[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Sliver's done a good job of conflating residents and magpie weekenders to try to prove his point. What's missing in his justifications that led to your post is that most people don't have a problem with more people moving to Canmore as residents. Those that come, raise a family, setup a business and participate in the community. It's never been about that, so no, it's not pulling up a ladder once they are in. Since Sliver also took a shot at me being a "new joiner", having been in Calgary since the late 90's. I moved her, got educated, found a job and career, you know, the sorts of things you do when you live in a community.

This position comes from seeing the reasons people came to the mountains vanish as condos that sit empty 80% of the time continue to get built over their favourite trails and wilderness areas. This very type of housing on limited lands ends up reducing the ability of others to move to Canmore and live there. The very thing Sliver rallies on about(elitism blocking anyone form accessing) is what his vacation property is preventing and making unattainable.

Locals have always wanted more full time residents, because they understand bussing in workers from Calgary to McDonalds makes a lot less sense than the community's youth taking their first jobs in the service industry. And parents to setup a contracting company so they don't need to have one come from Calgary or Cochrane. They need residents to run the events that bring people to the community. All the restaurants, sports and coffee shops etc? Not opened by non-residents. There will be fewer of these things that bring tourists in the first place.

And yes, they also increase taxes for residents because you still need to service these places, even if empty and not giving anything back tot he community. For instance, in the 90's Canmore built a new sewage treatment plant. I remember it being a very expensive bullet to eat at the time, but residents were convinced due to the smells. Well now Canmore needs another one because it now needs to handle the surge capacity of the weekenders too. Add in roads, water, snow clearing etc and it does add up to additional costs that wouldn't exist without the empty condos.

If you imagine a town without the condos and just residents, you then see there would be staffing available for more hotels and services for visitors, rooms that have people in them 90% of the time instead of 20%, giving far more people access to Canmore. Oh, and no golf courses taking up vast swaths of land for 4 people at a time to walk on.

Sliver presents a vision he's imprinted of Canmore on himself and what he thinks people want, without ever considering the reality of where his wants lead, and that many locals may actually have some valid points. Not that it matters at this point, the town is well on it's way to a soul-less condo valley.

Couple things - and this goes back to the toxic groupthink in Canmore that you're echoing:

Full-time residents don't get to own the definition of community and project it onto others. I don't care if you think the way I enjoy my property makes things soulless for you. I also don't care if condos now exist where your favourite hiking trails are.

I can use my condo and stay there as little or as much as I want, and I don't need or want you thinking about it. It's none of your business.

To catch some people up here in some background on the hostility you're seeing, Canmore is introducing a 'livability tax' in January 2026, which will raise taxes by 300% on second homeowners. These owners, like myself, make up 26% of Canmore's homeowners and we are not allowed to vote in the town's elections. So the municipal government of Canmore can add this enormous tax on us 'outsiders' and we cannot fight against it with our vote. It's created an all-out us-versus them war. It's crazy. Canadian vs Canadian. Albertan vs Albertan. We are - what is defined by the Town - now called a "sub class" of resident.

Anyway, back to Fuzz. You guys notice how he talks about "bUt In ThE 90s", right? This is how it goes in every discussion with somebody from Canmore. It boils down to it was better in the 90s lol. It's so dumb.

Sorry your hiking trails now have homes, Fuzz! Bouta blow your mind here, though...as a kid born in Calgary in 1976 - and I know this is going to sound crazy - there where places I'd like to go and things I'd like to do between then and now that I'm unable to because Calgary grew, too. There are whole subdivisions where my friends and I would off road in high school. Neighbourhoods where we used to mountain bike. I remember visiting horse paddocks in Varsity and in Brentwood in the 80s - guess what...literal strip malls now.

I'm sorry I can't freeze Canmore in time for you guys.

I'm sorry you pull up to Canmore and it feels 'big' and a bit foreign compared to the good ole days you can see in your mind's eye. It genuinely is a bit sad and I think something all of us can relate to pretty much regardless of where we grew up. All of us from Calgary can definitely relate to that. There is exactly one million more people in Calgary than the 700,000 people that were here when I started high school. That is an incredible amount of change, especially compared to Canmore.

With all those new people, though, and all the growth, change and problems that have come with them, I don't know a single Calgarian who has begrudged or wanted to target them with a punitive tax or expelled an ounce of energy to try to make them feel like an outsider. There just isn't that toxicity here that you guys have watered, nurtured and grown in Canmore.

Glad to hear "most" people don't have a "problem with more people moving to Canmore as residents". But guess what? No my problem if they do. And they should keep it to themselves, anyway, in the same way I don't monitor how often my neighbours spend at their homes in Calgary. One of my neighbours spends six months a year in Arizona (he's actually going to sell because of all the USA crap, but I'm talking over the last several years)...do I treat him like an outsider with some illogical and obviously false talking point about how he is somehow costing more in tax than me even though he's here half the time? Nope. I shovel his walk, keep an eye on his place, adjust the downspout when it came off during the spring thaw, etc. I'm still a good neighbour. Wouldn't dream of thinking of him as a sub-Calgarian.

They also like to talk about how we don't contribute to the community. Again, they're entitled a-holes. Literally every single board member on my condo board is a vacation home owner from outside Canmore. Three from other cities in Alberta and one lives in Quebec. You can imagine it's a little rich to hear how we're not community members around my house as my wife does a crap ton of work for the Board on evenings from Calgary. We do so much for our community in Canmore and these people sht on our right to be there.

Finally, guess who approves housing and new builds in Canmore? The Town Council. Guess who voted for Town Council? Recall, it isn't the 26% of vacation homeowners...we're disenfranchised. It's the townspeople like Fuzz's dad who then complain they don't like the way they've allowed and voted for the town to grow. Like...I'm lazy AF. I certainly didn't drive out to Canmore and petition them to build my condo back in 2006. I just bought a used condo and then realized half the town was apoplectic that I had the nerve to buy a little vacation property in my country, in my province, an hour from where I was born. Oh and they're not afraid to let you know how awful you are for ruining their town, believe me.

Fuzz says I'm squatting on land that could be used for a local, eh? But I bought it in the open market. I didn't know anybody in Canmore, so it's not like I used my Big City ways and connections to steal it out from under a Canmore local. And not to brag, but my place is waaaaay nicer than any place any waiter, hiking guide, bellhop, house cleaner or cook could afford in any city at any time. When I was young and all my friends were waitresses and had other service jobs, nobody lived in a place as nice. And the Town approved the building of my place. Only people - even when it was first built - with money external to the general Canmore economy ever would have been able to afford it. Blame town councils of past and blame the amazing community of 90s Canmore short-sighted dimbulbs who voted to make this town what it currently is.

There should be more affordable housing. Guess who approves housing developments, guy? Not me. I'm not even allowed to have a say. It's townspeople who live there full time and the people they elect. I'm expressly forbidden from voting on it. Blame who is responsible, please. You have to be able to see it isn't me, but it is your dad and his generation of Canmore people who are now living in the town they made. I just bought a place they approved and built back when I was changing my 19-year-old's diapers and Canmore was just a dream for us.

Finally, Canmore's business owners need to build staff accommodations. That's how you fix this. You could also tax AirBnBs, but they're exempt from this 300% tax increase. Um, what? I think banning those might free up some housing inventory there for ya Fuzz. But, no, Sliver buys a GD cabin - the culmination of 25 years of scrimping and saving - and of course it's in a town where everyone is an a-hole and they're all missing some chip in their brain (maybe Fuzz's beloved waste treatment plant isn't as good as he thought and it leached some mind virus into the soil) that allows them to see basic reality and extend basic human respect to their neighbours.

One other thing: I recall you like to travel. Japan, UK, Europe, etc., right? Okay, get this: my wife and I camped in our car and made a point of not vacationing overseas or on expensive trips for our entire marriage. Most of my friends do that stuff and most owned new cars. We always bought used (until our 40s, really, as we have become more comfortable). So, anyway, all that scrimping we did? We saved. Underbought our Calgary home, too, to save the difference. We've done a million little things that have all added up with one goal in mind: buying a place in the mountains. Achievement unlocked. I'm just saying I don't believe you when you say you wouldn't be able to have a place in Canmore. My first place there was the cheapest place in Canmore at $385k in 2020. Had you not done your little travelling and if you owned a smaller house in Calgary or one in a different neighbourhood, you, too, could have bought a little slice of Canmore as well. We didn't dumb our way into this place. We planned and saved for over two decades, and it is none of anyone's fkn business in Canmore how many nights a year I spend there. The town and its people need to fk right off from my bit-ness.