B.C. on the Hook for $1.6B if HST Scrapped

Jimmy "Da Bookie" Flaherty don't take no guff from nobody.

British Columbia could soon owe Ottawa the $1.6 billion the province received to help implement the harmonized sales tax if it's found that voters chose to scrap the tax in a referendum that ended last week. While the results of B.C.'s HST referendum, which was prompted by a massive grassroots campaign helmed by former premier Bill Vander Zalm, won't be known until the end of the month, federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said he expects the province to honour its commitments if it decides to go back to the PST/GST split it had before (something he might have wanted to make explicitly clear before voting closed, as he kind of comes off a little like Vito Corleone here). Under the terms of the deal signed by former premier Gordon Campbell, B.C. would have to pay that $1.6 billion back if the tax is scrapped before 2015. So, let that be a lesson to any upstart Ontarians who think the HST wasn't worth it – you'll be paying off a few billion, or Jim Flaherty might break your legs.