The British Columbia committee that will decide what to do about the successful anti-HST petition delayed making a decision today while it seeks more information about its two options.
“We want to make sure that we make an informed decision, rather than coming to the very first meeting with your mind made up, which is what the NDP members did,” said Terry Lake, the Liberal MLA for Kamloops-North Thompson who was elected chair of the committee.
The select standing committee on legislative initiatives, which met for the first time in 16 years to consider the province's first succesful initiative, may choose to forward the question of repealing the HST to the legislative assembly or recommend that it be put to a referendum.
The NDP's Jenny Kwan made a motion to forward the matter to the legislature, but Liberals used their majority on the committee to adjourn that motion so the committee could seek more information on both options from acting chief electoral officer Craig James.
The committee voted to meet again at 1 p.m. on Monday, September 13.
“I think the government's in chaos at the moment,” said Kwan. “They don't know what to do.”
The quickest route to accountability would be to allow MLAs in the legislature to do the will of their constituents, she said. “Let's get on with it.”
The committee met because some 557,000 people signed petitions to repeal the HST, said Lake. “Last time I checked that wasn't a majority of British Columbians,” he said. “An initiative vote is certainly one way to make sure every British Columbian has an opportunity to have a voice, not just 18.6 percent of them.”
The threshold for success was 10 percent of eligible voters in each of the province's 85 constituencies. The petition to repeal the HST was the first to meet that threshold since the initiative laws were made 16 years ago.
Petition organizer Chris Delaney, former Liberal cabinet minister Blair Lekstrom and Green Party leader Jane Sterk were among those in the public gallery for the meeting.
“The committee's a joke, let's face it,” said Delaney. He wants the matter to go directly to the legislature for a vote, he said. “The Liberals are obviously going to go to an initiative vote, that's what they want to do . . . That means recalls in November.”
Sterk said her party supports consumption taxes, but not the HST. The province has given away its power to raise sales taxes on things it wants to discourage and drop them on things it wants to encourage, she said.
Lekstrom said the Liberal government is in a tough position. While premier Gordon Campbell has done much for the province, he said, “On this issue it is very clear he is on a different side than the public is.”
On July 1 the 12 percent HST replaced the five percent GST and seven percent PST in the province.
Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria. Reach him here.
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G West
1 year ago
Lake is in deep water, and...
He’s clearly out of his depth!
MLA Lake sounded a lot like he'd made up his mind too.
Kwan and Lake were interviewed on CBC Radio at noon today and it wasn't hard to see that the chairman of the committee was spinning just as hard as his NDP counterpart, Ms Kwan.
It seemed clear to me that Lake (undoubtedly on orders from the Premier's Office) is going to choose 'door number 2' and send this turkey to a province wide referendum next fall.
Kwan, on the other hand, used her opportunity to speak to make a discursive and largely pointless attack on the Campbell government (mentioning emails and Hansen's continued prevarications) instead of zeroing in on the actual issue here.
Lake is convinced that, because he's had some emails from supporters of his party who didn't sign the petition, that the province should now be put into a year long holding pattern before permitting a referendum on the HST.
He also dodged the clear and unavoidable fact that the legislature HAS NEVER APPROVED THE HST IN ANY FORM.
I expect the last think the CEO wants to do is appear in the legislature this fall - don't be surprised when Lake and his BCLIBERAL clones vote to send this thing to a vote in the fall of 2011.
Campbell will, in all probability, be long gone by then....
Skywalker
1 year ago
Yup he sure has...
While premier Gordon Campbell has done much for the province" That's why everyone can't wait to see the back of him Blair. You still don't get it>
Gary
1 year ago
Lake is the lapdog
I don't care what anyone says, the liberals are under orders to delay this as long as they can. Campbell wants his agenda put through and that's that.
If this hasn't gone to a free vote in the legislature before November 15 then the people have no choice but to recall every MLA that is screwing them. If that means the government will fall then tough titty. They made their bed now they can lie in it.
archer2006
1 year ago
Delay, lie, delay, lie
You'd think the Liberals would have figured out this isn't getting them so far. Or maybe they've decided that recall can't possibly succeed.
Whatever. This is a bad strategy as strategy goes, but good as far as keeping folks pissed off goes.
And Jane Sterk? Please. Here's what she had to say a year ago. "In the end, no matter what you think of the tax, it will be here to stay July 1st and we'll all get used to paying it."
So wise, so irrelevant.
Why cover her now?
asp
1 year ago
leslature votes
Maybe I am missing something.
Why aren't the Liberals simply sending it to the Legislature for a vote, and then voting against it?
That is allowed, isn't it?
Admittedly, it would not be popular, but there are no rules stopping them from doing that, are there?
Stephanie T
1 year ago
These numb-nuts
Have had several weeks in which to "research their options". Besides, there are only two simple options, referendum or legislative vote. And they need a committee of ten MLAs to decide this? They might as well just go eenie meenie minie mo FFS.
Stephanie T
1 year ago
These numb-nuts
Have had several weeks in which to "research their options". Besides, there are only two simple options, referendum or legislative vote. And they need a committee of ten MLAs to decide this? They might as well just go eenie meenie minie mo FFS.
Skywalker
1 year ago
They're just buying time.
What these folks don't understand is that as unpopular as the Campbell liberal crew are now once they get that low, hanging on only makes people angrier. You'd think they would have learned that lesson from the NDP. No, Campbell's ego will be the BC liberals undoing. It couldn't happen to a bunch of more deserving rogues.
Grania
1 year ago
There are cowards in the Committee
The Liberal majority, in the anti hst committee, will go for an expensive referendum vote , rather than take the matter to the legislature now, because they are COWARDS! They think a vote of the general public will give them time to save themselves. It will not. It will further convince their ridings that they are not only liars...they are manipulating cowards as well...and do not care what their actions cost the families and seniors already struggling financially in this facist province...
morechatter
1 year ago
Myth or Reality
CEOs: Cut more jobs, make more money
A study reveals an unsettling trend from the Great Recession: Not only did many CEOs get raises while laying off workers, those who cut more got bigger pay packages.
Reality: CEOs decide what trickles down and its not savings for consumers or odd jobs but rather the corruption that goes along with that.
Myth: Job creation
circle A
1 year ago
a lot of bc
can be given away to private interests in one year,i`d say there`s not that much left of our assets anyway. with all top slots in all crown corprations filled with neo-cons and corporate privatizers hand pick by campbell and his howe/bay st. thieves that his agenda will continue long after he`s gone and the next liberal govt. get in in 2013,which they likley will as long as the ndp sticks with carole james and continues to display incompetence in opposition on a level not seen in decades.
P. Markunas
1 year ago
@ GWest
Not that a veteran and wiley MLA like Jenny Kwan needs a defender, but you're wrong in your analysis.
The debate of whether a referendum is appropriate will take place on Monday. Cost is too much, MLAs ducking their role, blah, blah, blah.
Top priority, the NDP must make the referendum about TRUST and Liberal DECEIT, rather than allow the referendum to only be about the economic merits of the HST and the cost of rescinding it. I'll not quibble over the messenger's delivery, but the message intended was appropriate.
G West
1 year ago
@P Markunas
I heard Ms Kwan's remarks. In my view she did a poor job of addressing the actual issue(s) and turned her chance to speak on province wide radio into little more than a shrill harangue of Gordon Campbell and his record. Not very wily and not very smart. At the moment, the BC Liberals are doing a better job of savaging their leader than the NDP is.
That kind of thing is the lingua franca of the legislature - on CBC radio it was a wasted opportunity...she clearly expressed the view that the committee should table the petition in the house - while Lake spouted equally noxious nonsense about why the NDP is afraid to have a referendum. According to him because 'only' 18% of BC voters don't support the HST.
Neither party spokesperson came across as intelligent or thoughtful and neither of them tried even marginally to answer the host's questions.
As for the matter of whether or not either of the mulish options afforded by the initiative legislation are optimal in terms of advancing the cause of democracy and governmental responsibility - anyone who suggests this exercise is going to improve things much is, in my view, dreaming.
Given the fact that the leader of Ms Kwan's party has been equivocating about whether or not an NDP government would base its campaign (either for election or for the referendum) upon a clear commitment to rescind the HST perhaps Ms Kwan's lack luster performance isn't so hard to understand. Thus far, the Opposition hasn’t even been riding shotgun to the efforts of the dedicated volunteers who’ve pushed this issue to its current status at the top of the provincial agenda. In much the same way independent and analytical private individuals have kept the BC Rail Trial from being totally swept under the provincial rug…almost no thanks to the Opposition.
What the NDP needs to do, in my view, is to stop pragmatically playing to the crowd and start coming up with some real progressive alternative policies to the corruption and neglect of the past 10 years.
P. Markunas
1 year ago
@GWest
I heard Kwan answer the host clearly. She did point out the legislature never had a vote on the HST. As you acknowlege, she did say the NDP preferred immediate referral to the legislature, and rejected a referendum. And yes, she did say the Liberals lied in the election. Straight up.