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This is the Life: What to do about the HST?

I was among the minority who favoured the provincial shift to a harmonized sales tax. It only makes sense, I thought at the time — and still do — to have a single collection agency for two taxes...

I was among the minority who favoured the provincial shift to a harmonized sales tax. It only makes sense, I thought at the time — and still do — to have a single collection agency for two taxes. It seems needlessly inefficient to have two sets of bureaucracies collecting sales taxes when one can handle the job. And, while I still believe that, I am less certain now that I can actually support the HST with my ballot in the coming (non-binding) referendum.

What has changed? Well, we have had some time to experience the ramifications of the HST and it bothers me that Premier Christy Clark has taken a shotgun approach to making it more palatable, when a high-powered scope and rifle might be more effective. We know that, in combination with tougher — and decidedly undemocratic drinking and driving rules — the hospitality industry was among the economic sectors hardest hit with by the harmonization of federal and provincial taxes.

The truth is that we were sold a bill of goods by the Gordon Campbell government. When the HST was bulldozed through by a premier that had lost touch with his constituents, we were told that no exemptions to the new tax could be made. It was a requirement by Ottawa, he said, a take it or leave it offer that had the enticement of a couple of billion dollars on the take it side.

Of course we later learned that Ontario had negotiated exemptions, making Campbell’s HST commitment look all the more dubious.

I support consumer taxes as a way to pay for programs and services that benefit all. I’ve often described myself as a happy taxpayer — happy to be in the position of being able to pay taxes, and to help those less fortunate. But I also want taxation to be selective, to be used as an incentive to making our society healthier. So it annoys me that things like bicycles now cost more because of the blended tax. I am not a bicycle rider but I think that the use of any green consumer products should be promoted in any way possible and exempting them from consumer taxes is one tool that government had used successfully.

As the referendum draws nearer, the rhetoric is heating up on both sides. Clark’s promise to lower the HST rate and provide rebates to families with children and to some lower income people is welcome but short of what she could have done. Instead of a general reduction in the tax, I would have been more pleased if she had announced that she was targeting the hardest hit economic sectors and putting into place exemptions that would help maintain and create employment.

Before Clark became premier, there was considerable speculation that the provincial Liberal government was going to back off on the law introduced last fall that allows instant roadside driving suspensions and impoundment of vehicles for drivers who have consumed sufficient alcohol to produce a .06 per cent content in their blood. Make no mistake about it — this was a law instituted at the behest of ICBC, a crown corporation that wields far too much power, none of it responsible to the electorate. When statistics were revealed earlier this year that showed that the law change had helped cut the number of traffic fatalities by more than half in its first five months, tossing out the law became a political time bomb. So the hospitality industry got no relief from the drinking driving laws and none, at least in the short term, from the HST. This ostensibly pro-small business government has pretty much hung the industry out to dry.

My dilemma in the coming weeks is to decide whether the HST, for all its flaws, should remain, or whether I want to join others and send a clear signal to the provincial government that taxation without representation will not be tolerated. Do we want to punish our government (and ourselves, ultimately) by voting to tell Clark to scrap the HST and repay the couple of billion dollars it received from the feds to adopt it? It’s a tough decision. Very tough.

Lorne Eckersley is the publisher of the Creston Valley Advance.