Commentor Responds to Stockwell Days Comments on HST

From Kamloops weekly

Concerning Stockwell Day’s pro-HST editorial of July 14th, 2011. Mr. Day was kind enough to take time from off from his Federal government indexed pension and retirement to tell the British Columbia electorate that the HST will drop 2 percentage points if it is brought into law. He goes on to say how much it will save the citizens of BC, when the actual reduction of the HST rate is finally reached; 2 years into the future. Anything could happen in 2 years to negate that reduction including a Provincial election.

What Mr. Day fails to mention is that the HST is now 12% and that since the HST was passed into law each British Columbian (baby, toddler, child, teenager and adult) is paying a minimum of $443.37 more a year in taxes. Because of the HST British Columbian’s tax free day is increased to June 6th, so each British Columbian works over 5 months for the government... that's too much!

What Mr. Day also doesn't mention is the currently British Columbia needs Federal government approval to get the HST reduced to 10%. Chances of a reduction in the HST are slim to none; if you believe it will occur I have a house in the US you might like to buy. You have to remember as the electorate that this is the same BC government that gave as an election promise there would be no HST brought in, yet here it is and we are paying it. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

Concerning Mr. Day’s main argument about job creation by the HST. Let`s start with the projected job gains by 2020. Jack Mintz in his twelve page, twelve thousand dollar report paid by the BC taxpayer forecasted that the HST would create 113,000 jobs by 2020. Well, we all know what happened to that well thought out projection; it disintegrated, like it was infected by the Ebola virus.

The new report released by Jim Dinning declared that Jack Mintz’s forecast was wildly incorrect; the Dinning report claims the HST will create a mere 24,000 jobs by 2020, roughly 2400 new jobs per year. That’s a heck of a correction from 113,000 jobs to 24,000… HST isn’t looking that good is it? No it’s not looking good at all. Two different reports full of BC Liberal government propaganda, both paid by the BC taxpayer, that’s you!

This is same BC government that brought the HST in by an “Order of Council”. That means the BC Finance Minister signed the HST into law without consent of the BC legislature. Although legal that equates to taxation without representation, our elected representatives should have debated the HST issue in the legislative assembly at which end they should’ve had a free vote on it. In a representative democracy that’s what we are paying our elected officials to do for us, represent our interests. The HST initiative had an over whelming number of signatures from British Columbia indicating they wanted the tax repealed, BC Liberals are ignoring their constituents wishes.

Back to the “job creation” part of Mr. Day’s argument; those 24,000 jobs in ten years could have been created with the PST in place at no cost to the taxpayer, but let’s give the HST the benefit of the doubt and say it does create those jobs.

How much does it cost the taxpayer for those jobs to be created? The number is a staggering $554,166.67 per job, that’s how much it costs you the taxpayer through HST.

This quote is out of the most recent BC government endorsed report “families now pay a total of $1.33 billion more in sales tax after HST rebates and tax breaks are taken into account” So the math for the cost to the taxpayer for job creation is simple 1.33 billion per year / 2400 jobs per year = $554,166.67 per job, per year for the next 10 years. That’s outrageous…talk about misuse of tax dollars, this is a prime example.

Why not just give each one of those new BC employees the $554,166.67; perhaps they could start new businesses, which would really help the BC economy.

According to StatsCan the nation’s official number crunchers, if you want policy to encourage job creation, cutting corporate taxes is the weakest option (20 cents growth from every dollar of tax cut). But according to the BC Liberal government report “Businesses will pay about $730 million less in taxes”. What happened to ‘revenue neutral” which the BC Liberal government was so proud to point out early in the HST campaign, clearly the HST is not revenue neutral, the entire tax burden is shifted to the BC taxpayer.

Just a side bar to the discussion where are those promised reductions in price of goods supposedly coming back to the consumer because of the HST….they never materialized. Here’s a real example, the British Columbia liquor stores have not passed on the savings of HST to the consumer, if the government of British Columbia doesn’t reduce their prices why would private enterprise… the answer is they won’t!

According to the most recent BC government endorsed report “B.C.’s Consumer Price Index shows an initial spike of 1.1 per cent in the rate of inflation from June to July, when the HST
was introduced. That was higher than the national inflation rate of 0.5 per cent for the
same period” All due to the HST, you can’t make this stuff up it comes from the government of British Columbia.

The Liberal government of British Columbia has spent millions of our tax dollars trying to convince the people of British Columbia that the HST is a good thing, it’s not. It will allow the government to reach right into your pocket and take whatever money they want, whenever they want.

After the repeal of the HST in BC by referendum, the follow up referendum in British Columbia must focus on the electorate having the final approval of any tax submitted by the provincial legislature. Another referendum could propose that British Columbia passes a law enacting that any time there's a BC provincial deficit of more than 3 percent of BC’s GDP, all sitting members of the BC legislature are ineligible for re-election. That would motivate all BC politicians to get a sudden streak of ethics and use the BC provincial tax dollars efficiently.

The citizens of British Columbia need a political process allowing registered voters to propose laws which then can be submitted to the electorate for approval by vote after thorough debate by the BC electorate. This process has worked exceptionally well in Switzerland for over 125 years.

In this time of computer technology the citizens of British Columbia must have an easy and effective process to apply checks and balances to laws passed by their provincial government.

Because the BC Liberal government has purposely confused the referendum question you the voter must vote “YES” to have the tax repealed.

Update: Just now I was watching the Early News and There flew the birdman spouting about all the money the government has raised on the backs of those who can least afford it. He actually had the balls to say that the defecit was only some 300+ million instead of the 1.5 billion he originally stated. But what he doesn't say here is that big business isn't contributing and furthermore the tax is not revenue neutral.

Vote YES in the referendum to repeal HST!   

And when you' done that lets work on getting rid of these lying thieves