Residents across the Lower Mainland, the Capital Regional District, Nanaimo and Kelowna/West Kelowna are beginning to receive letters from the BC NDP government concerning the Speculation and Vacancy Tax. To the surprise of most, every property owner registered on title will have to fill in a declaration to claim exemption from the tax. Widespread concern has emerged that this form of “negative billing” will lead to myriad problems. I agree.

Anyone following BC politics will know that the BC NDP’s Speculation and Vacancy Tax has been, and continues to be, extremely controversial. Shortly after signalling, in February 2018, their intent to introduce tax legislation later in the Fall, it became abundantly clear to me that the BC NDP hadn’t thought the tax measure through. I was very critical of the lack of details and the fact that the tax’s interpretation by the Minister of Finance seemed to be changing on a near daily basis.

I was unconvinced that the BC NDP knew what outcome they were trying to achieve with their tax measure. I arranged for briefings; I met with the Minister of Finance where I outlined my many concerns; I posed questions to her in the legislature (e.g. in Question Period); I met with numerous stakeholders. And I personally responded to many hundreds of emails from around British Columbia.

The BC Green efforts started to pay off. In late March government released a second intentions paper outlining a series of thresholds, exemptions and refinements to the geography of affected areas. While I was supportive of these changes, there was still much work that needed to be done.

And so I arranged for more briefings; I again met with the Minister of Finance to once more outline my ongoing concerns; I posed questions to her in the legislature (e.g in Budget Estimates); I met with numerous other stakeholders. And I personally responded to many more hundreds of emails from around British Columbia.

On June 27 I published online an email that I had started to send out to people about my ongoing concerns over the Speculation Tax. Over the summer I once more arranged for more briefings; I met with the Minister of Finance; I met with numerous other stakeholders. And I personally responded to many more hundreds of emails from around British Columbia.

When the BC NDP finally introduced Bill 45: Budget Measures Implementation (Speculation and Vacancy Tax) on October 16, 2018, I acknowledged that they’d gone a long way towards addressing many of the unforeseen negative consequences that I’d raised with them. Yet there were still several key aspects of the bill that caused my BC Green Caucus colleagues and I to reiterate our ongoing concerns.

Prior to the introduction of the Bill, the BC NDP told our caucus that they viewed Bill 45 as a confidence measure. They argued that it arose from a flagship “budgetary policy” announced as part of the 2018 budget. Our position was that our Confidence and Supply Agreement was very clear:

“While individual bills, including budget bills, will not be treated or designated as matters of confidence, the overall budgetary policy of the Government, including moving to the committee of supply, will be treated as matters of confidence“

As you might imagine, a number of (at times difficult) meetings followed with the BC NDP. Concurrently, my caucus colleagues and I united behind the notion that the only way the BC NDP would secure our collective votes was if, and only if, they supported three further amendments (which were subsequently drafted by Legislative Drafters). These amendments ensured that:

Mayors from affected municipalities would be part of an annual review process with the Minister of Finance that required the Minister to provide metrics that justified keeping the speculation tax in place in their community;

revenue raised by the tax would be used for housing initiatives within the region it came from;

the speculation and vacancy tax rate for all Canadians was the same – this brought the rate for non BC-resident Canadians down from 2.0% to 0.5%.

The amended Speculation and Vacancy tax bill eventually passed in the BC Legislature, but not before I was able to ensure that the Minister provide further clarification on record as to its intent.

At this point it’s important to note that the BC Greens take the enormous responsibility British Columbians have granted us very seriously. Our role in the BC Legislature is to ensure stability, yet accountability. And we did just that. We ensured that the BC NDP government did not fall in their declared confidence measure while at the same time working tirelessly to ensure that many of the unforeseen consequences of the poorly-thought-through Speculation and Vacancy Tax were mitigated.

Several times in our meetings with the Minister and/or her staff, or during the briefings with the Ministry, I raised concerns and questions about government’s proposed negative billing during the implementation of the tax (the BC Liberals were apparently asleep at the wheel and didn’t realize this was involved with its implementation). I suggested that some people might get confused and pay the tax even though they didn’t need to. My concerns were dismissed as I was told that the process was going to be easy and transparent, like what is already in place for people claiming the Homeowner Grant.

Sadly, this has not turned out to be the case and the processes to claim a Homeowner Grant and declare an exemption from the Speculation and Vacancy Tax remain separate. And so, while I am not surprised by the public reaction to the rollout of this tax, I am surprised that the BC NDP hadn’t anticipated this.

The BC Greens remain of the opinion that the BC NDP’s Speculation and Vacancy tax is bad public policy.

We believe that a better way forward would be to enable all local governments (not just Vancouver) to introduce vacancy taxes if they felt it was in their community’s interest. At the same time, a speculation tax could be applied exclusively to properties owned by offshore individuals and entities, the Bare Trust loophole could be closed as was done in Ontario, and a flipping tax could be applied when the same property is sold multiple times in a short time period.

The BC Greens understand the importance of tempering exuberance in the out of control housing market. In fact, we specifically called for a New Zealand-style ban on off-shore purchases as per our call for bold action. We also outlined numerous other measures that could be implemented.

Moving forward, our caucus will continue to ensure stability, transparency and accountability in the BC Legislature.