(File photo/paNOW Staff)

By Alison Sandstrom

Tax fairness

Landlords and affordable housing provider oppose P.A.’s proposed police base tax

Apr 13, 2021 | 8:44 AM

Prince Albert city council has heard concerns a proposed police base tax would unfairly impact affordable housing agencies, landlords and low-income residents. However, the majority of council supports the tax as an effective and equitable way to fund additional police officers.

The $35 annual tax would be applied to all properties in the city. Multi-unit residential properties would be charged per unit. The tax is expected to generate $554,505 in 2021, enough to hire four more police officers.

After over an hour of discussion on Monday night, the property tax bylaw, which includes the $35 base tax, passed two readings by a seven-to-two margin. It’s up for third reading and final approval on Wednesday.

Those in favour were: Mayor Greg Dionne, and councilors Tony Head, Don Cody, Dennis Ogrodnick, Blake Edwards, Dawn Kilmer and Ted Zurakowski. Those opposed were Charlene Miller and Terra Lennox-Zepp.

Cameron Choquette, CEO of the Saskatchewan Landlord Association speaks to council. (Alison Sandstrom/paNOW Staff)

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Concerns over ‘regressive’ approach to taxation

Cameron Choquette, CEO of the Saskatchewan Landlord Association, told council his group was largely in favour of more police officers for Prince Albert but opposed to “a tax being unfairly applied to housing providers.”

He argued it wasn’t right that an owner of a 10-unit residential apartment building would pay $350 under the new tax, but the landlord of a 10-unit commercial strip mall would pay only $35. Similarly, he took issue with the idea someone with a $1 million home would be charged the same tax as a resident of a $40,000 home.

“The tax is not being spread fairly across the tax base,” Choquette. “But interestingly enough, this new tax comes after this council resolved to have a 0% tax increase in this year this year’s budget and is now looking for money after the fact.”

Like Choquette, Brian Howell with Riverbank Development Corporation didn’t have an issue with upping funding for police but questioned the use of a base tax to collect that money.

“I think this move to flat taxes and regressive taxation is a slippery slope once you get started,” he said. “Essentially what you’re doing is piling costs on organizations that have no place to regain them.”

He told council affordable housing providers can’t afford to increase rent to their clients who are often minimum wage earners, pensioners or depend on social assistance or disability payments.

Coun. Terra Lennox-Zepp echoed Howell and Choquette’s comments, saying if council had determined there was a need for more police resources, those should be funded through the mill rate.

“We don’t use a base tax for everything, that would be preposterous,” Lennox-Zepp said. “We wouldn’t say that the people in these smaller rental units should pay exactly the same as people in single-dwelling homes, of course not. And so that [thinking] needs to be applied here as well.”

Coun. Dawn Kilmer similarly suggested that $35 annually would be “a substantial increase” for people living near of below the poverty line.

A question of fairness

Meanwhile, Coun. Blake Edwards told council if the $500,000 for additional police officers were charged to the mill rate, some homes would end up paying $300 instead of $35.

“To me that’s no good… they’re tight as well,” he said.

Edwards explained he thought the base tax was “very fair.”

“Thirty-five dollars a month is under $3 a month [from] every property in the city and we all rely – every single person in this city – rely on police, renters, property owners of commercial buildings, residential owners.”

If the cost of fire and policing were to be split evenly across every property in the city, each would pay $1,800, Edwards said.

He noted although council can’t dictate what the police service spends its budget on, he hoped the money would go to “proactive policing” something council has discussed the need for at length.

Coun. Dennis Ogrodnick also spoke in favour of the base tax.

“I take exception to you saying because somebody lives in a nice house they should have to pay more,” Ogrodnick said, directing his comments towards Choquette of the landlord association. “They already do pay a lot in taxes.”

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alison.sandstrom@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @alisandstrom