Provincial Finance Minister Carole James says BC's speculation and vacancy tax has been a resounding success. But many of the municipalities affected by the tax say otherwise.
At a meeting with the Minister Thursday, mayors from across the province asked for the ability to opt-out. One of them was Kelowna mayor Colin Basran.
"The speculation tax, in her mind, is working and has achieved its goals." said Basran.
"She heard a different message from the majority of the municipalities where this has been implemented, that it is in fact having a detrimental impact."
According to the Canadian Home Builders' Association, Kelowna has lost over 3000 construction jobs since the tax was introduced. West Kelowna has seen a 17% decline in residential construction jobs.
"That's two-thousand and fifty-eight local jobs in 2017 declining to seventeen-hundred and five jobs in 2018" said West Kelowna mayor Gord Milsom.
"We would like to have the choice to opt-in or opt-out because the speculation tax may be a good tax for certain areas but certainly not for others including West Kelowna."
"What is the criteria being used as to which municipalities are in, and which are out? Because they seem rather arbitrary to us" said Basran.
While money collected from individual communities will go towards expanding local housing options, mayors have been frustrated by a lack of transparency from the BC government.
"We found out yesterday that the provincial government has collected almost $2-million from Kelowna in regards to speculation tax" said Basran.
"we've been told that that money will go back into housing, but what we don't know is when or how"
The Finance Minister has promised to respond to the mayors' concerns before the end of the year.