The entire saga of the HST in B.C. is the epitome of poor governance and lack of leadership.
In the last years of Martin Luther King’s life, he stood up against the war in Vietnam and poverty. A poll at that time showed that 72 per cent of whites and 55 per cent of blacks disapproved of his position on those matters. Obviously those people were wrong but of course welcome to their opinions until they learned better.
That is the purpose of leadership, to bring people along on a better path. Both parties in B.C. have equally failed in leadership on every aspect of the HST debacle, including the referendum, and the voters have made a bad decision.
This is not a victory for democracy by any stretch of the imagination and if the leadership vacuum of the Liberal party continues with its “Plan B” we are going to pay dearly.
With the return to the PST, B.C. will regain sovereignty over sales tax issues. However, the PST was a bloated, chaotic mess as a result of layer upon layer of political messaging.
The big question of the day is why the NDP supported such a regressive tax - this will surely cost them the remainder of their support.
Kevin Falcon claims he is going to negotiate with the feds over the cost of B.C.’s withdrawal from the HST program. Yet, the Clark-Falcon moronocracy has stripped away any bargaining chips that B.C. could have had.
What should have been done as their “Plan B” was to state that the HST slate has now been wiped clean by the referendum vote, and the B.C. government is going to properly negotiate a new harmonization agreement with the feds, and actually approve the agreement in the B.C. legislature.
In this new negotiating position, they would ask the feds to allow self-employed people to deduct any HST paid on their labour to be deducted from any income tax owing. This would put the self-employed on the same footing as salaried workers, and take the incentive out of the underground economy which the HST is causing. Then they would have a bargaining position - either the feds accept this tax refund system for all of the country, or B.C. goes back to the PST and refuse to pay back the transition funds.
It’s time for a new political party in B.C.
Robert McCroskey
Surrey