BILL NO. 129

(va) all pipeline for the transportation, transmission or distribution of petroleum, petroleum products, natural gas, hydrocarbons or any other thing, including all fixtures and attachments necessary to operate the pipeline, and

(ta) "shelter" means to protect from the elements, from injury or from escape or to provide refuge from the weather, danger, attack, pursuit, interference or observation, notwithstanding, where a structure actually provides shelter, that the purpose of the structure may not be to shelter its contents;

(u) "structure" means an improvement consisting of one or more component parts that are affixed to or permanently resting upon land or buildings and that enhance the value of the land or buildings or improve their usefulness for the purposes for which they are used and, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, includes all fixtures and attachments necessary to operate the improvement, all haulage, labour, engineering and overheads and any pipeline, gas plant, fractionation plant, slugcatcher, oil refinery, petroleum industrial plant, natural gas industrial plant, hydrocarbon plant and related petro-chemical industrial plant and all fixtures and attachments necessary to operate the foregoing but, for greater certainty, does not include machinery and equipment as defined in subsection (1) of Section 43 or property, including vehicles or any machinery, equipment, appliances, storage and working tanks or thing, including their foundations and footings, that is portable or attached to the structure or a building only for safety or security;

(3) For greater certainty, the definition of "structure" does not affect the application of subsections (4) and (5) of Section 42 and Sections 43 and 43A respecting the phase-out of the taxation of machinery and equipment.

(1A) Notwithstanding subsection (1), all fixtures and attachments necessary to operate structures that provide shelter shall be assessed for a sum to be called business occupancy assessment.

(2) Regulations made pursuant to subsection (1) may be made retroactive to January 1, 2000, or such later date as those regulations specify.

(6) Where

(a) the total assessed value of a person's properties in a municipality included in the uniform assessment of the municipality for a taxation year, including any business occupancy assessments calculated with respect to the properties, is reduced as a result of assessment appeals by an amount that is three per cent or more of the municipality's uniform assessment that was calculated using that value; and

(b) all assessment appeals by that person respecting the properties included in that value have been determined or abandoned, including any appeals from those determinations,

the uniform assessment for the area that is the municipality shall be calculated to reflect the reduction by deducting the amount of the reduction related to the earliest taxation year so long as

(c) the amount has not already been deducted in calculating the municipality's uniform assessment for this or a previous taxation year;

(d) reductions related to different taxation years are deducted in successive taxation years to ensure that the uniform assessment is only reduced for one taxation year for any one person assessed; and

(e) the assessment appeals are determined or abandoned on or after the first day of November, 2001.