Victoria city council debates Indigenous property tax option

Homeowners in Victoria could soon have the option to voluntarily add between 5 and 10 per cent extra to their annual property tax bill as a contribution to a reconciliation fund.

Homeowners in Victoria could soon have the option to voluntarily add between five and 10 per cent extra to their annual property tax bill as a contribution to a reconciliation fund for local Indigenous nations, says Mayor Lisa Helps.

City council will debate the voluntary contribution plan Thursday at a committee meeting where the aim is to have the policy adopted and ready to include in property tax notices later this year, she said.

Helps said the city would collect the money and provide it to the Victoria-area Songhees and Esquimalt Nations, along with the $200,000 reconciliation grant the council has previously approved for them.

“The principle is the City of Victoria is built on the homelands of the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations and those of us who own real estate here or do business here or run the city here, we literally benefit and generate wealth from someone else’s lands,” Helps said in an interview.

“We will simply send out a notice when the property tax notices go out,” she said. “It will be an additional notice and it will let people know some of the work that’s been happening on reconciliation with the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations over the past five years.”

The Songhees Nation said in a statement it appreciates the efforts of Victoria’s council and residents on the reconciliation initiative.

“It is encouraging that some Victoria homeowners have expressed a desire to voluntarily contribute a part of their property taxes to Songhees Nation, as a meaningful and tangible step toward reconciliation,” said Katherine Legrange, Songhees executive director. “We hope that this sets a precedent for other cities and municipalities to follow suit, and we thank Mayor Helps and council for their commitment to strengthening our relationship.”

The agenda for Thursday’s meeting says many non-Indigenous people in Victoria have expressed wishes to do more for reconciliation at local events and especially following the discovery of what are believed to be about 200 unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C.