City wants cut of the HST

Hi all-

At this year’s UBCM convention, Prince Rupert will put forward a motion requesting a one per cent cut of HST revenues for B.C. municipalities. Read all about it: muskegnews.com/city-hst

Ciao.

-Muskeg News

Ha as if, get rid of the bullshit taxes, they were made to subsidize the war, nothing else . The governments have abused this and now are lying to our faces about tax and now we pay for it .

It looks like the city’s request for a ‘cut’ of the HST may be overtaken by events, at least somewhat, since the Campbell government has agreed that Zalm’s petition will go to referendum next year and the government will be bound by the results, according to Opinion 250:

"Referendum Will be Binding- Premier

By 250 News
Monday, September 13, 2010 06:54 PM

Prince George, B.C.- The referendum on the HST will be binding. Premier Gordon Campbell says the vote on the controversial tax will take place on the 24th of September 2011, and his government will abide by the results of the simple majority vote.
This is exactly what the fight HST campaign has been pressing for, saying the other “Initiative vote” is impossible to achieve as it calls for more than 50% from 50% of all registered voters.
The Select Committee voted today to call for a referendum on the HST, however, there has been no decision on whether it will be done as a full polling station type ballot, or mail in."

I don’t believe him.

Won’t sell BC Rail. Won’t rip up contracts. The deficit is only $495M. The HST was not on our radar.

We have seen some parties devastated by poor policies and an upset electorate. Turner’s (Trudeau’s) Liberals. Johnson’s (Vander Zalm’s) Socreds. Campbell’s (Mulroney’s) Conservatives and Dosanjh’s (Clark’s) NDP. But, seriously, can you point to a more corrupt, deceitful, arrogant group than our current provincial government.

And the icing on the cake. The temporary Liberal appointed CEO of Elections BC first refuses to send the petition to the legislative committee because of a bogus court case brought forward by friends of the government and who have the most to gain from the tax. Then this temporary CEO fires his deputy under the guise of a restructuring. Since when do temporary appointments make massive changes like that, especially days before the announcement of a referendum.

Frankly it scares me what these people will do next and what they think the can get away with.

This is no longer an HST issue. The democratic process is the issue. And I fear for its survival.

That’s not quite how I read the court decision directing the CEO to send the petition to the legislative committee. Here’s the recap that the judge gave;

"[1] On 4 February 2010, the Chief Electoral Officer for British Columbia declared that William Vander Zalm’s “An Initiative to end the harmonized sales tax (HST)” (the “Initiative Petition”) had met the requirements for an acceptable petition prescribed by s. 3 of the Recall and Initative Act, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 398 [RIA].

[3] The petitioners (an alliance of business groups in British Columbia) say that this “victory for democracy” is founded on a petition which should not have been approved in principle by the Chief Electoral Officer (the “CEO”) under the RIA. The petitioners bring this application for judicial review and seek an order quashing the approval of the CEO and an order setting aside the Initiative Petition as being null and void."

In any event, that’s all history now.

I think the question is whether the premier’s commitment (believable or not) to take the HST petition to referendum next September and be bound by the results will derail Zalm’s plan to launch recall initiatives against various Liberal MLAs.

Agreed. The Premier has proven himself to be a liar. I take some consolation in the fact that I’ve never voted for the Liberals. The HST debacle may bring down the Liberals in 2013.

[quote=“BTravenn”]

That’s not quite how I read the court decision directing the CEO to send the petition to the legislative committee. Here’s the recap that the judge gave;

"[1] On 4 February 2010, the Chief Electoral Officer for British Columbia declared that William Vander Zalm’s “An Initiative to end the harmonized sales tax (HST)” (the “Initiative Petition”) had met the requirements for an acceptable petition prescribed by s. 3 of the Recall and Initative Act, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 398 [RIA].

[3] The petitioners (an alliance of business groups in British Columbia) say that this “victory for democracy” is founded on a petition which should not have been approved in principle by the Chief Electoral Officer (the “CEO”) under the RIA. The petitioners bring this application for judicial review and seek an order quashing the approval of the CEO and an order setting aside the Initiative Petition as being null and void."

In any event, that’s all history now.

I think the question is whether the premier’s commitment (believable or not) to take the HST petition to referendum next September and be bound by the results will derail Zalm’s plan to launch recall initiatives against various Liberal MLAs.[/quote]

Not sure what you are telling me here unless you didn’t like the word bogus which I will retract. But the court case was initiated by friends of the government, those groups who have the most to gain from the tax. And one of their lead lawyers was Geoff Plant former Attorney General under Campbell. I guess bogus is the wrong word, but you have to question the motives behind the group taking the petition to court.

James Neufeld was the CEO of Elections BC and he approved Vander Zalm’s petition.

Under James Neufeld, Elections BC said that the government mailout was not allowed under the recall and initiative act.

The term for a CEO of elections BC is two elections plus a year. I am not sure if Neufeld was prepared to take on a second term, but according to Chris Delaney, Vander Zalm’s co-petitioner, Neufeld had asked for a sixty day extension to see the petition through the court case. fnbc.info/node/3355

Despite that offer a temporary CEO was announced at the end of June, the last day of the spring session. The appointment of a permanent CEO is made by an all party committee but the temporary appointment was not. Usually a temporary appointment is the second in command. In this case it was not. Here’s Vaughn Palmer’s take. communities.canada.com/vancouver … tid=671247

Nobody seems to be questioning the integrity of Craig James. But his first act is the controversial one of not sending the petition to the legislative committee. And while Mike de Jong said that James was not being considered as the permanent replacement, James’ second act is to fire his deputy, who had been at Elections BC for 28 years, citing restructuring. Since when do temporary appointments, especially ones not considered for the permanent position make major restructuring plans. The deputy, get this, does not see a connection between her firing and her decision not to allow the government mailout to proceed. Note in the following article, that her silence or lack of candor may be a result of her negotiating a severance package. theglobeandmail.com/news/nat … le1701997/

I know this is off the track of this thread’s topic, but right now, given this government’s record of deception and the goings on at Elections BC, I worry about how the referendum will be manipulated. As I said in my first post, this is no longer about the HST. I have lived under several governments whose policies I have opposed. I supported the General Strike in 1983 and walked the streets in protest of the cutbacks in 2001. Didn’t get what I hoped for in either case, but I still felt that democracy was alive and well.

With this group, I don’t feel that anymore.