A tale of two provinces

The implementation of HST is no big deal in Ontario, but it’s pushed the B.C. Liberals to the brink of collapse

On July 1, the harmonized sales tax came into effect in Ontario and British Columbia. In Ontario the new tax was met with a shrug of resignation, but in British Columbia it’s sparked a huge backlash that threatens to topple the provincial Liberal government. Part of the anger stems from the fact during the 2009 election the Liberals said they had no plans to introduce the HST, only to instate it two months after being elected. Now, internal documents reveal the party was actually discussing the tax two months before the election took place.

The “backlash in this province has always been partly about perceptions of dishonesty, recklessness and arrogance in the way the new tax was introduced” says an editorial in the Victoria Times Colonist. In Ontario the government announced the tax, and the people grumbled. But the perception that the B.C. Liberals tried to deceive the public is “dealing a huge blow to the party and its future prospects” says the paper. “None of this suggests the Liberals had decided to introduce the HST. But it does all undermine the claim the tax was "not on our radar" before the election.

Indeed the cache of emails “shows the HST was on the radar, the sonar and the GPS — and probably written on the bathroom wall at the legislature,” says Michael Smyth in the Province, calling Finance Minister “Colin Hansen's insistence that he did not remember reading an 11-page briefing note on the HST” before the election “downright comical.” At this point neither the Liberals nor voters are laughing.

The government’s handling of the HST has been so atrocious according to Vancouver Sun blogger Don Cayo, that even people who think the tax is a good idea have been silenced. Many economists say it’s good policy, but the Liberals “have been disingenuous beyond belief in pretending this is an idea that suddenly surfaced just as the election campaign ended” Cayo says, and “government ineptitude has made (the HST), in my view, no longer defensible.”