Petition quickly reaches goal

By Darren Handschuh - CASTANET Jan 8, 2017 / 12:52 pm

He had three months to collect 500 names to get the federal government's attention, but Bob Spiers surpassed that in a matter of days. Spiers launched an e-petition on Jan. 4 calling for the federal government to take the GST off of the carbon tax which he said is essentially a tax on a tax. And by Jan. 8, he had already exceeded the number of names required for the e-petition to be submitted to Ottawa. Spiers believes he has touched a nerve with people.“No one likes the idea of paying a tax on tax. I have been fighting this one since 2008, but with the carbon tax going Canada wide now, we will have a lot more pissed off people,” said Spiers. B.C. residents led the charge, signing the e-petition 512 times. Several signatures came from the rest of Canada including Nunavit. Now that the 500-name threshold has been surpassed, Spiers said the federal government will have to look at the e-petition and officially respond to it. However, with another 116 days until the petition closes, Spiers said anticipates there will be a lot more names for federal leaders to look at. “It's a great method of getting the government response in writing. They eventually have to respond to the petition,” said Spiers who is also a Vernon city councillor. “The carbon tax is supposed to be revenue neutral and it is in this province, but about $63 million is pimped off the top by the federal government and has been for the last eight years,” said Spiers. “We're talking big bucks.” The councillor's blog has B.C. budget figures showing $1.27 billion was expected to be generated from the provincial carbon tax over the 2016/17 financial year. It is subject to the federal Goods and Services Tax (GST).