Fight HST – The Way Forward

Aug 30, 2010 Details | 98 Comments
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By Bill Vander Zalm, Former BC Premier

Leader, Fight HST

The Fight HST movement has grown into something much bigger than its original protest against a cruel tax. While the damage to the economy from the HST continues to reveal itself on a daily basis, it has now become a seminal issue in BC politics. It has divided the political class from the people in a struggle for true democracy. It has stripped away any pretense of a functioning democracy, 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 BC 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 “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 the petition signed by over 700,000 voters in BC would be good for democracy!

But when the Chief Electoral Officer intervened on behalf of that Business Lobby by withholding 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 BC 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, which is 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 BC Legislature to deal with. In other words, he ruled that the HST can be cancelled by the BC government.

He also ordered the Chief Electoral Officer to immediately hand over the petition to the Standing Committee. The Standing 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% of all registered voters in BC to approve. Not 50% of the votes cast in the referendum – 50% of ALL voters in BC! Given that less than 50% of the people bother to vote in elections anymore, it 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% 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 in the legislature to defeat the tax, 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 November 15, 2010, the first day that Recalls can begin.

If we are forced into Recall, 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.