BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT AREAS (BIAs) are the consequence of a provincial-municipal scheme aimed at compelling business people within an arbitrarily selected area to join a "business association". As "members" of this forced "association", they are also forced to pay an additional tax to the municipality.

Ostensibly, this tax is used to "improve" and maintain the appearance of government-owned lands in the business area, and for collective advertising to promote the area. Of course, the BIA tax widens the municipality's tax base by adding it to already existing property and business taxes.

At the heart of the issue lies the principle that is at the heart of every BIA controversy: freedom of association. Since BIA "members" cannot independently and voluntarily join or quit a BIA, they have become victims of forced association, where independent planning and action becomes replaced by forced collective planning and action (an economically, socially, and morally disastrous principle).

A BIA operates very much like a labour union, being a body that requires a large consensus before it can be "de-certified". Like a union, "dues" are compulsory and the compulsion is enforced by law. And in the same way that an individual worker would have to quit his job to avoid compulsory dues, so too must the individual businessman be forced to leave his business community to avoid the extra compulsory tax.

Like a union, a BIA can adopt a political platform, or support a particular political point of view--- purporting to be a view "representative" of all its "members".

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Page last updated on April 28, 2002