Kelowna council shoots down request for religious tax exemption reform

For months, activists in Kelowna have been asking city council to reform its religious tax exemption policy and today their efforts came up short.

Kelowna city council approved property tax exemptions for numerous organizations, like hospitals, non-profits and religious groups at a meeting today, Oct. 6.

Kelowna Atheists, Skeptics and Humanists Association and Advocacy Canada have been protesting, collecting signatures and writing to council asking it to revisit how it grants religious tax exemptions. The association planned a protest outside city hall today as another effort to get the city to change its position before the vote.

A delegation from the association had asked the city of a chance to speak at the meeting to explain why the policy should be reexamined but were denied.

“This is just something they don’t want to deal with,” Association spokesperson Nina Georg previously told iNFOnews.ca. She said it was a long-overdue conversation on discrimination within the subsidized public worship category

George said that many of the places of public worship that are exempt from taxes discriminate against people in the LGBTQ community.

“These guys have religious freedom to discriminate, but we should have the freedom not to subsidize them, because we have a right, freedom from religion, and our money should not be going to these organizations,” she said. “Some of them do really good things, but they’re still discriminating and marginalizing people. There’s only four churches that don’t discriminate in all of Kelowna.”

Councillor Luke Stack had received some feedback from the public about the request to review the tax exemption policy, but said at this time it was worth supporting without any adjustments.

“In my opinion, it’s a small price to pay for the many thousands of volunteers and people in our community that are doing all kinds of good work,” Stack said during the meeting. “I like the policy as it is, but probably, in perhaps a future term, it might be worth going back and revisiting it.”

With council’s decision the approved organizations, including religious groups, won’t have to pay property tax.

The total tax exemptions are around $3.1 million with $769,570 in property tax not paid by public worship properties, according a city report.

Mayor Tom Dyas acknowledged the activists present at today’s meeting and thanked them for how they went about trying to change the policy.

“Thank you for your demeanour and behaviour through this process. I understand it’s not exactly along the lines of what you were hoping to accomplish, but we truly do respect the way that you delivered your message and the format that you delivered it in,” Dyas said.