Irvings now in compliance with P.E.I.'s land ownership limits, minister says

P.E.I.'s minister of justice says a corporation with ties to the Irving family is in compliance with the province's limits on land ownership, even though that corporation has not sold land acquired in a controversial land transfer in 2019 after a divestiture order from the minister the following year.

During question period in the P.E.I. legislature Tuesday, Green Party Leader Peter Bevan-Baker questioned why all the parcels of land involved in a controversial land transfer in 2019 are still owned by the same corporation. That information was published Saturday by the Charlottetown Guardian.

"The cloudy web of convoluted corporations that is the Irving empire has yet to divest the 2,200 acres that have become known notoriously as Brendel Farms," Bevan-Baker said.

"Red Fox Acres, an Irving corporation, still owns that land and leases it out to Lady Slipper Farms Ltd., a New Brunswick corporation owned by, yes, you guessed it, the same Irving family member as Red Fox Acres."

Corporate records in New Brunswick list Rebecca Irving as the sole director of Lady Slipper Farms Ltd. P.E.I. records list her as one of three directors and three shareholders in Red Fox Acres Ltd.

"In other words, the Irvings are leasing out the land to themselves," Bevan-Baker said.

P.E.I.'s Lands Protection Act places limits on the amount of land individuals and corporations can control. 

In August 2019, Justice Minister Bloyce Thompson vowed to close any loopholes in the Lands Protection Act and ordered the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission to investigate after a transfer of land from Brendel Farms involving 890 hectares in the Summerside and North Bedeque areas went ahead without going before cabinet for approval. It was acquired by Haslemere Farms, which later changed its name to Red Fox Acres.

In October 2020, Thompson said a report from the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission (IRAC) had concluded a company and two individuals had contravened the Lands Protection Act by having too much land.

Thompson said he asked the parties involved to divest of the extra land within 120 days.

Since then, Rebecca Irving and Red Fox Acres have both asked P.E.I.'s Supreme Court to nullify the minister's decision.

Rebecca Irving is a member of the larger Irving family, which has multiple corporate interests including Cavendish Farms Ltd.

Last fall, after a review and consultation process, Premier Dennis King's government implemented a suite of changes to the Lands Protection Act.

They were meant, in part, to make it easier to police P.E.I.'s land ownership limits — particularly measures meant to prevent corporations "directly or indirectly controlled by the same person, group or organization" from stacking up land limits in order to control more land.