-by Gerard Naddaf
Some may have heard that John Bragg, one of our own homegrown billionaires, recently purchased Cabot Cape Breton from Ben Cowan-Dewar, Mike Keiser, and associates. Since I recently wrote several articles on Cabot Cape Breton (CCB) from several different perspectives – most notably, regarding assessment evaluations, property taxes, government largess, employment and the West Mabou Beach Provincial Park controversy – it is worth looking at what will change, and what may not change, now that CCB has new ownership.
Who is John Bragg?
John Bragg, whom I admire, is a prominent rural entrepreneur and a strong proponent of rural development. He may be best known as the founder of Oxford Frozen Foods, the largest wild blueberry processor in the world, and the owner of the telecom Eastlink. Bragg’s Tignish Holding recently purchased 427,000 acres of woodland and related operations from Northern Timber for $235 million; the latter is associated with the erstwhile Northern Pulp Mill in Pictou. Personally, I’m glad to know that this vast area of Nova Scotia is now in local – even if private – hands.
Bragg, a passionate golfer, claims that he’s remaining a silent partner in Cabot Cape Breton. Apparently, he was already a limited partner in Cabot Links at Inverness Limited Partnership.
What Bragg paid for Cabot Cape Breton
Let me begin with what Bragg paid for CCB. What was previously listed as Cabot Cape Breton Limited (owned by Ben Cowan-Dewar and Mike Keiser) on Property Online (PO) is now listed as 4797050 Nova Scotia Limited (owned by John Bragg). As I noted last year, PO listed 37 Property Identification Numbers (PIDs) under CCB Limited. It currently lists the same 37 PIDs under 4797050 Nova Scotia Limited. There’s now an additional four for a total of 41 (three of which have no determined value yet). PO also provides the latest (2026) assessment of each PID, but this is also available on viewpoint.ca, which includes previous assessments and taxes for all PIDs in addition to indicating if a property is capped or not.
Property Valuation Services Corporation, meanwhile, will also provide the prices at which the PIDs were most recently sold under the Assessment Account Number. In the case of Cabot Cape Breton Limited, it sold in four groups of nine parcels or PIDs and one group of five parcels or PIDs. Three were sold at $66,557,675 and two at $12,707,207, for a total of $225,087,439. Apparently, John Bragg had already invested in Cabot Cape Breton (see above), which would suggest that the value would be higher, but as I mentioned in a previous article, most of the condominiums have been purchased by investors and are not part of Cabot Cape Breton Limited, which may explain the faux property tax revenues bandied about by some sources, including the CBC.
Assessed value versus market value
What about the assessed value of the properties that comprise CCB? First, most of these properties fall under the commercial category, and the total assessed value of all the commercial properties (28 in total) is $24,066,100. Since the commercial property tax rate in Inverness is 1.91 per cent, the total taxes would be $459,662. There are also five residential properties – four of which are listed as land only – with a total assessed value of $1,186,700. The residential property tax rate is 1.05 per cent, which totals $12,460 in taxes. Finally, there’s eight properties that fall under the category of resource, with a total value of $211,600. The tax rate is again 1.05 per cent, for a total of $2,137 in tax revenue. The combined total is thus $474,259. (In 2025, under Cowan-Dewar, it was $333,436.)
One thing that stands out here is that the assessed value of Cabot Cape Breton is around 10 per cent of its market value – or put another way, the market value is almost 1,000 per cent more than the assessed value.
Guidelines not followed
Meanwhile, according to the Nova Scotia Assessment Act, all properties in Nova Scotia must be assessed at market value. As an article on the website of the Halifax-based Century 21 All Points puts it, “This approach is considered the most equitable and widely accepted system in North America and throughout the world. All provinces in Canada use this approach.”
I noted in previous analyses and opinion pieces that Cabot Cape Breton’s world-class golf courses were probably woefully undervalued and thus the property tax was considerably less than what it should be. Even then, the County of Inverness was claiming to be receiving $1.2 million in property taxes from CCB – a figure that, once again, is still bandied about by the CBC, but without any traceable evidence (see above).
Not all treated equally
Incidentally, research conducted on viewpoint.ca and Property Online shows that while the newer (non-resident) condominiums at Cabot Cliffs have seen their assessments and thus taxes rise each year since their construction five years ago, the older (non-resident) condominiums at Cabot Links (if 11 years is old!) have seen their assessments and thus taxes remain stagnant since 2021. Maybe locals or Nova Scotians in general should ask why their own assessments and corresponding taxes have, on the other hand, increased each year.
What Statistics Canada reveals
Early in 2027, Statistics Canada will release the new quinquennial (five-year) census for the entire country, which will include the breakdown for the town of Inverness and the county at large. As I noted before, in the 2021 census, Inverness (village), the home of Cabot Cape Breton, had among the lowest per capita incomes within the County of Inverness, and indeed within the province at large – and yet Cabot Cape Breton has since 2012 been seen by many as the goose that laid the golden egg.
No one contests that CBB has been a great success story. Indeed, look at what it just sold for! Yet, when it does slow down – as was the case during Covid-19 – Cabot looks to the taxpayer for a handout. The reality is, it’s not the locals who are reaping the benefits; but, then again, StatsCan may tell a different story in the near future.
Taxpayers forgotten
Finally, in all the recent praise regarding the success of Cabot Cape Breton, there is rarely any mention that the big investor was the taxpayer (to the tune of over $40 million in loans and grants), without which CCB may not have seen the light of day. Meanwhile, Cowan-Dewar’s recent persistence in lobbying the Government of Nova Scotia to give CCB a free hand in West Mabou Beach Provincial Park to add to his and his partners’ little golf empire begs the question: Will John Bragg, a great admirer of Ben Cowan-Dewar – and there is much to admire – and a strong proponent of rural development, ignore what most rural folk want in the form of good-paying jobs, fair taxation, and the recognition that some public land is off limits to development?
Gerard Naddaf is emeritus professor of philosophy, York University, Toronto. Formally from North Sydney, he now divides his time between Halifax and Cape Breton.