Editor: The front page of the Feb. 23 edition of the Outlook carried a story that should concern all residents of Canmore.
It indicates the steering committee led by Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative is considering and promoting a financing model that involves adding a tax directly onto each and every property in Canmore.
It must be noted that Y2Y is a charity that is registered both in Canada and in the United States of America and donations to them are eligible as tax deductions. This story has a lot of detail in it, but stripped down, it is just a way to raise money for the charity so it can fulfill its mandate by forcing all land owners in Canmore to donate to them.
While we are in favour of their conservation efforts and do donate to such causes, we do not feel it is up to the Town of Canmore to remove our choice as to who and what we donate to by adding the donation they pick to our property tax bill.
It is not the job of the Town of Canmore to raise money for charities. This would set a precedent for other very deserving charities to expect the same. There is the other implication here that if the donation was made directly to Y2Y there would be up to a 50 per cent refund when filing one’s tax returns, which means they would be able to donate twice as much at the same net cost, which would be a win for Y2Y.
The story talks a lot about a survey carried out for Y2Y and the results that Canmore supports this initiative. Survey results are very much influenced by the wording of questions and the amount of information that is made available to the person answering the questions. Telephone surveys are also done on the spot without giving the person answering the questions time to properly consider the question and its implications. Many polls and surveys of late have proven to be quite inaccurate.
This proposed new tax is going to cost all citizens, landowners, businesses and renters alike, making it even more expensive to live in Canmore. This is not going to help the town’s problems around PAH either; rather, it will contribute to them.
This is not a question of supporting or not supporting conservation as it has been presented, but rather a question of whether or not the town should be able to add donations to our tax bills, decide who should get them and how much they should be, then deny us our tax receipt.
Gloria and Marvin Phillips,
Canmore
