WAWA — After a series of engagement sessions between local business owners, residents, and municipal officials, the municipality of Wawa has directed staff to develop a Municipal Accommodation Tax (MAT) by-law – at a rate of four per cent.
The municipality is aiming for full implementation by April 1, 2025.
The approval was given at Wawa’s last council meeting where Alex Patterson, Wawa’s director of community services and tourism, delivered a final report on the matter.
At the most recent council meeting, Coun. Joseph Opato questioned how money would be collected from businesses and whether the process is sustainable.
Patterson admitted there will be some bumps in the road – as with the implementation of any new system or tax model – but remained firmly optimistic.
“I’m going to respect that there will be some things that fall through the cracks – there’s going to be businesses who operate on a cash-in-pocket system that ourselves, the Canada Revenue Agency, basically everybody else isn’t able to track. We’re not going to ever be able to chase them because we don’t have the mechanisms to do that.
“But, fundamentally, we have estimates of what each business should be making based on rooms, based on occupancy, based on a whole bunch of publicly available information. If we’re not seeing those estimates come through by a significant margin – of 30 per cent or more – then we know there’s a red flag there and we have to talk about it,” he said.
Speaking to Dougall Media earlier this month, Mayor Melanie Pilon said Wawa and its residents will only benefit from implementing the new tax.
“By implementing a four per cent MAT tax, the community stands to raise a considerable amount of revenue that can be reinvested into the community – not only for tourism and tourism-related projects but also for tourism-related capital projects.
“That’s really exciting – especially in the current economic market where the municipality is sourcing additional revenues from all different areas. The municipality considers this alternate funding necessary to continue to support tourism and economic diversification in Wawa,” she said.
Pilon listed some examples of capital projects into which MAT funds could be invested, including Wawa’s downtown beautification plan, wayfinding and signage projects, and planned improvements to the water and beachfronts along the north shore.
“The community has been requesting for years things like upgrades to our parks and playgrounds and a splash pad has always been talked about.
“But we’ve never had the funding to support these types of projects,” she said.
She also said a portion of MAT funds could go towards snowmobiling and power sports initiatives to draw in business for hotels and other local accommodations during the winter months.
She named communities like Dryden, Chapleau, and Sault Ste. Marie as examples Wawa is looking to follow when it comes to successful implementation of the tax.
“This tool is meant to help municipalities out and really attract investment. That’s what we’re looking to do here. We’re really looking to improve our tourism offering and it will eventually raise the tide for everyone in the community,” she said.
With the go-ahead given, this also means Wawa’s community services department will be tasked with setting up a Wawa Municipal Services Tourism Corporation in collaboration with local tourism businesses.
The new tourism corporation would be responsible for spending MAT funds on tourism-related ventures such as events, programs, and staff.
With that in mind, Pilon also discussed the funding Wawa recently received from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario to hire an economic development officer.
Previously, Wawa had an economic development corporation instead of one officially designated economic development officer.
Wawa received around $297,000 through FedNor’s Northern Ontario Development Program to hire a suitable candidate for the role and develop the position.
“It feels amazing. This was a real win for the municipality of Wawa . . . the new economic development officer will work very, very closely with economic development and the tourism committee that council has put together and will work on initiatives (related to) tourism but also workforce, investment and attraction, housing, working on developing our downtown core, et cetera.
“We have very optimistic goals for the future of Wawa,” Pilon said.
