Editor:
For those people who feel Canmore’s new vacancy tax to be unfair, this tax is not dissimilar to the home owners’ grant that British Columbia gives when your property is your principal residence.
This grant is significant, and reduces the property tax by 18.3 per cent, and if you happen to be a senior, by 25 per cent. Having owned a home in Victoria in 1975, and Revelstoke in 2020, the home owners’ grant is still going strong.
Furthermore, B.C. not too recently added a vacancy tax as well in certain municipalities. In speaking with the Vancouver Housing Authority, the addition of the vacancy tax definitely led to an increase of rental properties available on the market.
So it seems there is some method in the madness.
Alison Pennie,
Canmore
