By: The Canadian Press Date: Monday Aug. 23, 2010 9:36 AM PT
Anti-HST advocate Bill Vander Zalm is wasting no time demanding action after a B.C. court rejected an attempt to wipe out a 700,000 name petition against the harmonized sales tax.
The former B.C. premier has sent a letter urging Premier Gordon Campbell to agree to put the Initiative petition to a free vote in the legislature this fall. The Select Standing Committee on Legislative Initiatives expects to receive the petition today, after a judge suggested the document be passed to the committee for consideration. Vander Zalm wants Campbell to tell the all-party group that the Liberal government will handle the issue during a fall legislative session, rather than put it to a non-binding referendum that could cost as much as $50 million. According to Vander Zalm, 50 per cent of all registered voters in B.C. must pass a referendum -- twice the number he says who voted for the Liberals in the last election -- making the vote both undemocratic and a "colossal waste of money." He warns the premier risks recall campaigns against Liberal MLAs if the initiative process is delayed further.
2 comments:
This pretty much guarantees that the Premier will forward this initiative to a colossal time and money wasting referendum. This will save his crappy MLAs from the horrors of recall, and he can blame Van Der Zalm for wasting all the money necessary for the referendum. Plus it buys him a whole lot of time to try to spin the situation in his favour prior to the referendum day.
In the meantime, he keeps his majority.
Watch this happen.
I was about to post a prediction to that effect myself and you encapsulated exactly what I was going to predict.
I think they will drag out the select committee for several months and then the Liberals on the committee will vote ( Be instructed to vote) for a September 2011 non-binding referendum and this will pass by a 6-4 vote.
The Premier will congratulate his committee on following the Democratic wishes of the people of B.C. and expect that this will stop any threat of Recall (especially for the 6 liberals on the committee) because they have seen the light.
Machiavelli would have been proud of this cynical maneuver and it might get the Premier to the Spring when he announces that he is accepting a Federal Diplomatic Posting from Stevie and will resign as beloved leader of B.C.
Thanks for the insightful comment.
That the way I see it, I could be wrong
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