Editor:
I have been a supporter of the NDP for 54 years because I support their basic philosophy. But now I have to wonder, when I look at this speculation tax. They are looking more like the Liberals than the NDP I support. I have no objection to the tax, as such, but to the regulations which exempt some communities and not others. Take Whistler, a playground of the rich and influential. Whistler is used on weekends and summers, not year-round. Why is it exempted?
Now look at Crescent Beach. It is not exempted, yet it is the same thing, in that it is a playground, but not of the rich or influential. Certainly, to buy-in now you need to be rich, but what about the people who inherited their place years ago and visit on weekends and in summer, like people have been doing for 100 years? Crescent Beach has a swimming club which is 100 years old. People come here, generation after generation, to give their children the experience they had.
I suspect the few houses here which are subject to this tax are the ones which have not been pulled down and replaced with mega homes.
Crescent Beach is a playground just like Whistler, but the people here are getting a raw deal. These people are not necessarily rich unless they purchased in the last five years, and if so, I’m sure their homes are not empty all year.
I’m all for taxing the rich to help the poor, but it needs to be done equitably. The way this is being done looks like Liberal legislation. This legislation is tearing my community apart as there are at least 13 homes which are affected by this tax. The owners are not fat cats, but lucky cats who had parents with vision. These few people are the ones who have not succumbed to the lure of instant riches brought on by Liberal housing and immigration policy for the past 16 years.
If you want to tax speculators you need to have rules that exempt longtime owners. How can you call them speculators when they have owned a property for years and never sold? Some of these properties were built by the founding families of Crescent Beach.
Laurence Gill, Crescent Beach