Monday, September 13, 2010

HST to Referendum

Monday, September 13, 2010 energeticcity,com

The Legislative Committee on initiatives has decided to send the HST to a non-binding referendum next September. All four New Democrats MP's on the committee said they wanted the petition to go directly to the legislature for a vote. However, all five Liberals including Pat Pimm, wanted the petition to go to a referendum in September 2011. Anti-HST leader Bill Vander Zalm stormed out of the meeting and told reporters that he's furious that the Liberals are going to referendum instead of just voting in the legislature and bringing the issue to a close sooner than later. Vander Zalm says he will announce in the not-too-distant future details of the recall campaign with the goal of bringing down the Government. Premier Gordon Campbell says his government will abide by the results of the referendum.Whatever question goes to the voters, it will have to be approved by 50 per-cent of all registered voters and by 50 per-cent of all registered voters in two-thirds of BC's 85 ridings.

Elections BC says holding a provincial referendum on the HST will cost $30 million. The other option is to do the referendum by a mail-in ballot which would cost only $12 million.
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Reports of Proceedings (Minutes and Hansard)

  • BLUES Monday, September 13, 2010 p.m. - Victoria HTML AUDIO

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Will the ballot be secret?
If not, it will not be a true reflection of public opinion.

I wonder what the privacy commissioner has to say about referendums in which the only voting option is to compromise your privacy in order to perform your civic duty?

Leadership conventions employ the secret ballot don't they?