West Vancouver "user fee" (read: tax) on home fire alarm systems

In 2009 West Vancouver introduced a new tax levied on monitored home fire alarm systems.

Instead of the municipality rewarding home owners for paying an alarm company in an effort to prevent or reduce fire damage and as a result the use of services of the fire department - as insurance companies do - the West Vancouver municipality sees alarm systems as an opportunity to get more money out of the residents. The municipality calls this tax a "user fee" - the only problem is that the "user" does not use anything.
Homeowners also get fined for false alarms. Even if one agrees that this tax is a user fee, how can there be a user fee and a fine for the same service?

If the fire department has to attend to a fire in a home without a fire alarm system, the homeowner does not get charged a user fee even if the fire could have been wholly or partly prevented with an alarm system. So there is no tax/user fee for preventable use of the fire department but there is a tax/user fee for trying to prevent or minimize their use.

What is next? A tax on hardwood floors, showers? Kitchens would be a good source of revenue because every home is sure to have one. Let's think how that can be interpreted as a user fee.