Sask. evangelical church ordered to pay property taxes on its daycare

Embassy Church owns this Prince Albert building and operates a daycare and public event venue. (Source: Google)

A church in Prince Albert will be required to pay property tax on its in-house daycare but won’t be charged for its commercial event venue, following a recent court decision.

The building, a Central Avenue downtown building formerly occupied by a Co-op grocery store, is used for multiple purposes, including as a church, a registered independent school, a daycare and as an event space rented out to the public — Plaza 88.

Embassy Church Inc. and the city have seen successive rounds of appeals on a 2023 tax assessment before coming to Saskatchewan’s highest court late last year.

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The 2023 assessment, which valued the property at over $2.8 million, determined only the portion of the property used for the independent school was exempt from tax, in line with provisions of the Cities Act. The church disputed this, arguing the entire space was predominantly used as a place of public worship.

The City of Prince Albert has maintained that, since the event space and daycare are open to the general public regardless of religious affiliation and used for commercial purposes, they don’t qualify under the religious exemption.

In a decision released this week, Justice Jerome Tholl rejected the appeal from the City of Prince Albert to restore its initial assessment, upholding a ruling from the Saskatchewan Municipal Board exempting all but the daycare from property tax.

Tholl cited an earlier decision from the appeal court that describes a broad definition of public worship — one not solely limited to formal church services. His definition includes both the church and the public hall.

“It follows, since the public may and do attend the services, that the hall is dominantly a place of public worship, while the activities which have been referred to, though prominent, are nevertheless collateral and subsidiary thereto,” Justice John McKenzie wrote.

“In essence, in that case, a place of public worship was identified by what it was not used for,” said Tholl.

“On this basis, an educational centre was determined to not be a place of public worship.”

The court dismissed the city’s appeal and ordered it to pay Embassy costs in the amount of $3,000.