B.C.’s Attorney General David Eby has cancelled a town hall meeting set for Tuesday night citing safety concerns over a protest scheduled before the event.
The meeting was to be held in his Vancouver-Point Grey riding to talk about the increase in the school tax for homes valued at more than $3 million.
“As you know, my job is to represent my constituents. I can only do that if I can hear from constituents,” Eby wrote in a Facebook post Tuesday morning. “Hearing from community members is critically important to me, regardless of whether the feedback is positive or negative.”
“I have been meeting with constituents and I have heard the opposition and the concerns associated with an increase in the school tax that will impact those with homes valued over $3M in my constituency of Vancouver Point Grey.”
Opponents of the tax planned a rally outside the meeting on West 10 Avenue, calling it a tax grab and urging people to tell Eby the surtax is not acceptable.
“I thought it would be beneficial to have a community discussion about the school tax, including accurate information about the policy while giving people a chance to provide feedback directly to government,” writes Eby. “When tickets sold out, we considered a telephone town hall but settled on a live streaming of the event.
“In response, ads were run by two separate real estate agencies encouraging non-constituents and people without tickets to attend the event. The leader of the BC Liberals personally wrote a letter and distributed it, encouraging individuals to attend “whether you have a ticket or not.”
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Eby says for the first time in his career of hosting hundreds of community events on difficult topics of all kinds, he has decided to postpone the town hall “until we can ensure we can hold it safely.”
“The final straw was the rescheduling of the protest for “angry” people to “march on in” to the event an hour and a half before the event itself, making it impossible for us to secure the venue in advance.”
BC Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson says he’s received hundreds of inquiries about the tax, which is why he penned the letter.
“The letter that I sent to constituents… may have been copied around to other parts of the province suggested that they contact the minister of finance. If Mr. Eby is not prepared to face his constituents he should just own up to it and say so,” he said.
As for the ads posted by real estate agencies also calling on people to attend Eby’s forum, Wilkinson said he had nothing to do with them.
“David Eby is making things up. I have had no contact with real estate agents about the taxes that he is piling onto homeowners.”
The taxes
The governing BC NDP introduced two measures that could affect homes valued at $3 million or more.
One is an increase to the property transfer tax (PTT) levelled on homes that are valued at that level, from three per cent to five per cent.
The other is an increase in school taxes on homes valued at over $3 million. The province will level a tax of 0.2 per cent on the assessed value of a home that exceeds $3 million but doesn’t exceed $4 million.
A tax rate of 0.4 per cent will also apply to the portion of a residential property’s assessed value over $4 million.
This measure is projected to bring in revenues of $250 million over the next three fiscal years.
Postponing the event for another date
Eby says volunteers for Tuesday’s event included high school students and seniors to help out, not act as security guards to “hold the line against people trying to ‘march on in’ without a ticket, or to escort guests with tickets through crowds of angry people to get them to the front door.”
“For the first time in my career of hosting literally hundreds of community events on difficult topics of all kinds, I have decided to postpone the town hall until we can ensure we can hold it safely.”
Read his full Facebook post below:
— With files from Gord MacDonald, CKNW