The KnowBC blog reports on the efforts to overturn British Columbia's decision to implement the Harmonized Sales Tax. A province-wide petition drive to have the law reviewed has been in progress for weeks, and there are threats/promises to launch recall initiatives against recalcitrant politicians.
Indeed, it looks like the high threshold required to have the law reviewed is going to be met, according to this. As they have found in California, you can always get people to say no to a tax. No to spending the money, not so much.
It's striking how placidly Ontario is going forward with the HST, while BC seems convulsed by the prospect. The BC campaign has even brought Bill Vander Zalm, the unindicted former premier, back from the dead. This just confirms each province's stereotypes of the other, for sure. But the notable difference is that British Columbia's Liberal government campaigned against the HST just a year ago and won a very hard-fought election.
In Ontario, the Liberal government made no such promises, and much of the province remains aware that after the fiscal devastation wreaked by the Harris/Eves governments, there was going to have to be, ah, adjustments to our taxation regime, no matter how gingerly the premier has treated the whole subject.
