Editor:
Canmore Mayor Sean Krausert rationalizes council’s acceptance for planning purposes of the Livability Task Force’s recommendation to implement a primary resident rebate program (the “Program”), with his statement that “every home in Canmore must be part of the solution to our housing crisis … either by providing a home for someone or by paying taxes that will fund housing initiatives.”
To some, this reasoning may seem plausible on a superficial level, but in my opinion, it is pure sophistry – unsound reasoning that masks the true intent and that will lead to undesirable consequences.
My wife and I have been full-time residents in Canmore since 2019 after spending many years as Canmore “weekenders”. Our part-time neighbours and us make the same contributions to the “solution to our housing crisis” – we pay municipal property taxes proportionate to our property values, a portion of which funds social housing programs.
Our contribution to solving the housing crisis is not more valuable than theirs solely because we reside full time in our Canmore home.
In my opinion, what is really going on is a desire by council to increase tax revenue to fund social housing programs by effectively applying a higher rate of tax to part-time residents who do not vote in Canmore’s elections without increasing the municipal property tax rate on full-time, voting residents and/or on Canmore businesses. To escape this punitive tax increase, the part-time residents must sell their property, live in it full-time, or rent all or part of it to a full-time Canmore resident, actions that they may not have taken absent this punitive tax threat.
The program is inequitable and unjust. Council should expect many part-time residents will take actions that they consider to be in their own best interests, including organizing their legal affairs, to avoid unjust taxation.
The result of these legal reorganizations will be fewer vacant homes for tax purposes without any amelioration of the housing crisis. As a part-time Canmore resident for the past 45 years recently said to me, the program risks creating a divided Canmore – an “us vs. them” community.
I do not believe the meagre benefits of the program outweigh the significant downside consequences.
I encourage Canmore residents to request council to reconsider its preliminary support of the program.
Jim Bell,
Canmore
