What a beautiful HST free day

[thema]

Funny, as a result of this tax being removed many places I go to are raising their prices (beer at my local went up a quarter). Hmmm.

[inane]

The sheeple were taken in by the bafflegab being peddled by The Zalm and his clown car occupants and in a stunning display of stupidity and ignorance provided a perfect example of the old idiom to cut off one's nose to spite one's face.

[Wetcoaster]

I find it remarkable you place Liberal policy failure squarely on vanderzalm's lap. I don't want or expect a reply, but wow do you give this guy way too much credit.

[Wetcoaster]

Funny, as a result of this tax being removed many places I go to are raising their prices (beer at my local went up a quarter). Hmmm.

[inane]

How do you not credit Vander Zalm? He flat out lied and misled people and they lapped it up.

[Gross-Misconduct]

I would have preferred to keep the HST at the proprosed reduce rate of 10% and kept the $1.6B transition windfall from the Federal Government. And really...other than the Olympics...when has BC ever gotten so much from the Feds?

Then come election time...if people were still tired of the Liberals...they could have voted them out of office and elect the NDP.

Too many people are short-sighted to see the big picture.

[RUPERTKBD]

There's the problem. Gordon Campbell was not going to take the bullet for the HST. He saw his popularity go down the drain after the HST was brought in and he didn't have the courage or fortitude to leave it in. By doing so would it would have probably cost him and the Liberals the next election. So instead he made up his own rules, BC lost the HST and the 1.6 billion from the feds and he high tailed it out of the country.

Put the blame where it belongs, on Gordon Campbell.

[ronthecivil]

Funny, as a result of this tax being removed many places I go to are raising their prices (beer at my local went up a quarter). Hmmm.

[aGENT]

I would ask you for evidence of that but I know it's just anecdotal. Not really your typical m.o. but I know when it comes to deflecting, deflectors gotta deflect.

If the Liberals had such glorious truth on their side, then surely they shoulder some of the blame for doing such a piss poor job promoting it?

[Gross-Misconduct]

Totally off the mark. If this sort of take is indicative of the thinking of the "no" side, it's no wonder we're left holding the 3 billion dollar bag.

[RUPERTKBD]

Maybe I have to educate you.

The referendum vote did NOT meet the criteria to get rid of the HST. Gordon Campbell changed it to 50+1. BC would have the HST today if not for one man, Gordon Campbell.

Fact.

[Gross-Misconduct]

You said "he did not have the courage or fortitude to leave it in". Not fact.

It was the 55% of British Columbians who did not have the intelligence to "leave it in" that are to blame. Not the former Premier who wasn't even in office when the HST was axed.

[Gross-Misconduct]

A great article for everyone in denial that Gordon Campbell is the sole man responsible for the demise of the HST. I recommend some of you take off your Liberal tinted glasses before you read it.

Gordon Campbell's ham-handed pandering

The Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Sep. 15 2010, 7:00 PM EDT

Last updated Thursday, Aug. 23 2012, 4:23 PM EDT

The B.C. government may feel it is acting out of political necessity in agreeing to make the results of a harmonized-sales-tax plebiscite binding, and with a lower threshold for passage than what is legally required. The move, however, comes at the expense of good policy, and it will heighten, not dampen, cynicism in politics over the longer term.

The anti-HST petition has now been certified. A B.C. legislative committee has chosen a plebiscite, instead of immediately introducing the abolitionists' bill in the legislature.

Ordinarily, the plebiscite would have faced a high bar: B.C.'s initiative legislation says that, for the abolitionists' bill to be introduced in the legislature after a vote, at least 50 per cent of registered electors in two-thirds of the ridings must have voted in favour, and 50 per cent of registered voters overall must have voted yes.

Even then, the abolition bill can only be introduced; the initiative legislation does not command its passage. And after accounting for less than complete turnout, the plebiscite would have effectively required a supermajority of supporters, on the order of 70 per cent, to have the bill introduced in the first place.

But with anti-HST fury building, the B.C. Liberals are in a bind, so it has tried to placate the public: Finance Minister Colin Hansen offered a pre-emptive apology, and Premier Gordon Campbell promises to automatically repeal the HST, even if only a simple majority of those voting want to do so.

Consider the upshot: On the one hand, the government is adhering strictly to the initiative law, whipping its committee members to support the more onerous plebiscite requirement. And, on the other hand, it is deviating from the law, making it much easier to repeal the HST. This is dancing on the head of a pin, and voters will rightly view it as such.

The arguments the Liberals are already starting to make will also feed cynicism. When they raise the obligation to repay $1.6-billion to the federal government that would come with repeal, they are suggesting that the tax is a fait accompli. When they are going into an exercise that makes a claim to be democratic, that is not the right message.

Most importantly, the path the Liberals have chosen sets a dangerous precedent for future initiatives. Many U.S. jurisdictions flirting with financial ruin can testify to the perils of direct democracy in budgeting, such as California, still hampered by a decades-old, referendum-driven restriction on property tax changes. The new ground rules - simple majorities win - will embolden others to try their hand at petitions that set tax policy. The right time for the people to rule on a government's tax policy is during a general election.

Mr. Campbell says, "This discussion is not about me." He is in political difficulty, but in capitulating on the terms of the plebiscite, while seeking wiggle room elsewhere, he has made it about him. Democracy and public finances will suffer as a result.

http://www.theglobea...article4389038/

[vavoom]

I think many are missing the point here. The HST really should be assessed on its own merits. I feel dismayed that so many people take into consideration of how it was introduced, who did it, so on, so on....

I can respect someone for voting against the HST because it would end up hitting their pocket books harder than HST/PST. But I cannot respect someone who cannot separate the relevant issues with the soap opera politics that it is attached to.

[Common sense]

I think many are missing the point here. The HST really should be assessed on its own merits. I feel dismayed that so many people take into consideration of how it was introduced, who did it, so on, so on....

I can respect someone for voting against the HST because it would end up hitting their pocket books harder than HST/PST. But I cannot respect someone who cannot separate the relevant issues with the soap opera politics that it is attached to.

[ronthecivil]

I think many are missing the point here. The HST really should be assessed on its own merits. I feel dismayed that so many people take into consideration of how it was introduced, who did it, so on, so on....

I can respect someone for voting against the HST because it would end up hitting their pocket books harder than HST/PST. But I cannot respect someone who cannot separate the relevant issues with the soap opera politics that it is attached to.

[ronthecivil]

Unfortunately, some voters and posters here (I'll name Harbinger and Gross-misconduct as examples) were duped into believing this HST vote was a vote of confidence. It is not.

[Dittohead]

prices are going up because of inflation. Wake Up! the governments are printing money to infinity.

[Gross-Misconduct]

Unfortunately, some voters and posters here (I'll name Harbinger and Gross-misconduct as examples) were duped into believing this HST vote was a vote of confidence. It is not.

As the TGAM article above puts it, it was "good policy"...why were so many voters convinced of a disgraced political leader's (see: VDZ) lies?

[canucks.brad]

long run thus hurts us...

and a 10% HST would have been awesome