The HST: Taxing Democracy

The harmonized sales tax isn't just unpopular. It has also stripped away any pretense of a functioning democracy in B.C.

The Fight HST movement has grown into something much bigger than just a protest against a cruel tax. As the damage to the economy from the HST continues to reveal itself on a daily basis, it has become a seminal issue in B.C. politics. It has divided the political class from the people, and laid bare the brutal reality that our democracy is, at best, on life support.

Never before has a government so steadfastly resisted the will of the people it was elected to serve. Never before has it used every tactic in the book to try to derail the democratic process. Many citizens are actually concerned that come election time, the B.C. Liberals will try to find a way to not relinquish power should they be defeated – it has gotten that bad.

Consider, for example, the recent court action by the so-called “business lobby” to declare the petition against the HST “illegal.” Lawyers for Big Business, acting as surrogates for the government, in a stunning act of Orwellian doublespeak, actually told the judge that striking down a petition signed by over 700,000 voters would be good for democracy!

But when the chief electoral officer intervened on behalf of that business lobby to keep the validated petition from going to the legislature, despite the clear instructions of the Initiative Act that he “must” submit it, many people wondered if we were living in some sort of banana republic where supposedly independent officials are indistinguishable from the government itself.

Fortunately, the chief justice of the B.C. Supreme Court ruled not only in our favour, but overwhelmingly so. He rejected every argument by the business lobby, and accepted all of ours. Principally, he ruled that the HST extinguishment act, our draft bill to end the HST, was not only valid, but was a model piece of legislation. He declared that it was clear and unambiguous, and was a matter for the B.C. legislature to deal with. In other words, he ruled that the HST can be cancelled by the B.C. government.

He also ordered the chief electoral officer to immediately hand over the petition to the Standing Committee on Legislative Initiatives. The committee now has two options: 1) They may refer the bill to the legislature for a vote, or, 2) They can send it back to the chief electoral officer to conduct a province wide “initiative vote.”

An “initiative vote” is the legal term for a non-binding referendum requiring 50 per cent of all registered voters in B.C. to approve. Not 50 per cent of the votes cast in the referendum – 50 per cent of all voters in B.C.! Given that less than 50 per cent of the people even bother to vote in elections anymore, this is a deliberately onerous formula designed to thwart the democratic will of the people, not facilitate it. It is completely contrary to Canadian democratic tradition. It becomes even worse when you consider that only 23 per cent of the registered voters actually voted for the government that gave us the HST. Now they want twice that number to repeal it!

But even if such a vote somehow passed, the bill would simply return to the legislature again for a vote by MLAs, at a cost of between $30 and $50 million. It is a total waste of time and money in a pointless exercise designed to stop democracy dead in its tracks.

We have told the government we will not accept such a “nuclear” approach to destroying the people’s petition. We have given Premier Campbell two options: 1) Allow a truly “free” vote on the tax in the legislature, or 2) Conduct a binding referendum requiring a simple majority of votes cast to pass the bill.

Anything else is a delay tactic, and will result in recalls being conducted against selected government MLAs as soon as possible after Nov. 15, the day that recalls can begin. If we are forced to do so, we will begin by recalling two or three MLAs, followed by a new recall launched every month thereafter until the government either defeats the HST, or finds itself defeated while defending the tax to the bitter end.