SIOUX LOOKOUT – People in this Northwestern Ontario town pay a lot for home heating, gasoline and other essentials, says a town councillor.
That’s why Coun. Reece Van Breda has been campaigning to get the town put back on the Canada Revenue Agency’s list of northern communities whose residents qualify for tax deductions to defray the cost of living.
Sioux Lookout, which is a roughly 65-kilometre drive north from Highway 17, was on the list of communities that qualified for half of northern residents' deductions until the mid-1990s when the feds removed it from the list.
That doesn’t make sense when Sioux Lookout residents pay much more than people to the south for many things including gasoline and home heating, Van Breda said this week in a phone interview.
He wants Northwestern Ontario’s MPs and MPPs to step up and advocate for putting Sioux Lookout on the list of Intermediate Zone communities whose residents don’t qualify for the full “northern allowance,” but do qualify for 50 per cent of it.
And he is asking other municipalities in the region to lend their support.
To that end, he made presentations to Dryden and Kenora’s councils this week asking them to endorse a resolution that their municipality “supports the advocacy to reinstate the northern allowance for the Municipality of Sioux Lookout and surrounding area as a Prescribed Intermediate Zone.”
“I’m here to fight not just for Sioux Lookout but for every Northwestern Ontario community, because as we all know the cost-of-living crisis is affecting everybody in every community,” he told Dryden councillors Monday night.
He said Sioux Lookout residents would spend much of the extra money in their pockets in Dryden, “so this is a win-win for everybody.”
He made a similar presentation to Kenora councillors, who were meeting as a committee of the whole, telling councillors it’s a matter of “righting a wrong.”
Dryden council will vote on the resolution at a future date, Mayor Jack Harrison said Wednesday.
He said Van Breda “made some good points including that they don’t have a large tax base in Sioux Lookout, as well as not having natural gas, so their winter heating bills are high.”
Van Breda was told at Kenora’s council meeting that his resolution will be on the agenda of the next full council meeting, which is scheduled for next week. He said Sioux Lookout faces cost-of-living challenges similar to those in Pickle Lake, Ear Falls and Red Lake, which the feds classify as Intermediate Zone municipalities.
Home heating is one category of living expense where Sioux Lookout residents are in the same boat as those other Northwestern Ontario communities.
Home heating is more expensive because natural gas is unavailable to Sioux Lookout homes, so residents must use expensive electric heating.
His resolution asks Dryden and Kenora council to forward the issue to Kenora MP Eric Melillo, Kiiwetinoong MPP Sol Mamakwa, the Kenora District Municipal Association (KDMA) and the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association (NOMA).
Sioux Lookout council has voted to bring the resolution to the KDMA’s annual general meeting Feb. 8-10 in Kenora. It will also be brought to the NOMA conference in Thunder Bay in April, Van Breda said.
He said councils in some other Northwest municipalities, including Ear Falls and Fort Frances, have voted support for the resolution.
