Impact Stories
Longtime Canmore Family Opposes Vacant Home Tax That Threatens Decades of Community Contributions and Traditions
In 1981 Barbara Hay purchased a two-bedroom cabin on 3rd street. Living in Calgary she wanted to be able to stay among the beauty of the Rocky Mountains and partake in her love of hiking. Aware that the 1988 Winter Olympics had been awarded to Calgary and region, Barbara volunteered to Cross Country Skiing Canada assisting in pre-race preparation, time keeping, results documentation and other expanded roles moving forward.
She continued assisting with numerous competitions at the Nordic Centre well into her eighties. In the early days of her cabin ownership, a guest managed to damage the fireplace. Her next-door neighbour was available at the time and agreed to build her a new one while she was away on vacation. He created a marvelous floor-to-ceiling stone masterpiece, which remains the centerpiece of the cabin today. That neighbour was Tom Hjorleifson, a well-known Canmore sculptor.
In addition to her friends, her daughter Nancy’s and son Gordon’s families spent many happy times at the cabin. Gordon’s oldest son, Dylan, often used the cabin during his time on the Canadian Junior Biathlon Team. Our daughter, Sabina, spent a winter there while working at a local hotel. Our son, Simon, and his partner returned to Canada after several years in Beijing, and Barbara kindly allowed them to spend their first year back in the cabin to help them get back on their feet. Apart from Michael, who has a profound antipathy to heights and ledges, Barbara, her two children, and six grandchildren have climbed Ha Ling on multiple occasions to marvel at the breathtaking vistas. They have all guided many friends up the mountain, helping them overcome their fears. One of our daughter’s friends even spent a cold winter night on the peak, capturing images of the night sky free from light pollution.
For more than four decades, Barbara generously allowed family and friends to use the cabin whenever she wasn’t staying there. This is a tradition Nancy and I have continued since taking over the cabin in 2019. The only house rule is to leave the cabin in the same condition as when you arrived. Our guests often leave us a bottle of spirits from the Wild Life Distillery, a gift from Stonewaters, or a gift card to one of Canmore’s premier restaurants. Our cabin has never been—and never will be—available for short- or long-term rental.
Over the past 44 years, our family and friends have been invaluable contributors to the Canmore community. We regularly celebrate New Year’s by enjoying the fireworks at Millennium Park, attend the annual Folk Festival, and take part in the Highland Games. I have no doubt that our frequent purchases from Café Books, Alberta’s Own, Home Hardware, and the many local restaurants and grocery stores have helped keep Canmore vibrant and growing over the years. To determine that our contributions to the town should be met with a “vacant home tax” is not only unfair but also ungracious.
Michael and Nancy Bullard
Real Voices, Real Impact
We spend 3 months per year living in Canmore, staying for weeks at a time, splitting time between my work location during school terms and Canmore during the school vacations.
I have worked in the oil and gas industry for over 25 years, a challenging field where job security is rare. To keep my job and support my family, I have had to relocate frequently to wherever the work is, from Calgary to the UK to Australia and now Texas. This lifestyle has been extremely disruptive to my family—particularly our children. So in 2016, after years of visiting, my wife and I decided to purchase a family home in Canmore. We love Canmore. Our long-term vision is to retire there.
We spend three months a year living in Canmore, staying for weeks at a time and splitting our time between my work location during school terms and Canmore during school vacations. This has provided stability for our family and a place my children call home. My wife and children spend their entire summers in Canmore, as well as Christmas, spring break, fall break, and Thanksgiving. We are part of the local community—forming friendships with neighbors, supporting local businesses, and fully engaging in Canmore life. We are season pass holders at Lake Louise, take golf lessons at the Canmore Golf and Curling Club, and regularly dine at local restaurants. My daughter babysits for our neighbors and earns pocket money by weeding their yard. My son’s first hockey camp was at the recreation center. We are fully committed to the Canmore community.
My children are now at an age where they are beginning to make their way in the world. My son is attending SAIT to train as a chef, while my daughter, in her final year of school, is preparing to attend college in Canada. Now, more than ever, we need our family home in Canmore to stay connected with them as they venture out into the world—a place for them to return to as we transition into empty nesters.
The proposed vacancy tax has put this future in serious doubt. The financial impact will be significant, and renting out our family home is simply not feasible given the amount of time we spend in Canmore. Years of building connections, investing in the community, planning for the future, and providing security for our children now feel wasted. The imposition of this tax—one that I had no right to vote on—has been arbitrary and capricious, with no consideration for those who have invested significant financial and personal capital into Canmore’s community over many years. There has been no regard for those who have made difficult life decisions to create an affordable, stable family environment. Instead, this tax unfairly stigmatizes us as detrimental to the town of Canmore, when in reality, the opposite is true.
I am more than happy to support you in these efforts and to elaborate further as needed.
Many thanks,
Andrew
A historian and longtime resident of Canmore, shares his deep connection to the community, reflecting on decades of family memories, contributions, and the inspiration he has drawn from the town’s natural beauty.
I am the co-owner of a Canmore property. It has been a place for myself, my wife, and my children and grandchildren to enjoy over the years since I purchased it in 1993, 32 years ago. It is a pan-abode construction built in the 1950s, and we were told by our real estate agent that it had been moved from downtown to Grassi Place. Over the years, we have added insulation on the outside and made minor changes inside to a structure that is over 70 years old. We used local construction workers to do the work as a way to support the community of Canmore. We could have knocked it down and built a new, modern building, but we loved the cabin look and feel, so we have been quite content. We have enjoyed it over the years.
I want to emphasize that we have been active members of the community, attending and enjoying local events over the years. It is not our main residence because my job as a professor at the University of Calgary required me to live in Calgary. However, my job gave me the flexibility to visit frequently to write, and I produced a sizeable number of articles and books, some related to Alberta. Our place is in a cul-de-sac, tucked in a corner and backing onto the wilderness area behind us, making it a wonderful place to retreat and write. It might seem somewhat of an exaggeration to say that our cabin, the surrounding area, and the beauty of Canmore inspired my writing, but they truly did. I am now retired, but I spent 40 years teaching and writing Canadian history at the University of Calgary, specializing in Western Canadian History, so the locale deepened my appreciation of Alberta’s history.
I understand the need for taxes to cover expenses and to keep Canmore an attractive place to live. I have never complained about paying my taxes. However, to “attack” people by forcing an extra tax on them simply because their property is not their primary residence is unfair. When I bought the property, the town council was very happy to have our family as members of the community, along with our taxes and the financial and cultural support we contributed. Now, I am being punished for having the place, even though I continue to use it and contribute to the community. This is totally inappropriate, and I will do what I can to fight the Livability Tax.
Douglas Francis
With three young boys in tow, we continued to vacation in Canmore, they all chose to go to the mountains to ski each year rather than to Disneyland, and I would always keep my eyes on the real estate listings.
Since the early 1980s, my wife and I have often visited Canmore with friends and family, mostly for ski trips and a bit of camping. The town was much different back then than it is now, but the mountains have always had a magnetic allure that kept drawing us back. Plus, it was a fairly quick trip from Edmonton. In fact, we almost bought a place in the valley in 1981, but having just built a house and started our own family, we needed to keep our funds at home.
With three young boys in tow, we continued vacationing in Canmore. Every year, they chose skiing in the mountains over a trip to Disneyland, and I would always keep an eye on the real estate listings. Once the boys grew up and moved out, we resumed our search for a place of our own. After two years of watching prices climb, the right townhouse finally became available in South Canmore in 2006. We had saved, scrimped, and borrowed enough to purchase our little place in the mountains—not too big, but comfortable enough for the five or six weeks a year that we would come to ski, hike, bike, and enjoy other activities. We had actually hoped to eventually relocate to Canmore, but with an aging family and a farm to look after, our plans keep getting pushed back. Now, our boys have their own families, and they also enjoy staying in the condo whenever they can.
When the town first announced the new tax last year, there were rumors that it might be only a couple of hundred dollars—not ideal, but somewhat manageable. However, when the final details were released in December, I was blindsided and furious. The way this tax has been pushed through has divided the community. Our portion of the tax will now be over $3,000 in additional annual costs, and there have been discussions that this may only be the beginning.
My wife and I strongly feel that, as longtime property owners, we are being unfairly targeted. Our rights as homeowners have been violated, and the current mayor and council have done a great disservice to the town and its ratepayers. They have discreetly singled out and penalized a large portion of the tax base—those who, for the most part, have no recourse or voting rights. Furthermore, it appears that the public will have access to a list of properties classified as non-permanent residences, which could severely impact our home security.
On our last trip to town, I almost didn’t want to be there. For the first time, I started to feel like an outsider—unwelcome in a place where we have spent nearly 20 years supporting local businesses, volunteering for our condo board, and enjoying our retirement. We had planned to eventually pass the property down to our sons and grandchildren, but now they may not be able to afford the taxes to keep it.
Yes, we own a second home—but we are not overly wealthy. So what do we do? Just accept the tax and move on? No. This must be fought and repealed, because it is simply not right.
Thank you,
Ken Hobbs
Ardrossan & Canmore
Canmore resident argues the Livability Tax unfairly targets second homeowners while failing to solve housing affordability. He calls for real solutions like increasing housing supply, not government overreach.
Canmore is a place I have been coming to with my family for 45 years, and now, after working hard all my life, we were finally able to purchase a home with the goal of ultimately retiring here. Unfortunately, we had no idea what the town was trying to implement. With all the complexities involved in buying a new home, the last thing you check for is two-tiered taxation. If we had known—and if this discriminatory tax somehow stands—we would have never chosen to buy in Canmore, as there are many other mountain and lake communities that offer the same recreation and quality of life opportunities without an overbearing municipal government.
While the legal arguments against this tax are completely valid and have strong merit, which will hopefully strike down this bylaw, let’s be clear about what this vacancy tax really represents to all homeowners: a misguided attempt to socially engineer a city while interfering with the free market and trampling on individual property rights. If they can get away with this, we are on a slippery slope to more unchecked, heavy-handed tactics—potentially across the entire province of Alberta. It doesn’t matter where your primary residence is, how many nights per year you sleep in your home, or how long you have lived in Canmore—this abusive tax feels wrong and is wrong! It divides the entire community into an “us versus them” mentality. It breeds distrust and resentment, and that is not a foundation upon which to build a pleasant, vibrant, trusting, and welcoming community.
When I used to come to Canmore before learning about this repugnant tax, I felt peaceful, free, and in harmony with the community and nature. Now, when I come, I feel like an outsider—stigmatized and unwelcome—like someone who has been unfairly targeted by a crusading and controlling government, punished for years of hard work and success. I listened to the mayor speak at his recent town hall, where he repeatedly stressed “what he wanted Canmore to be” and “what he didn’t want Canmore to become” with an arrogance and disregard for fairness and the representation of all residents. He not only said this bylaw was intended to incentivize owners to rent out their homes, but also that it may force people to sell so that a new wave of buyers can come in—buyers he believes will be better for the town. This is wrong on so many levels.
I have been to almost every mountain town in North America and many in Europe, and I don’t see the “scary” picture he paints of other very successful places that haven’t taken such extreme measures. In fact, he kept saying he was taking “bold” action. If he wants to take personal credit for this, then he should also be open to direct criticism and accountable to all residents. The reality is that this type of draconian vacancy tax has never worked anywhere it has been tried, and they have failed to make the case for it. This is not the way to solve a housing shortage—more supply and development is. And let’s be honest: there will never be a way to accommodate everyone who desires to live in high-demand areas. A proper way to create more housing is to establish transparent public-private partnerships, set up housing trust funds that all residents share responsibility for, and encourage development in and around Canmore. The housing doesn’t even need to be in Canmore itself—a 20- to 30-minute commute for workers is not a hardship in the real world. Most of us have done double or triple that for our entire lives.
The current mayor and town council’s vision for Canmore is wrongheaded, heavy-handed, and deeply unfair, and we should not be afraid to challenge it relentlessly. I keep hearing how the town wants 365-day-a-year vibrancy and more tourism and prosperity—yet, at the same time, they want to maintain a “sleepy mountain town” vibe. You can’t have it both ways, and those who resist progress and development end up getting passed by and stagnating. The real bold way to create vibrancy is to foster an environment that attracts people year-round, like Banff. Canmore is every bit as beautiful as Banff from a natural aesthetic standpoint, but it lacks the amenities and architecture to support that environment. Revenue can be generated by investing in attractions, amenities, and great, stunning architecture that enhances the natural setting. A business-friendly environment and free-market incentives drive investment and revenue that can help build more housing. But the responsibility must be equally shared—not placed unfairly on a single group of homeowners or businesses.
Canmore must recognize that second homeowners play a vital role in the community and can make or break its success. These are hardworking, productive people, and by targeting and alienating them, the town is essentially killing the goose that lays the golden egg. There is a limit to everything, and this isn’t just about money—it’s about the climate of resentment these discriminatory measures create. If you drive out successful people and create artificial barriers, the community will never thrive. Many homeowners cannot spend 183 days per year or 60 consecutive days in one place due to job locations, travel requirements, income tax situations, or other personal circumstances. A homeowner who spends 182 days per year in Canmore still contributes significantly—dining in restaurants, buying furniture and appliances, hiring tradespeople and services, engaging in community and volunteer work, helping neighbors, and using less infrastructure on average. Most second homeowners value the community and want to invest in it in meaningful ways, but they can also choose to take their time, money, and volunteer efforts elsewhere if the community does not value them in return.
It’s time for all Canmore residents to work together as one community and set of stakeholders to develop solutions that are fair, equal, and not discriminatory or divisive.
Michael Lang
Canmore, Alberta