Thursday, February 4, 2010

BC's HST may be put to a referendum


Bill Vander Zalm approved to fight HST

Vancouver, B.C. — The Canadian Press Published on Thursday, Feb. 04, 2010 5:01PM EST Last updated on Thursday, Feb. 04, 2010 6:32PM EST

Starting April 6th, the race will be on to collect enough signatures on a petition to derail the BC government's plan to harmonize the provincial sales tax with the GST.

BC's Chief Electoral Officer has given former premier and anti-HST crusader Bill Vander Zalm approval in principal to launch the petition.

HST opponents will have 90 days from April 6th to collect signatures from at least 10 per cent of registered voters in each of BC's 85 electoral districts in order to force a referendum on the tax.

Vander Zalm is confident it can be done, saying a lot of people have already signed up to join the anti-HST fight and the campaign will soon go into every BC riding – in his words – “like gangbusters”.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great. I wish we coul dhave a referendum on the Income Trust debacle.

I hope Bill wins against this regressive tax.

Railhound

Anonymous said...

Good News...Where do I sign up and where do I send everyone I can talk to to do the same?

We killed the Blue Bridge replacement in Victoria recently because people were not happy with the decision being made without proper public consultations or disclosure of the options and analysis...sounds familiar but we did not get 18 blacked out pages, just a load of crap. So a local petition shut down that episode and I think there will be more interest in the HST petition.

People in BC are dead against this Harper Sales Tax and it'll go down in flames with this petition. I don't know one person that supports this Flaherty bribed decision.

Polyian

Anonymous said...

http://fighthst.com/

Transcanada

Anonymous said...

meanwhile we sit on our hands in Ontario while the governments stick their hands in our pockets once again . . .

Robin

Anonymous said...

When I moved from Ontario to BC the first thing I noticed was the difference in people's attitude. People here don't sit on their thumbs and they don't put up with crap from politicians....it must be that wild west mentality...it's great.

But I do remember thinking Vanderzalm was a full fruit loop when I was in Ontrario readiing about him when he was Premier...but if he can pull this off he redeems himself.

Robin, I think Dalton will be watching this closely....he must be worried.

Polyian

Anonymous said...

Vander Zalm was on CBC radio this afternoon pitching the campaign. The campaign has to get 10% of BC registered voters in each constituency to get the HST put to a referendum. I think they will get there. I haven't talked to anyone who thinks the Harper Sales Tax is a good idea.

Transcanada

Anonymous said...

Wow... is Tiny Stephen's world about to fall apart?
Stay tuned, Democracy Fans...

m.

Dana said...

Here's a shocker.

The results of BC referendums are not binding.

In other words its an empty and toothless process.

Feel better about democracy yet?

Dr Mike said...

This whole process has got to scare the absolute CRAP out of Harper .

He has always counted-on keeping the opposition vote either away from the polls or at least disinterested enough to not push for a change.

How ironic if the elephant in the room turns out to be democracy itself.

Sweeeeeeeeeeet!!!!.

Dr Mike Popovich