JOHNSON – Would someone tell the B.C. government we don’t live in Vancouver?

REGARDING THE BC Speculation and Vacancy Tax Declaration we have all have to make before march.

This has nothing to do with the details of the appropriateness of said tax, I will let those who know more than me … like as the good Mr. David Charbonneau discussed in his recent column.

I’m just a property owner who needs to do the job of filling out the form and making the declaration … kinda like housekeeping tasks like taking out the compost, fix the plumbing when it leaks and pay some kid to shovel snow and mow the lawn.

We finally got around to fill out the online form to make the declaration that yes, we are Canadian citizens, live in BC and actually live in the house.

In the middle of said process, I read something and stopped in my tracks
– page one of the declaration – the introductory page (see the link below).

If you scroll to the bottom of this page, you see a paragraph on FOIPPA (Freedom Of Information Protection of Privacy Act). An expected step one would see on such a form, which usually tells you how this form and the process involved here conforms with privacy laws.

No problem … usually.

I’m going to cut and paste the exact paragraph from the website, right here.

——–

Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIPPA)
The personal information collected by this system is for the purpose of administering the Speculation and Vacancy Tax under the authority of section 26(a) and 26(c) of the FOIPPA. The Ministry of Finance may use and disclose this information in accordance with the provisions of Part 3 of FOIPPA and Part 8 of the Speculation and Vacancy Tax Act including disclosure to the City of Vancouver for the purposes of administration or enforcement of the vacancy tax as defined under 615 of the Vancouver Charter. For information about the collection, use and disclosure practices, contact the Ministry of Finance Privacy Officer at FIN.Privacy@gov.bc.ca, Ministry of Finance, Corporate Services Division, PO BOX 9415, STN PROV GOVT Victoria BC V8W 2B7 CANADA.

Citation:
https://www.etax.gov.bc.ca/SVT/_/#1

——–

I know, I know … it’s one of those paragraphs that makes our eyes glaze over within the first sentence.  I remind myself that it’s someone’s job to write stuff like this — often massive legal teams and, in this instance, attached to government ministry coffers.

Which makes me wonder how they got it so wrong.

Let’s break it down to point form and remove the legal ease and gobbledegook:

– Information is collected for the purposes of administering the program.  Ok, that makes sense, I am actually providing the information as my part towards being in compliance with the program … moving on,

– The Ministry of Finance BC is allowed to use and disclose your info … no big surprise there, that’s basically what it does, we want them to be doing this,

– And of course such information will be disclosed to the City of Vancouver for the purposes of administering the program …

… … … wait … what?

Let’s read that again … ummm  ya … it actually says that:

“… including disclosure to the City of Vancouver for the purposes of administration or enforcement of the vacancy tax …”

 The last time I checked, I didn’t live in Vancouver.

 And to the best of my knowledge the Metro Vancouver area has not yet encompassed the City of Kamloops … give that one time, but its unlikely to occur as I am mortal coiling as a taxpayer here.

Disbelieving what I just read, I instantly backtracked to see if I missed a step on the B.C. Government website, and see if I could find some option to click that we were in fact in the fair town of Kamloops, and I would be agreeing to a FOIPPA declaration that was congruent with the Corporation of the City of Kamloops, and therefore actually legal.

But no, it says what it does, which means this thing is clearly out of compliance with the Act that it is quoting … as in … this is actually, fundamentally illegal.

But we will come back to that in a sec.

How did this happen?  Why is the province asking property owners of 13 municipalities throughout the province, to agree to sharing their private information … including SIN number, home address, phone number, etc … with a municipal government in which we don’t live or own property?

Just what bonehead actually cut and pasted the FOIPPA paragraph, which was obviously specifically designed for the vacancy tax as defined under “615 of the Vancouver Charter”?  This was obviously the wording when this vacancy tax and declaration rolled out last year to Vancouver property owners, but no one at the province thought to edit it for the rest of us?

I mean seriously … the entire province of British Columbia legal and administration system does not have anyone looking over a public facing tax declaration, before we share our legally protected personal and private information?

As of this moment, the Province of B..C is actively breaking the law as written within the Charter of Rights as part of the Constitution of Canada, by forcing me to agree to share this information with a person or entity that has no legal right to have it.

I wish there was a softer peddle way to put that, but there isn’t.

So what did I do?

I called the phone number on the letter we got and asked the person who answered.  They looked it up themselves and became eerily quiet … then said, “I am going to pass this on to my supervisor.”

Ya … maybe you should do that.

In the end I filled out the damn form and hit enter, because if I decided that this was the branch I was going to hang myself on and refused to, you just know that I would simply be charged the two-percent tax, and would spend the next couple of years in court clearing my name from the ignominy of being a vacant home owner, hiding my billions in the great Canadian tax haven, from some other countries’ tax structure.

So, today my Charter Rights as guaranteed in the Canadian Constitution were irrevocably damaged, directly by a provincial government required by law to ensure the same … and I was too lazy to do anything about it.

Am I supposed to feel violated?

I think I’ll just go make dinner.

David Johnson is a Kamloops resident, community volunteer and self described maven of all things Canadian.