YMCA must pay property taxes in Toronto, Ontario’s top court rules
Posted February 25, 2015 4:24 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The YMCA will have to pay property taxes for four buildings it leases in Toronto, Ontario’s top court ruled in a decision Wednesday that turned on the interpretation of the word “of”.
The organization had claimed an exemption based on the YMCA Act _ a provincial law passed in 1923 _ that says buildings, land and equipment “of” the YMCA are property-tax exempt.
In June last year, Superior Court of Justice Paul Perell said the exemption didn’t apply to leased properties, only to those the organization actually owns.
The YMCA appealed, arguing Perell had been too narrow in interpretating the word “of.”
The Appeal Court disagreed.
Ultimately, the court said, the protection afforded by the YMCA Act depends on the words that were used.
“It is a principle of statutory interpretation that every word that is used in a statute is to be given meaning,” the court said.
“The question is whether the leased premises are buildings or lands of the Toronto YMCA.”
The court concluded a leasehold interest in land is not the same as ownership for property-tax purposes.
To make its case, the YMCA also relied on a 2007 decision in Kitchener, Ont., in which Superior Court ruled the organization’s leased facilities were in fact exempt from paying property taxes.
In that case, however, a specific exemption had been granted in 2005 for all land used or occupied by the association in the area, including leased property, the Appeal Court said.
“(The court) interpreted the statute in light of the 2005 amendment, including its preamble, and concluded that the legislature intended that property leased by the Kitchener-Waterloo YMCA should be exempt from taxation in both Kitchener and Waterloo,” the Appeal Court said.
“That is not the situation here: The YMCA Act contains no such amending language that would suggest that leased properties occupied by the association were intended to be exempt from taxation,” the court ruled.
“It may be unfortunate, but hardly surprising, that the property used by various local YMCA associations in some cases will be exempt and in other cases not.”
