Safety cited in cancelled town hall

Wilkinson encouraged residents to crash Point Grey school tax talk

B.C. Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson may have crossed a line when he encouraged homeowners opposed to higher school taxes to crash a community discussion that Attorney General David Eby had planned for Tuesday night, says one political scientist.

Eby cancelled the town hall meeting in his Vancouver-Point Grey constituency hours before it was slated to start, citing concerns that the meeting could not be held safely. Earlier, Wilkinson had sent letters to Vancouver-Point Grey residents who live in multimillion-dollar homes subject to the new tax, urging them to attend the meeting “whether you have a ticket or not.”

In his letter, Wilkinson argued that the 0.2 per cent tax on homes over $3 million and 0.4 per cent tax on those over $4 million had nothing to do with schools and amounted to a “potentially devastating proposition for ordinary homeowners.”

Max Cameron, a political-science professor at the University of B.C., said it was not unusual for party operators to attend events held by other parties, or to send hecklers.

“But I do think that sending people to crash an event — essentially suggesting they should go even if they don’t have a ticket to it — is a significant escalation and I’m a little bit surprised to see that Andrew Wilkinson was willing to have his fingerprints on this,” Cameron said.

“The line that’s being crossed there is that you’re actually creating a potential crowd-control problem,” Cameron said.

“I think it’s risky. Were something to happen, people would rightly say, ‘Well, this was actually being encouraged by Wilkinson.’”

Meghan Pritchard, a spokeswoman with the B.C. Liberals, said in an email that residents affected by the tax “are not security risks — they are simply David Eby ’s constituents trying to make their voices heard by their MLA.”

There has been significant interest in Eby’s constituency over this issue, she said. “If the original facility he booked is too small, the right thing to do would be to get a proper one, and soon.”

In an interview, Eby said that the initial distribution of links to the event went through the Point Grey Residents Association, and then “to a lesser extent” his constituency office list, but most of the tickets were gone by that time, he said. Eby said there were two

groups of people he had hoped would show up Tuesday — those who had bought homes with no intention of selling and who had never asked for their huge appreciations, and those having a hard time finding housing and who are happy to see initiatives funded in part by the tax.

“The two groups, I thought, would benefit from hearing each other,” he said, adding that he did think there were legitimate concerns about the tax and important questions to be asked.

Despite the cancellation, the rally went ahead at a new venue. A large crowd gathered at Trimble Park, with children and pets in attendance, as well as local politicians,

including Vancouver mayoral hopefuls Wai Young and Glen Chernen.

Many in the crowd said they weren’t motivated by any political leanings — some even said they had voted NDP — but attended to speak out against what they believe is a “cash grab” that unfairly penalizes seniors and longtime residents who have seen the value of their properties increase exponentially on paper.

There were nearly 43,000 residential properties assessed at more than $3 million in the province as of March, according to the Ministry of Finance. Nearly 85 per cent of those are located in Metro Vancouver.

Looking strictly at single, detached homes, roughly 65 per cent of those assessed at more than $4 million are in Vancouver, according to data prepared by analytics company Landcor Data Corp. Another 24 per cent are in West Vancouver, and three per cent are in the University Endowment Lands.

The increased school tax will apply to about two per cent of all homes in B.C., and should raise $50 million in 2018-19 and $200 million in 2019-20 and 202021, according to the finance ministry. Some homes are exempt from school tax.