Comment
A parable
In the primary coloured cartoons of my youth, the theme of unsated appetite often took the form of a roasted chicken. Henery Hawk, for example, was singularly obsessed with dreams of eating chicken. So much so, the chickenhawk couldn’t distinguish between either Foghorn Leghorn or Barnyard Dawg, which was the chicken, and which was a dog. Both vied to convince Henery that the other was the delicious bird.
“I don’t care who wins,” declared Henery, standing beside a boiling pot of water. “I’ll fricassee the loser.”
Since it was imposed in 2021, the Municipal Accommodation Tax (MAT) has been the County’s roasted chicken. The pot of money has been coveted hungrily by council members for everything from roads and healthcare to arts and transit.
Currently, the County’s Affordable Housing Corporation (Housing Corp) has trained its sights on the MAT to fill its funding gap. Ideally, the Housing Corp would like to get its hands on about $175,000 currently sitting in a MAT reserve account. But that’s not all. The Housing Corp also has its eyes on the net MAT revenue from next year, too.
It sets up a brutal cage match between council members desperately eager to tear apart the roasted chicken—furiously scrambling to secure the carcass. It is unlikely that anyone’s hunger will be satisfied. Rather, come budget talks in December, a stack of competing claims will be weighed. Passionate arguments will seek a bigger piece. Bargains will be struck.
In the end, it is likely the chicken will be shredded into morsel-sized pieces.
Some Housing Corp board members, sensing the prospect of fierce competition, are also putting dibs on the MAT increase next year. Anticipating a windfall in tourism in the County in 2026, they hope to get first crack at a fatter chicken.
The MAT is an easy target. It is a relatively new stream of revenue for the County, and it is growing. It netted just over $600,000 last year. Not pocket change, but neither is it sufficient to make a meaningful dent into municipal finances that will spend more than $110 million this year.
But new revenue is much sweeter than doing the hard work of finding savings. Much easier than selling unused, crumbling buildings that might be used for something, someday. Much easier than winding back the clock on runaway costs.
The MAT is a tax on visitors staying in the County. Four per cent is charged on the value of every stay at a hotel, inn or short-term accommodation in Prince Edward County. Under the provincial legislation that enabled the MAT, half of the proceeds (after admin costs) must be allocated to marketing tourism and visitor services. This half is managed by Visit the County and StayPEC. The other half goes to the County’s general revenue, which is used to blunt the impact of the visitor economy on the place and its residents. It’s a bucket big enough that just about any Shire Hall activity may be so defined.
The best bit of the MAT is that those who pay can’t complain. Who would listen if they did? It is easy money. If and when the value proposition begins to discourage visitors, they will vote with their feet, not at the ballot box. By the time their absence is noted, it will be far too late to change their minds.
Only when the chicken has withered to bones and feathers will alarm bells sound. But, by then, there will be nothing to be done. Only to mercifully dispatch the wasted bird into the pot of boiling water. A thin fricassee.
I am writing regarding my concern that any Prince Edward County Councillor who sits as a Board member on the Prince Edward County Affordable Housing Corporation (the “Corporation”) should properly declare a conflict at any future County Council meeting, and recuse themselves forthwith on any such Corporation matter being brought to Council for debate.
Specifically, the five Councillors are:
Phil St-Jean, Chair
Brad Nieman, Vice-Chair
Kate MacNaughton, Interim Councillor Representative [substituting for a vacancy of a public representative]
John Hirsch, Interim Councillor Representative [substituting for vacancy of a public representative]
Sam Grosso, Interim Director Councillor [substituting for vacancy of a public representative]
The grounds for my writing are:
1. The PECAHC Governance Team clearly states in its own regulations that there is to be a MAXIMUM OF TWO COUNCILLORS on this Corporation Board. Presently there are FIVE MEMBERS OF COUNCIL and FOUR MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC on this Board – which is inexcusable. There should never have been a need for a Councillor to be a member of this board in the first place – THIS IS A CONFLICT OF INTEREST, and NOT IN THE RESIDENTS BEST INTERESTS. This representation is skewed in favour of the Council of Shire Hall who are pushing this vanity project. Regardless, it would have been enough to have the two existing Councillors and four existing representatives of the Public carrying the PECAHC Governance Team until the three vacancies for Public representatives were filled.
2. The Corporation has cost County taxpayers almost a million dollars to date after eight years, with zero to show for such effort. No units have been funded or built;
3. It is doubtful that funding for the proposed eight (8) residential units can be secured;
4. Even if the funding is in place, and the eight units are constructed, inconceivably only three (3) of the units would qualify as “affordable”; and
5. Per suite cost to build, exclusive of land costs, are approximately $500,000/suite.
There is now widespread public (and some Council) disquiet, even anger, at this boondoggle. It is entirely likely that any Councillor who sits on the Corporation Board and seeks re-election in 2026, would seek to frame the Corporation Board failings in the most positive light. That is, such Councillor(s) would seek to absolve themselves for any blameworthiness for the failings of the Corporation and the wasted expenditure of public funds. This would constitute a conflict.
I would also recommend that residents send a separate opinion letter to Mayor Ferguson, who has the clout to tell these Councillors to declare Conflict of Interest in this request for further taxpayer money. To ensure County Staff sensitivity to the issue, you might also copy that letter to Adam Goheen, County CAO.
Finally, I believe it would be fair to ask for the two public Corporation Board members (Mark Guslits and Penny Morris) to make any Board presentations to Council in their non-elected capacity; the five Council Members would absent themselves throughout any such debate. They should have no part to play in that meeting.
Especially in an election year, I believe that this situation presents a clear Conflict of Interest, and why no one at Shire Hall recognized this issue is perplexing.
Residents [and no doubt Councillors] I thank you for your attention to this matter.
It is past time for the PECAHC Governance Team and our Mayor to clean up their respective “Acts”, and dissolve this Corporation who are draining taxpayer funds best used elsewhere in The County. This is a job for the Provincial and Federal Governments. Not a County with a taxpayer base of 16,000+/-.
Why “Interim” councillors? How long have they been in that position? What happened to the public people who were in those spots, and when and why did they leave? What the heck is going on here? If the housing Corp can’t keep public positions filled, and they need to steal our elected officials to fill them [surely temporarily?], then I sure wouldn’t consider this a viable operation. So Mayor Ferguson, shut this damned mess down, leave the income from MAT out of this, and refuse any money from the taxpayers. Many of us don’t want to pay for this when we need roads – I’d much rather see that money from MAT go where necessary. How about hospital equipment, which would definitely benefit the residents AND the tourists?!
Hi Angel.
I’m awaiting a response from Shire Hall to a few pertinent questions on this very thing.
As the saying goes: “When I know, …”
Keep the Housing Corporation hands off the Mat Tax Funds. Just another avenue for the ill advised Corporation to keep breathing. Pull the plug now! And further this type of financial decision should not be made by a Lame Duck Council. Dissolve!
Interesting sentence, above:
“The other half goes to the County’s general revenue, which is used to blunt the impact of the visitor economy on the place and its residents.”
The impact of “visitors” on the County is impossible to quantify in dollars and cents.
But without the (relatively few) tourism jobs that result from these “visitors”, a number of businesses here would be forced to close.
That would leave yet more holes in the County’s revenue stream, as generally the business owners here pay fees and taxes (lots of them) on their businesses.
And it would leave the County with even fewer jobs to attract new residents.
As far as PECAHC trying to get their hands on any aspect of the MAT, that’s wrong on multiple counts. As has been said elsewhere, PECAHC should be shuttered and a stop put to their multi-year waste of time and taxpayer dollars, having delivered ZERO in the way of solutions to the problem they were set up in 2018 to address.
Council: 2018-2022.
Council: 2022-2026.
Same Mayor: Steve Ferguson
Same Councillors: Kate MacNaughton, Phil St-Jean, Brad Nieman, John Hirsch, [with Sam Grosso as “the new boy in town”]
We definitely need a change of Councillors in this County.