Owen Sound, like all municipalities, is a business in the service sector with a mandate to provide the services demanded by its customers (the taxpayers) and at a competitive price (taxes) that its customers accept. Failure to provide the types of services desired by its customers, or increase prices to beyond an acceptable level, will result in Owen Sound's customers taking their business elsewhere. In other words people will just move out of town when taxes make housing and rents too much of a burden on its residents. Does this Sound familiar?  click here to review
 

Shrinking Population of Wage Earners - source: Statistic Canada

One of the hidden impacts of the excessive growth in taxes that Owen Sound has experienced over the last twenty years is that people have been moving away to avoid hig property taxes or unaffordable rents. The population of those filing income tax on wages between 2017 and 2020 grew by 5.51% in Collingwood and shrank by 2.13% in Owen Sound. In all likelihood, wage earners are just moving across municipal boundaries to reduce one of the growing strains on their family finances – high Owen Sound Taxes. After all they can continue to enjoy everything that Owen Sound has to offer while living in Georgian Bluffs or just East of 28th avenue in Meaford. They can continue to do all of this and reap the benefits of much lower taxes that Georgian Bluffs and Meaford has to offer. We can see this when we look at the change in those filing income taxes between 2012 and 2020 as shown in graph above.

No question about it, we are losing our wage earners. Where are they going? There are really only two possibilities. Wage earners are either retiring from the workforce or they are moving to other communities. Most are likely just moving across municipal boundaries to Georgian Bluff and Meaford. We can verify this by looking at the relative changes in population over the past 20 years for Owen Sound, Meaford and Georgian Bluffs as shown in the next graph.

Shrinking Population Over a 20 Year Period - source: Statistic Canada

The above graph shows the percentage growth of the three municipalities over a twenty year period. We see that Meaford grew the most at 10.63% followed by Georgian Bluffs which grew by 9.61%. Then we have Owen Sound, which grew less than one percent during this 20 year period from 2011 to 2021. Although this looks like Owen Sound is actually growing, albeit slowly, it really isn’t.

Shrinking Population Relative to Our Neighbours - source: Statistic Canada

Take a look at the graph below. It demonstrates the relative change in growth during this period. The trend lines (dashed lines) that extend to the next two census periods show where things are headed in the future. You can visually see that the plots for both Georgian Bluffs and Meaford are heading upwards. It is difficult to assess which way Owen Sound’s growth is headed. So we need to look at the slope of the trend line which is given in the first part of the equation for the straight line which is: y = -2.36x + 26,318. We see that the slope is negative which means that the Trend line is headed down.

Theoretically there will be a time when both Georgian Bluffs and Meaford have greater populations than Owen Sound. Just think about that for a minute – Owen Sound will be smaller than Meaford at some time in the future if things continue on the same path.

Comparison of Taxes on a $400k Home - source: BMA 2018 Municipal Study

Owen Sound taxpayers are one of the highest taxed populations in Ontario as shown. The graph above shows the relative taxes on a $400,000 home. If you were fortunate enough to own a $400,000 home, you would save over $2,000 per year if you were to move your house to Collingwood or $780 per year if you moved it to Brockville, which has almost identical population to Owen Sound.

The 2018 BMA Municipal Study looked at 108 municipalities in Ontario. Of these Owen Sound ranks as 103 – pretty much leading the pack when it comes to high taxes. There are only five municipalities that are taxed higher. Four of them are in the far north Timmins, Espanola, Elliot Lake and Greenstone. These northern communities have unique challenges that Owen Sound doesn’t face.

So what does this mean for taxpayers? Well, if we looked at picking up our house and just moving it across municipal boundaries you would get a 22% tax rebate if you moved it east of 28th Ave to the Town of Meaford. Taxes in Meaford are only 78.4% of what they are in Owen Sound. For example if your property taxes are $5,000 per year in Owen Sound you only pay $3,920 in Meaford, so you would have an extra $1,080 to spend on something other than taxes each year. Savings are even better if you were to move your house to Saugeen Shores where taxes are only 61.1% of those in Owen Sound. Therefore you would get a savings of about $2,000 a year if you lived in Saugeen Shores.

Commercial Tax Rate Comparison* - source: 2021 BMA Study

The above graph possibly explains why businesses like, McDonalds Flower Shop, moved to the Sunset Strip. Commercial tax rates must be driving business out of Owen Sound given the vast difference in tax rates. High Commercial also discourages new businesses from locating in Owen Sound. The result is Owen Sound is not growing and the absence of a strong, thriving commercial sector means that good paying jobs are scarce.

Comparison of Average Household Income in 2021 - source: 2021 BMA Study

The graph above is developed from data provided in the 2021BMA Study and shows exactly where Owen Sound stands when it comes to Average Household income. Do you wonder why Owen Sound’s Average Household income is so much lower than others in Grey-Bruce? I believe that high taxes play a significant role in keeping wages down. This combined with the fact that people are moving out of Owen Sound and that Owen Sound has had little growth over the last 20 years also suggests that high taxes is a major factor.

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