Soon Christy Clark will be sworn in as the Premier of British Columbia.  And almost as soon as she and her new cabinet take power, the process of spending our hard earned tax dollars fighting against the average British Columbian citizen on a referendum on the HST will begin.  Between now and June 24 our government will spend a great deal of time, money, and energy telling us how stupid we are – and how we just don’t understand the benefits of the tax.

The people of British Columbia understand the HST perfectly fine.  The HST is a consumptive tax which has increased the price of goods and services to the average British Columbian (including low income families and seniors), it has added a significant amount of taxation to things like restaurant meals, tourism activities, construction/home renovation, and real estate while decreasing the amount of tax on liquor and giving input tax credits or tax refunds to businesses especially those that purchase a lot of equipment.  The HST has also added costs to the operations of local governments, health authorities, and school boards resulting in even more taxation to what is only one taxpayer.

While our BC Liberal government will soon spend our money to tell us how dumb we are (which I guess we were for electing them, several times), it is important to note that the BC NDP with defacto leader party president “honest Moe” (who is taking a comfortable yet initially secret salary from several large B.C. unions), will be quick to bash the implementation of the HST, but will never say they will remove the tax.  Truth be told an NDP government would be more likely to have the tax increased than eliminated.

The good new is there is another option.  There is one party that will get rid of the HST, and that won’t spend your tax dollars fighting you.  This party was born out of the HST petition process with people from all sides of the political spectrum looking for something that is logical, reasonable, honest, centrist, populist, and fresh.  BC First is the party ( HYPERLINK “http://www.bcfirst.com” www.bcfirst.com), memberships are available, the founding AGM is happening soon.  Be a part of taking back our province.  For more information call me (250) 341-1202.

Gerry Taft

Invermere