Government must pay fair share of property taxes: judge

OTTAWA - In landmark decisions that could have repercussions for cities and towns across the country, a Federal Court judge has ruled that the federal government and its Crown corporations have a duty to pay their fair share to municipalities for the properties they own. In three cases that pitted the City of Montreal against the federal government and two of its Crown corporations, Justice Luc Martineau ruled that federal officials cannot arbitrarily decide how much they will pay the city, and overturned decisions by bureaucrats to pay the city considerably less than the city would have received from a private property owner.