The P.E.I. government has strengthened rules designed to prevent non-residents from buying up Island property. But the province’s real estate association says the changes are moving in the wrong direction.
For decades, the province has had limits on property that can be purchased by non-residents, who require the approval of the provincial cabinet to buy more than five acres of property, or a property containing more than 165 feet of shoreline.
Now the province has changed its definition of who qualifies as a resident. Instead of residing in the province for 183 days over the course of a year, residents must now live in the province for 365 days over 24 months.
For the first time, the province has also stipulated that to be considered a resident under the Lands Protection Act a person must be either a Canadian citizen or a landed immigrant, regardless of how long they’ve lived in the province. …
But the Prince Edward Island Real Estate Association says the more restrictive measures are moving the law in the wrong direction.
‘It’s a good thing to attract new people’
“I’m not 100 per cent sure what the rationale behind the legislative change was, but it certainly will have an impact on our industry,” said association president Mary Jane Webster. …
Non-residents have to pay either $550 or one per cent of the purchase price (whichever is higher) to apply to buy property under the Lands Protection Act. If their application is rejected, 50 per cent of the fee can be refunded. If the purchase is approved, none of the fee is refunded.
It is amazing what can be done when there is political will.
A question for the lawyers out there: how does this type of legislation jive with Section 6 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?
Rather moot where there is little demand anyway, but why not? They’re only foreigners.
I wonder if these new rules will cancel the ability of MPs and senators to build a home there while working in Ottawa. Perhaps they have a friend in the PMO who can give them $90K to pay a spouse or child to live on the island while they are representing Island constituents.
Islanders seeking work in other jurisdictions for years at a time may also run into trouble with the bureaucracy when they return home to build a house and retire. And they wouldn’t have friends in high places to help them skirt the rules.
Rules like these can be problematic if they stem from a resentment of strangers, especially wealthy ones. And why is this an issue on PEI of all places? Is there a housing shortage? A democratic deficit? World-shattering price inflation? Perhaps the real issue is simpler: People are moving away to seek a better economy elsewhere, and the politicos need a way to: (i) keep Islanders trapped longer; or (ii) raise housing prices and their associated taxes by limiting the supply to a diminishing number of fellow isolationists.
This is a problem of scale. A small place will feel the loss of every citizen more than larger jurisdictions. The best way to deal with this is probably to promote amalgamating PEI with New Brunswick, and therein fold the population stats and electoral representation in with a larger body. Even then, the collective population will not touch a million people, but the ‘foreign ownership’ problem will be isolated to a smaller part of one jurisdiction and shouldn’t foster an overreaction.
This will make it easier to realize a better democracy too. The four federal ridings on PEI garner one seat/vote per ~36,600 people and have a much greater level of power than the 42 federal ridings in BC where they are 1/3 as powerful with ~112,000 people per seat/vote. PEI clearly doesn’t require four ridings when one or two will do.
Lastly, Charlottetown will still be the birthplace of the Canadian federation, and the beaches will still be red.