The city will levy a three per cent tax on short-term rentals like Airbnb starting Jan. 1, 2020, but it needs a list of who is running such rentals so it can monitor compliance. Prince Edward Island has a list, but won’t give it to the municipality—so Charlottetown has hired contractors to come up with a separate one. (CBC)

Talking point: Charlottetown has one of the lowest vacancy rates in the country: 0.2 per cent in July, compared to Toronto’s 1.1 per cent. A big part of that is Airbnb, as one in 50 private dwellings in the city are listed there. The tax is designed to help the city make money off the booming tourist trade, while simultaneously making the housing crunch less acute by encouraging tourism rentals to switch to targeting longer-term residents. It’s not just Charlottetown that’s facing a short-term-rental influx: Prince Edward Island as a whole has seen an approximately 50 per cent increase in tourism establishments in the last three years.