily precludes the need to provide a full lease, given the “as appropriate” qualification. The Disclosure Schedule contemplates that different circumstances may require different forms of lease disclosure. Whether a full lease is appropriate in these circumstances is the very subject of this disclosure motion.

Confidentiality

33The Appellant has provided no disclosure material to date, stating that it would provide lease summaries and extracts if a non-disclosure agreement was in place. In response to the Appellant’s concern respecting sensitive commercial information contained in the Lease, the Board notes that s. 53 of the Act provides protection with respect to any sensitive information and proprietary business details given to MPAC.

CONCLUSION

34MPAC’s disclosure request is granted, in part. The Lease is relevant to the issues in dispute, and disclosure is proportionate in the circumstances.

35The Appellant is directed to provide the Lease of Metro Ontario Inc. in place from 2015-2016, in its entirety, within 30 days of the issuance date of this decision.

36The Board directs an extension of the Schedule of Events as set out in the Order below.

ORDER

37Metro Ontario Inc. is directed to provide all documents in response to the Disclosure Request in this motion within 30 days of the issuance of this Motion Decision.

38The due date in the Schedule of Events for service of the Statement of Response (Weeks 13-20) is amended to a date 60 days after the issuance of this Motion Decision All subsequent dates in the Schedule of Events are to be adjusted accordingly.