Opponents of the harmonized sales tax in B.C. have won the latest 
skirmish in their battle against provincial government's plans to combine the federal and provincial sales taxes. Chief B.C. Electoral Officer Harry Neufeld says he's given anti-HST forces approval in principal to launch a petition against the tax. Neufeld says starting April 6, former B.C. premier Bill Vander Zalm, who leads the anti-HST fight, will have 90 days to collect signatures from at least 10 per cent of registered voters in each of B.C.'s 85 electoral districts. If Vander Zalm is successful, the HST proposal would have to be put to a public vote. The B.C. government plans to combine the five per cent federal sales tax and seven per cent provincial tax into a single 12 per cent tax on July 1. Critics say the plan will hurt taxpayers because it will add the levy to a range of items that have been exempt from provincial taxes, ranging from haircuts to restaurant meals or funerals.
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The signature war to defeat B.C.'s Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) starts on April 6. Anti-HST canvassers recruited by former B.C. Premier Bill Vander Zalm will have 90 days to gather the requisite number signatures before the July 5 deadline to submit their now-approved initiative petition. Elections BC gave the campaign the green light on Thursday. If they succeed, a Vander Zalm-drafted bill titled the HST Extinguishment Act goes to the Legislature for consideration. It would restore the province's current sales tax system –
due to be replaced by the HST on July 1 – and evenly distribute revenue collected by B.C. under the HST to residents. A legislative committee would decide whether to send the bill to a vote or have Elections BC schedule a provincial referendum on the legislation, which couldn't happen until Sept. 24, 2011.
The BC Liberals could simply vote the draft bill down. But HST opponents hope to use that moment to pressure the government to backtrack. "For the government to defeat this in the house, they'd never get elected again," Vander Zalm predicts, calling the initiative the "greatest act of real democracy" ever seen in B.C.
He intends to use the threat of recall campaigns targeting government
up to a dozen Liberal MLAs – those campaigns, delivering a second salvo of direct democracy, can't start until November. The campaign has a steep hill to climb just to secure what would be an unprecedented first-stage victory. Those registered in the anti-HST initiative must get a minimum 10 per cent of registered voters in each of the 85 electoral districts. Six previous attempts to use B.C.'s initiative legislation have all fallen short of that mark. The two strongest attempts – Adriane Carr's 2002 petition on proportional representation and Paul George's 1996 petition to outlaw bear hunting – both got less than half the number of signatures needed despite deploying 4,000 canvassers in Carr's case.
The anti-HST campaign has 1,500 canvassers registered so far. "We will get thousands more," Vander Zalm predicted. "I think it's very, very doable if a lot of people put their shoulder to the wheel and push together." Anti-HST organizers think they have an edge over past drives – the ability to use social media to register canvassers and coordinate the collection of paper signatures. Their Facebook group, with 130,000 members, is B.C.'s largest, and the campaign has another 14,000 followers on Twitter.The HST, which merges the seven per cent provincial sales tax and five per cent federal GST into one levy, means B.C. residents will pay 12 per cent on many previously PST-exempt services, from restaurant meals and hair cuts to real estate fees and funerals.The B.C. government has rolled out a series of measures, many geared to low-income people, to ease the HST's bite. They include a limited exemption on new homes and rebates on the extra tax on fuel and select consumer goods, such as books and children's clothing.The province will get $1.6 billion in transition funding from the federal government to offset the impacts of the HST, which is expected to yield ongoing savings for most business sectors.
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