An interest in fair taxation

My father was reared in Toronto, but he did much of his growing up in Muskoka. When he and his two brothers were boys, his father would drive my grandmother and the children up to Little Lake Joseph near Port Carling where the three would pass the season. My grandfather would return after each week employed as a metal worker in the City to rejoin the family at the Lake.

Over the five decades on Little Lake Jo, the Savolainen family became part of a close-knit community of locals and seasonal residents from the region and beyond. Gary, my dad, kept fond memories of barefooted tree tag and helping to introduce Ontario to barefoot waterskiing as a youth. My eldest uncle, Carl, even ended up meeting and marrying a lady named Elizabeth, whose family lived nearby. Shelved near me now are ancient reels of film on which my grandmother and her lady friends smoke and smile at the camera from a bygone era of elegant, lakeside glamour.

I'm told again and again by some that buildings are just things and that they aren't the essentially important things in life. But there is much history and family heritage shrouding such land and edifices as a family cottage in Ontario.

My father and eldest uncle eventually inherited their parents' cottage. I don't know if the two discussed in much detail what their long term plan would be for the property. By that time, Carl and his wife had their own home down the lake, and I can only really imagine now that my father agreed to forgo his own to visit my mothers' family's (septic- and hot-water tank equipped) cottage near Kinmount.

In the three years before his passing in 2005, my father's efforts to revive the Savolainen cottage as a place for a third generation to grow up were reinvigorated. Many of his hours were spent burning and bundling off to the dump years of brush and detritus. We had talks about putting hot water and fixing it up together, making it into a rental in order to keep it in the family. But my father's illness was diagnosed late and his time ran out quickly.

It was a great shame to me, then, that less than one year after Gary's passing, the sale of the family's place on the Lake was insisted upon. Carl had his own waterfront taxes to worry about, as outlined in this quotation from the Canadian Home Builder's Association website:

As an example of the impact of the growing tax burden, Carl Savolainen, a retired police officer, told The Toronto Star that his tax bill last year was $7,000, more than double the rate for his principal residence in Oshawa.

He and his wife worry that their children and grandchildren won’t be able to enjoy the modest cottage, built by his wife’s grandfather in 1924. Mr. Savolainen drives a school bus to help pay the taxes. (Full text in .pdf here.)

My mother, unable to afford the growing taxes and never having had anything kind to say about her husband's family's land, agreed to the sale.

And so the cottage sold to a pair of Toronto lawyers who could afford the skyrocketing taxes and will most likely contribute to even higher ones as they redevelop the property, destructing the humble bit of old Ontario.

If you find yourself in a similar situation, or are just interested, consider visiting Waterfront Ratepayers After Fair Taxation (a coalition of associations from across the province).

On the Cottage Life site, you'll find this extensive article on Ontario's cottage taxation problems.