14. The minimum annual rent shall be $1 per ha for areas usable for blueberry fields and $4 per ha for areas usable for silvicultural purposes. No rent shall be payable for uncultivated or unproductive areas mentioned in the lease.
The rent set in accordance with the first paragraph shall be indexed on 1 April of each year on the basis of the rate of increase in the general Consumer Price Index for Canada for the period ending on 31 December of the preceding year, as determined by Statistics Canada under the Statistics Act.
The Minister shall inform the public of the annual indexing by means of a notice published in the Gazette officielle du Québec or by such other means as he considers appropriate.
Where blueberries are cultivated in new fields, the lessee shall pay an additional rent equal to 30% of the net selling price obtained on all apparent cubic metres of wood exceeding an average yield of 55 apparent m3 per ha.
The net selling price used in calculating the additional rent shall be the average price obtained during the same year for 1 species by the wood producers’ union of the region in question.
The average yield for a newly cultivated area shall be established by the Minister on the basis of a report produced by a forest engineer belonging to the Ordre des ingénieurs forestiers du Québec.