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Poison Pill: BC Liberals and the HST

Steve Burgess

| November 3, 2010

Image by: Kelly Sutherland

The HST might be the right medicine for B.C., but the side effects are proving deadly.

The BC Liberals had a chance – and failed – to play it straight with the HST.

Imagine Christmas was an impacted wisdom tooth and Santa Claus was a dentist, and you’ll have some idea of how much Premier Campbell is looking forward to the BC Liberal convention Nov. 19 and 20. Gone are the yearly festivals of backslapping and smug self-congratulation. This one will be grim. 

The HST has been such an epic political disaster it could have been forecast by Nostradamus. And yet it does not involve corruption or scandal, the usual elements that give a controversy legs. In fact, the scandal involves the implementation of a policy that is looked on by many if not most analysts as a worthwhile and even necessary step. But only because analysts don’t need votes. The fact that the government is now pulling up a chair at every restaurant meal, leaving teeth marks in your burger and eating seven per cent of your fries, is political poison for the Liberals, and a five-figure addition to every new-home purchase is the kind of thing that turns sensible folk into little Sarah Palins.  

But it’s not the sales tax. It’s the sales job. There wasn’t one. The Campbell Liberals had the chance to play straight in the 2009 election campaign and at least broach the possibility of the HST, keep their options open. They didn’t. A word to Liberal backbenchers: barring recall, it might be a good idea to spend the next 2½ years stealing office supplies. At this point, you’ve got nothing to lose. 

A history of dishonesty

Unlike his skirt-chasing successor, Bill Clinton, the first president Bush managed to keep his trousers zipped. Unlike his bumbling, dissembling son, he did not botch his invasion of Iraq. And yet unlike those other presidents, Bush the First lasted only one term. That is largely because he was elected on the slogan, Read My Lips – No New Taxes. When new taxes followed, the Bush White House was toast. The man who defeated Saddam’s Republican Guard was defeated by angry Republican voters back home. Cue the moving vans. 

In 1975 Pierre Trudeau brought in wage and price controls, having campaigned against them. It didn’t hurt his chances of dating Barbra Streisand. But he did lose the next election. 

The HST is not an ideological issue. Unlike Prime Minister Harper’s recent census controversy, there are no senior bureaucrats howling that the government is charging blindly into quicksand. But just as the census affair played to public fears that Harper is an ideologue with a secret agenda, the HST imbroglio plays into public perceptions of our premier as a politically slippery character. The HST issue would have been trouble even if the Campbell government had been straight about it. It’s a disaster because it wasn’t. 

Axing the tax?

Next year’s referendum is the Liberals’ Hail Mary pass. If HST opponents win, it may ease public anger. But axing the tax could help the NDP too; it would save them from a potentially sticky problem. The anti-HST battle makes an uneasy fit with NDP ideals. Tax revolts are much better suited to the likes of Bill Vander Zalm. Left in place, the HST might have been a difficult policy for the NDP to roll back; they might have tweaked it a bit rather than cancel it entirely. And imagine the anger that would generate. Could Carole James and company really afford to let it stand, even with revisions? More importantly, could the NDP be upfront about it? Could they say during the next election, “We don’t like the HST, but we won’t completely scrap it either?” 

Lies can blow up in a politician’s face. But veteran politicians know that the truth can be just as bad. I guess that’s why they lie so much. At least that way you get a crack at those free office supplies for a few years.

HST in BC: Business Responds to the Tax

Beware the HST Revolt

The Silver Lining in BC's HST

BC's HST: Sudden Death

BC HST: High-handed Selfish Tax

An HST Ray of Hope

HST Follies

Tags
- BC Liberals,
- Gordon Campbell,
- HST,
- steve burgess,
- Taxation,
- Politics

lol i like the way you

Submitted by jeff smith on Thu, 2011-12-22 06:36.

lol i like the way you thoroughly wrote it, it is hilarious indeed :D

I always enjoy Steve's

Submitted by Bill Tieleman (not verified) on Tue, 2010-11-02 20:59.

I always enjoy Steve's humorous take on things but he makes two wrong conclusions. First Steve says: "The HST is not an ideological issue." Yes it is - but not left/right. It is about elites vs ordinary citizens. Economists and CEOs love the HST - unless they own restaurant chains or are developers. The regular folks who have to pay the HST to subsidize big business don't. Anytime you transfer $2 billion in taxes from business to consumers, it's ideological. Second, Steve says: "But it’s not the sales tax. It’s the sales job." But it IS the sales tax - we hate it and we hated it before we found out the BC Liberal government was talking to Ottawa just 3 days after the May 2009 election about implementing it. We hate it every single time we pay it on restaurant food, haircuts, domestic airline tickets, massage therapy, movie and sports tickets - you name it - all with an extra 7% tax for nothing. Because not a penny of the extra tax goes to public services - that's why it's not left or right wing - it's just a ripoff. Mea Culpa gives the BC Liberals the best advice they can get for a slim chance of surviving - but they seem doomed to drink the HST Kool-Aid at this point. Bill Tieleman - Fight HST strategist

A Mea Culpa is the only

Submitted by Yves (not verified) on Thu, 2010-10-28 20:17.

A Mea Culpa is the only viable option for the BC Liberals, as opposed to stealing office supplies as the author humerously suggests. The poisonous political killing ground that is the HST issue (aka "Either the HST goes or the Liberals go") has to be addressed and then the ground sanctified by the appropriate Mea Culpas ... which means politicians groveling in front of the electorate repeating "We're sorry and will not treat you like sheep ever again." The BC Liberals should dismantle the HST as a political necessity to getting re-elected and grovel a bit ... or grovel a lot, as needed. The issue is no longer about the HST really, it is all about the BC Liberals treating the voters like dirt and these same voters revolting in an organized fashion. The BC Liberals joke about voters being revolting but in this case the electorate is angry enough and organized enough to remind the BC Liberals who really is the boss in the province: the people. The public now expects to be listened to and the referendum next year is fooling no one ... the word on the street is that it is a stall and the 15% tax cut is a bribe. The BC Liberals really cannot win this one and have to dismantle the HST unless they want to see the Liberal party reduced in recalls and ultimately turfed out of the legislature after the next election. After enough bowing and scrapping, voters may well turn their attention to the hideous management track record of the NDP in office and give the BC Liberals the only deal in town: ... a microscopic majority ... and they will have to earn that.