3 days ago
The real vacancy in Canmore is leadership
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As Calgary and other Alberta towns wrestle with housing pressures, Canmore offers a cautionary tale in what not to do. The town's recent livability tax scapegoats second-homeowners as an existential threat — but that narrative obscures a more pressing reality: local leadership has failed to plan for long-term sustainability.
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Second-homeowners, far from fuelling the affordability crisis, contribute significantly to Canmore's economy, culture and resilience. As noted in Joe Pavelka's and Dianne Draper's paper — Leisure negotiation within amenity migration (Annals of Tourism Research, 2015) — amenity migrants, including part-time owners, pay full property taxes, rely less on community services and have supported Canmore's transition from coal to tourism and post‑Olympic development.
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Yet, when council first floated the tax, its framing was punitive: either rent out a bedroom or move out to 'make room' for others. That tone — a thinly veiled eviction order disguised as policy — crumbled under public scrutiny. Instead of reassessing the tax, council regrouped behind closed doors, consulted a lobbyist and drafted a new narrative aligning the measure with short-term rental taxation.
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This shift was not accidental. It was a deliberate rebranding tactic — equating vacation homes with income‑generating rental businesses to stoke moral panic and justify taxation.
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Most second homes are not businesses. Conflating the two is lazy policy at best and disingenuous at worst.
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Such policy drift reflects a deeper planning void. Canmore boasts more than 281 non-market housing units — projects including Spring Creek, Wolf Willow and Vital Homes — almost all initiated before 2021. But since the current council took office, no new affordable units have been completed.
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Future projects such as Palliser Lane and Moustache Lands remain promises, with construction not expected until 2026. In contrast, the mayor's ad claims that '100 per cent of the revenue' from the livability tax will fund 2,000 non-market homes. That dramatic gap between rhetoric and reality must be challenged.
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Meanwhile, real-world solutions exist. Nearby Banff provides a powerful comparison. Instead of vilifying absentee owners, Banff has aggressively pursued housing via the federal Housing Accelerator Fund, restructured land-use bylaws and developed municipal employee accommodations. The result: an active strategy to house workers and create economic diversity — not scapegoats.
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Canmore must similarly evolve. Its current model — tourism-driven, seasonal employment and inflated housing costs — has produced a self-fulfilling crisis. A real solution begins by diversifying the economy: drawing in professional sectors, encouraging remote-work hubs and enabling year-round employment. Second-homeowners, including Calgary professionals, would gladly join the full-time community if those opportunities existed.
