Former senator Carney slams B.C. speculation tax
Pat Carney is spitting mad about the B.C. government’s proposed speculation tax.
The former Conservative senator and cabinet minister has written Premier John Horgan about the damage she expects the tax will level on people who live in rural B.C. and also have properties in the Lower Mainland or the Greater Victoria area.
“Your proposed tax misses the target of limiting real estate speculation by foreign investors in specific regions of the province and lands a bull’s eye on Canadians, including British Columbians, who support our rural economies,” she writes in her letter.
Carney, 82, was first elected as MLA for Vancouver Centre in 1980. She served in the cabinet of Brian Mulroney from 1984 to 1988 and in the Senate from 1990 to 2008.
She said she was motivated to write the letter because no one else was speaking up for rural B.C.
“Why are you taxing us and for whose benefit?” Carney said Tuesday from her home on Saturna Island.
“We’re entitled to live in rural B.C. without being taxed for it.”
Since Saturna has no medical facilities, Carney maintains a second residence in Vancouver, and would be hit by the two per cent annual tax if it is implemented as proposed. Finance Minister Carole James said the tax is meant to encourage people to rent homes out in areas of B.C. with low vacancy rates.
Making a daily commute to Vancouver or Victoria to deal with a lawyer or a doctor isn’t feasible from Saturna and many other of the Gulf Islands, Carney said. Such trips take eight hours; keeping a residence in Vancouver has been her solution. That may not continue to be so, she fears.
“We’re the silent minority, everyone thinks we’re rich Salt Spring Islanders,” she said.
“The issue is fraudulent corrupt speculation which is destroying our cities ... that is who he is targeting and it shouldn’t be rural British Columbians.”
She says she’s spoken with many neighbours, both young and old, who are so wary of how the tax will be implemented that they are already looking to sell their Gulf Island properties because they feel they’re going to have to make a choice.
James said earlier this month that she’s heard the complaints from people in places like the Gulf Islands, like Carney, and is looking at tweaks to the legislation.
But Carney dismisses the idea of tweaking the legislation — “this legislative proposal is so flawed it cannot be tweaked,” she writes.
“That is the premier’s problem, that’s not my problem.”