2023 Year in Review

Over the last year, the Seasonal Residents of Prince Edward Island Association (SR PEI) continued to mature as a non-profit organization and provide value to our members. With the pandemic now well behind us, we have a stronger focus on community building, information sharing, and growing our membership base, although the Board is also focused on identifying areas where proactive advocacy may be required. 

Membership

We continue to build our membership base, with a goal to represent the majority of Seasonal Resident households island-wide. As of writing, we have almost 2,000 members in our Facebook group, which continues to be a pipeline for new Association members and community building mechanism. 

We have leveraged ads in a variety of media to see where we get the most value from our advertising dollar. Our biggest effort has been the manual capture of PEI municipal tax roll information, which we have leveraged for a direct mail postcard campaign going to seasonals in the United States who aren't already members. We have seen good results so far from this campaign, and depending on response and available budget, will continue to leverage this method.

We are also building a database of Cottage / Homeowners Associations across the Island as another source of new members and to make connections with those organizations. Thank you to those of you who have sent us your information!

Community Building 

One of our priorities is providing opportunities to socialize and build community. Last year we hosted and promoted a number of social networking events in a variety of settings across the island. We continue to get great feedback on these events and it will be a focus again in 2024. If you are interested in helping coordinate events, please get in touch!

In August, we held our Annual General Meeting (AGM). Thanks to all of you who attended and provided us with feedback and input on our priorities for this year. We welcomed Melissa Noyes, Marie Brien, and Carol Franklin to the Board. 

Information & Services

Based on member feedback, we continue to adjust the information available our website, recognizing not all of our members are active on the SR PEI Facebook group. We continue to maintain a listing of available cottage rentals and businesses on the island that are owned by our members as well as the buy and sell marketplace that can be used to advertise items members have available for sale or that are interested in purchasing. This fall we added our new contractor review page for those that want to share their experience with specific tradespeople on the island that can in turn be beneficial to others looking for similar services.  

Throughout the year, we maintained a steady stream of communication on topics relevant to members through the Fresh Island Fare newsletter. This newsletter has been an important source of information and updates related to seasonal residency on Prince Edward Island. Past editions can be found on our website. 

We invited Island law firm McInnes Cooper to host two information sessions on Estate planning for Seasonal Residents - one for Canadian residents / citizens, and the other for non-residents / citizens. These sessions were well-attended and were recorded. We held two more sessions in January and February 2024, and those recordings are also available.

The Underused Housing Tax (UHT) is the most recent example of the benefits of the Association and the community we have built on the Facebook page. With help from multiple members, in particular Brenda Potter Phalan, considerable information has been provided on the Tax and how to navigate the various (and confusing) requirements. This information has also been shared in our Fresh Island Fare newsletter and is available on our website. 

Advocacy

Advocacy and government relations continue to be a key focus of our organization, with a goal to each year deepen our relationships with municipal and provincial representatives and represent our members on key issues. The better relationships we have with PEI governments, the better we can be at advocating when we need to.

After hurricane Fiona, we worked with municipal and provincial politicians to advocate for federal funds to cover those who had catastrophic loss of their secondary properties and who weren’t covered by insurance. Thankfully, there were only a handful of those on the island (seasonals and residents) who fell into this category. Most of our members had minimal or moderate loss, covered by insurance. Unfortunately, the Federal funds were not made available and our hearts go out to those who lost their property and are facing difficult decisions going forward. 

One of several Canadian Federal and Municipal changes to attempt to address the country’s housing crisis, the Federal Underused Housing Tax is a concern to many of our non-Canadian members. In September 2021, the Board submitted a position paper to the Federal and Provincial governments as part of the consultation process. Our key argument was that the contemplated tax was missing an exemption for foreign or non-resident owners who use their property seasonally. 

While this exemption is now in place in the tax, the implementation of it is convoluted and complicated. As opportunities arise, the Association will continue to advocate for simplifications and improvements to the UHT.

The UHT was a good example of the benefit of an active Facebook Group as an extension of the Association, allowing for fast dissemination of information (along with our monthly newsletter) and reacting to questions and concerns. We’ve developed a relationship with the PEI Tax Commissioner, and leveraged their contacts to assist with the issues some of you face with the Canada Post address lookup / validation process. 

Conclusion

We are tremendously proud of all we have achieved for a Board and Association who are still maturing as an organization. Thank you to all of our members for your continued support, and to those of you who have volunteered your time. As always, please get in touch if you are interested in volunteering.