Speculation wrong way to label tax: opposition
Liberal leader tells Kelowna crowd tax will choke economy
The misnamed speculation tax is really a tax on savings that will disrupt the economy and create widespread job losses, B.C. Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson says.
Addressing a crowd of 300 people at the Parkinson rec centre, Wilkinson said the NDP government has badly underestimated the negative effect the speculation tax will have across many sectors.
And suggestions by Premier John Horgan the tax will be tweaked in the next few weeks don’t instil confidence the government is a competent manager of the economy, Wilkinson said.
“That is not how you govern a province — through trial and error,” Wilkinson told the crowd.
“You don’t scare the stuffing out of an entire industry and then say, ‘Oh, don’t worry about it. Just kidding. We’ll get back to you’,” Wilkinson said.
Wilkinson urged those who are concerned about the impact of the speculation tax to protest by contacting their MLAs and joining online campaigns.
“Get on social media and make some noise,” he said.
“If you don’t speak up, they will walk on you.”
The NDP’s speculation tax will apply to out-of-province owners of homes in B.C. that are left empty most of the year. But it will also apply to many British Columbians who have vacation homes in other parts of the province.
For example, a Vancouver resident with an annual income of $85,000 who owns a $750,000 vacation home in Kelowna would have to pay a speculation tax of almost $10,000, in addition to regular property taxes.
“What the NDP is after is a big revenue grab to pay for their programs,” Wilkinson said.
The tax, which will amount next year to two per cent of a property’s assessed value, will trigger a slowdown in the construction industry with widespread job losses, Wilkinson said.
“We run the risk of losing an entire generation of skilled young people,” who will have to leave the province to find work, he said.
Current uncertainty in the high end of the housing market due to the speculation tax will affect all real estate sectors, with a downward pressure on prices that will erode home equity values for all British Columbians, Wilkinson said.
“Their (the NDP’s) idea of affordability is to trigger a market crash,” he said.
Along with its opposition to the Kinder-Morgan pipeline expansion, the NDP’s introduction of the speculation tax shows something of fortress mentality for the province, Wilkinson said. That’s a doomed strategy, he said, because the province accounts for only one per cent of North American economic output.
“We need to be an open and confident trading economy,” Wilkinson said.
Renee Wasylyk, a Kelowna housing developer, told the crowd the speculation tax is already having an impact with a downturn in housing sales and builders recalculating the viability of approved projects. She too raised the prospect of construction layoffs.
“It will affect us, it will affect our neighbours, it will affect our jobs,” Wasylyk said of the speculation tax.