Hamm rejected non-resident tax hike
As but one Nova Scotian feeling duty bound to reply to Noah Richler’s April 22 opinion piece in The Globe and Mail, which began, “My fellow Canadians: Nova Scotia doesn’t want you …,” I humbly apologize for inequitable taxes our provincial government has recently imposed on non-resident property owners. I will not ask for their forgiveness, even after the pathetic government amendments announced on May 3, for it is not deserved.
By way of perspective, I was born in 1944 — in Nova Scotia — in an era when our parents and grandparents did not allow governments to balloon in size to the point of having to dream up tax schemes wherein the loser of the day has to cough up for expenditures over which they have no control. Suffice it to say, times changed, and I am now ashamed to find myself living under a scourge of bureaucrats who would have us believe that even discriminatory penalties against former Nova Scotians and other Canadians, many of whom are our friends and relatives, are justified to pay for their reckless mismanagement of our affairs — while the announced purpose of these new taxes is subsequently exposed as a ruse.
This is wrong. The answer is to demand control and accountability before these tax schemes consume us all. Allow me to lend additional perspective by paraphrasing excerpts from a recent Fraser Institute study, which showed that when accounting for all spending in the province of Nova Scotia, government expenditures amounted to 61.6 per cent of economic activity in 2018 — and it is still rising! Indeed, this figure is almost four percentage points higher than in the next closest province (P.E.I.) and more than double the figure in Alberta, where it is only 29.3 per cent! This is reprehensible – and frightening, while our debt load is still “projected to grow at a faster rate than the provincial economy.”
Indeed, as Fraser says, our current government is “promising loads of red ink and rising debt, both now and in future years – despite already holding the distinction of Canada’s most government-dominated province.” This is pure insanity, folks. And now we are being led to believe that the way to address this selfdefeating, homegrown tragedy is by tripling the taxes on non-residents, many of whom are our own sons and daughters — even though it will drive them away, due to no fault of their own.
We’ve been down this road before. In 2001, I had the honour of chairing a Voluntary Planning Board task force on non-resident land ownership — a non-aligned body that unanimously recommend to the then-hamm government not to impose any discriminatory taxes on non-residents. That conclusion was arrived at after receiving more than 200 written submissions and directly consulting with literally hundreds of Nova Scotians in 17 widely publicized meetings from Yarmouth to Cape Breton — an example of democracy at its finest moment.
After nine months of research, our report concluded that “a large majority of those we heard from felt that other Canadians, and, especially, Nova Scotians living and working abroad should be exempt” from any such tax — and it would be extremely unfair to impose burdensome taxes on the remaining minority as, “based on a detailed analyses of all the facts at hand, we are convinced that practices that single out these visitors will damage our reputation beyond repair.”
It also stated: “There are far more constructive roads to travel to accomplish our desired goals. The time to face these realities is now.” Premier Hamm listened.
But the Houston government doesn’t care. Most of the damage it has done remains intact. So, once again, to all of those maligned by these unspeakable new taxes, I apologize. I am embarrassed, and I am saddened that you will be leaving us after thinking you were still welcome on our shores. I don’t blame you though. We have done you a great disservice.