Today in a historic referendum, the people of British Columbia have collectively slapped Christy Clark and her Liberal Party in the face by voting to scrap the HST. Frankly the news is bitter sweet because the best answer to the HST problem was not even on the ballot. Merging the GST and PST was a good thing to do, but what hurt tax payers was the 7% extra that was added to the price of a large basket of goods and services previously excluded from the PST. When the HST was being implemented, the Prime Minister gave the BC Liberals the option not to add new tax to all these services, but the offer was declined. The Liberals really needed the money. Now experts are saying that BC will have a multi-billion dollar hole in its budget, ironic considering the Liberals told us that the tax was going to be revenue neutral (which was yet another lie).
Christy Clark's first few months as "interim" Premier are proving to be a disaster. My personal favourite was coming out saying that the gas tax was bad for families until somebody told her it was her own government's policy, and she promptly changed her mind. When Christy seized power, she told us that she would go to the electorate soon to get a mandate to govern. Well, don't expect her to call an election anytime soon. In fact I expect that because she is likely to lose the next election that she will just decide to serve out the remainder of Gordon Campbell's mandate. Whenever we go to the polls, Christy Clark is going to lose. That's why I'm going to start calling her our interim Premier.
The BC Conservatives need to run a full slate in the next election and now I expect that they have more time to recruit quality candidates. "If you build it, they will come..."
Word on the street is Christie is about to boot around 18 folks from her caucus and pull the plug for the fall no matter what. No joke, she's the craziest chicken to ever run a province since Glen biker gang Clark.
ReplyDeleteI voted to keep the HST,after doing a lot of research into the matter. There is just no way we taxpayers are ever going to see a tax rescinded,and this case was no different.
ReplyDeleteKevin Falcon promised that a return to the old system would cost 560 million to reinstitute,and said we'd have to repay the Feds 1.6 billion.
Falcon also said they'd expand the PST to cover all the areas that were formerly not covered,so in the end we'd pay out over 2 billion,and be back at square one.
Christy would have to be as stupid as her critics say,to call an election now.They could very well finish third.
That's the catch. If they want to the Liberals can just add PST to everything that was exempt prior to the HST. However I suspect that doing so would create a public backlash. Or are the Liberals screwed no matter what they do?
ReplyDeleteBottom line is that "charge 5% HST on items previously exempt from PST" should have been on the ballot and it wasn't. The ballot question was all or nothing, and now we are stuck in a no win situation. Harmonizing the two sales taxes was the right thing to do, but you can easily charge different rates for different products. They do it in grocery stores. If the grocery store cooked a food item, I pay HST on that item where uncooked equivalents are not.
Ice - I rather think you already had a situation where the 5% was charged on items that were PST-exempt. However, I gather the list of PST-exempt items was rather wierd and arbitrary, resulting in serious issues for merchants in B C.
ReplyDeleteWhat should have been done was to bring in the HST but lower the rate so it was truly revenue-neutral. With only one set of rules - those governing GST - life would have been much simpler for merchants. And a lower rate would have resulted in lower prices on some items.
The B C government used the implementation of the HST as a revenue grab, extending the former PST to a whole bunch of new items. Had they been more moderate in their demands, the referendum might well have validated the new tax system.
On a slightly different point. (Pros and Cons) aside It is a good thing that the people of BC put the "Government" in their place as in don't cram shit down our throats and expect us to just throw up our hands saying "Well it's done there is nothing we can do about it" Maybe the BC government and other Canadian government gangs will get the hint that they work for the citizens not the other way around.
ReplyDeleteRob C.
Ha! McNair is pissed off at BC voters and is lashing out at the ignorance and gullibility of the voting public. What's wrong with being upset at paying higher taxes?
ReplyDeleteHST is a federal tx. I'll ever understand why Harper and Campbell shoved this tax onto BC
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, Stephen Harper gave Gordo the option not to increase the price of a large basket of goods and services by 7% and that offer was declined. If you did not have all those things becoming more expensive, people wouldn't be pissed off.
ReplyDeleteErgo Stephen Harper is not responsible for what made people pissed off. If you take away the increased cost to consumers, what exactly is there to be pissed off about?
Revenue neutral" doesn't exist. Governments put taxes of any sort in place to INCREASE revenue,and for no other reason.
ReplyDeleteThis referendum was a lose/lose proposition for the taxpayer,and now we have to contemplate the ugly possibility of an NDP government.
Unless you are a civil servant,the NDP is the last Party you want in power. If you think the boondoggles are bad under the other Parties,wait until you see the socialists in action.
Ask anyone who lived through the 1990's in B.C.
There IS an alternative,the BC Conservatives,and while they won't win the election, if enough of us vote for them,they could hold the balance of power with either the Libs or NDP in a minority position.
And please,don't anyone bring up the "coalition" scare,this is a Provincial government we're talking about,not a Federal coalition with the balance of power held by a Seperatist Party.
The best Party B.C. ever had,the Socreds of W.A.C.Bennett,was essentially a coalition,and it worked very well for us here for over twenty years.
August 27, 2011 8:11 AM