NO WATER OR GAS BILLS— JUST PAY SPECULATION TAX
De Courcy Island is far off the grid, but just close enough to Nanaimo to count
From the murky borderline between tragedy and farce comes the story of yet another British Columbian bewildered at being targeted by the NDP government’s half-baked speculation tax.
The fellow owns a cabin getaway on De Courcy Island, a tiny (182-hectare) and isolated enclave that, being part of the Nanaimo regional district, is included in the zone covered by the speculation tax.
Having occupied the place for a dozen years, he recently logged on to a telephone town hall with his NDP MLA, Doug Routley, to try to divine why the government would be dinging him as a speculator for two per cent of the assessed value on his place.
He didn’t manage to ask his question, though as he noted in a followup missive to Routley, a member of the MLA’s own staff did manage to pose one.
“I am pretty sure she has ample time to ask you questions during regular office hours given that she works directly with you,” he wrote. “The rest of us do not have that luxury.”
The exchange veered into the realm of farce when the government operators on the call asked the cabin owner for his postal code.
“De Courcy Island does not have a postal code. We do not get mail service,” he advised the MLA. “We do not have any B.C. Ferry service, stores, nor do we have any services such as electricity, water, sanitary, natural gas, fire protection nor schools. There is no measurable employment.”
Routley was upbraided over one of his comments during the town hall session, namely that folks who can’t afford the tax should either move or rent out their home.
“No property owner will be able to rent out their seasonal cabin as there is no longterm rental market on De Courcy,” the letter continued. “There is not even a weekend or weekly rental market on De Courcy as these are seasonal dwellings that are hard to get to, are off-grid and are challenging to insure. I can’t even imagine trying to get renter’s insurance.”
As for selling the property — the unspoken objective of the NDP’s new taxes on property and real estate speculation — the De Courcy man had this to say: “The property is worth less now than what I have put into it. The market has barely moved in 12 years and buyers here (including myself ) are not speculators. If I had to guess I would say the average age of islanders is 55-plus, while some are as old as 92 and have been coming here for almost 50 years. I am 47 and I intend to spend at least half the year here when I retire.”
Eloquent and effective. Though I did get permission to quote him, I’ve left out his name because I’d rather he not be subjected to the kind of abuse directed at others who have dared to plead their case publicly against the NDP tax grab.
“Someone called it an envy tax and I think that nails it,” another of my correspondents wrote. “You should see the intense hate being rained down on my husband, who has been very public on an (island) Facebook page. They are gleeful over the financial hardship this causes for retirees (and) pensioners who worked all their lives and made sound choices to try to ensure a secure, independent retirement.”
Routley, for his part, did take the concerns from his constituents up the line to a meeting with Finance Minister Carole James and her deputy minister, Lori Wanamaker.
“They both assured me the tax will be tweaked in such a way that it achieves as surgically as possible its intended purpose to curb speculation in the housing market by non-residents of B.C.,” he said last week. “The target is not B.C. residents who own a cabin.”
But as of Monday, the Finance Ministry website continued to indicate what it did right after the budget: a stand-pat interpretation that brought a blast from Green Leader Andrew Weaver.
“As far as I can understand from the tax information sheet, British Columbians with second homes have to pay the tax, and then they get a non-refundable tax credit after the fact,” he challenged James.
“Low- or moderate-income British Columbians will, in many cases, not even be able to use the tax credit. But if you’re very wealthy, you get the full benefit of the credit. That doesn’t make any sense. It penalizes people with moderate and low incomes and further entrenches the idea that home ownership is reserved only for the wealthiest.”
Then the question: “Will the finance minister reconsider this tax credit model to ensure that British Columbians with vacation homes are actually protected from the effects of this speculation tax?”
But James was not inclined to disavow the contents of her own fact sheet. Instead, she fell back on a specious example that had nothing to do with Weaver’s: “If you are an individual who owns four empty houses and you’re leaving them vacant in Vancouver, you are speculating in the housing market.”
For the rest, she said the government was aware of the concerns raised by Weaver and others and would clarify its intentions for the speculation tax when the enabling legislation is tabled in the fall. In the interim, owners of vacation properties will just have to trust that the NDP intends to let them off the hook.
These are seasonal dwellings that are hard to get to, are off-grid and are challenging to insure. I can’t even imagine trying to get renter’s insurance.