Obituary: Harmonized Sales Tax of British Columbia

HARMONIZED SALES TAX OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (born: July 1, 2010-died: March 31, 2013): The Harmonized Sales Tax died peacefully across the Province of British Columbia at the end of March 31, 2013.

HST, as it was better known, was a long-term resident of a public policy hospice since the loss of a province-wide, mail-in referendum on Aug. 26, 2011 left it immobilized. The events of Aug. 26, 2011 also bruised the collective ego of the ruling B.C. Liberal Party, which will be long remembered for helping prolong HST's life to the detriment of its popularity.  

The victim of death-by-democracy was originally announced July 23, 2009 by Premier Gordon Campbell and Finance Minister Colin Hansen, who jointly claimed the tax reform measure would boost investment and job creation. It would be the “single-biggest” thing to improve B.C.’s economy, they said -- but they said it just 10 weeks after winning a provincial election in which their campaign pledged not to harmonize.

The HST Stickman, in happier days.

The value-added tax was a multi-stage merger of the 1948-established, 7% Provincial Sales Tax (also known as the social services tax) and 5% federal Goods and Services Tax. 
Born July 1, 2010, HST was never widely welcomed nor respected by the majority of citizens. 

HST increased the prices of airline tickets within Canada, funeral services, real estate fees, health club memberships, dry cleaning, haircuts, tickets for movies, concerts and sporting events, plumbing repairs, and professional services. 

Besides the 2010 Winter Olympics, the revenue HST brought in helped pay for the $514 million renovation of B.C. Place Stadium, the $17 million B.C. Jobs Plan advertising campaign, the $11 million-plus Times of India Film Awards, the Premier's Office's $475,000 credit card bill, her $201,000-plus charter flights to news conferences and programs such as the B.C. Liberals' Multicultural Outreach Strategy and the Pacific Carbon Trust's purchase of carbon offsets -- which the Auditor General called a waste of taxpayers' money. 

The film industry and manufacturers loved it, because they said it simplified paperwork and reduced the cost of doing business. The Liberal-allied Smart Tax Alliance was its biggest booster. But real estate agents, restaurateurs and publicans (among many) hated it. The HST (coupled with a more powerful Canadian dollar) stimulated a newfound passion for cross-border shopping. It plunged Gordon Campbell’s approval rating fell to 9% and he resigned Nov. 3, 2010. 

HST was the product of the stubborn realization by Campbell that British Columbia’s deficit was understated during the 2009 provincial election and the financial risks of hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics were far greater than anticipated. While insisting the idea was hatched after the election, documents released via Freedom of Information proved B.C. officials were talking with federal counterparts early in 2009. Hansen was even briefed about the HST in March 2009.

The Fight HST campaign led by ex-Social Credit Premier Bill Vander Zalm and organized by NDP strategist Bill Tieleman successfully pointed out that the HST was a shift of the tax burden from business to individuals. Their pivotal Sept. 19, 2009 rally on the site of the future Olympic cauldron at Jack Poole Plaza led to a petition that met the threshold of 10% of registered voters across the province. The 700,000-plus signature petition was delivered to Elections B.C. in June 2010 and it withstood an August 2010 B.C. Supreme Court legal challenge in  brought by six Liberal-allied business groups. 

After Christy Clark won the B.C. Liberal leadership in February 2011 and came to power as Campbell’s successor, she dangled a carrot at voters, hoping they'd agree to vote to keep the HST in exchange for her pledge to cut the tax by 2% in 2014. The province’s $5 million stickman ad campaign that was supposed to be informative, not persuasive. Advertising, by its very nature, is persuasive. For the HST, however, not enough people were persuaded to support the HST. 

The referendum received 1,610,125 votes, of which 881,198 (54.73%) were against the HST. It was hailed as a triumph for democracy by the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation, despite the confusing wording of the referendum question (yes meant no). The result forced Clark to cancel her planned early election call for fall 2011. At the time, Clark was more popular than her party and could have won an election. Now, polls say 62% of British Columbians want a new government.

On April 1, 2013, the HST was finally replaced by the resurrected PST -- which had been called “better-stupid” by ex-Finance Minister Kevin Falcon -- and the returned GST.

The HST is survived by Gordon Campbell, Colin Hansen, Christy Clark, Kevin Falcon and his successor Mike de Jong, along with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Harper played a special role, by enticing B.C. to sign up for the HST with a $1.6 billion lump sum transition payment to help pay the cost of the Olympics. 

Campbell won three terms as B.C. Premier, but failed to finish his last one. He is now Canada’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, thanks to an appointment from Harper. Hansen is a retiring Vancouver-Quilchena MLA who remains on Treasury Board and the Planning and Priorities Committee. 

No memorial service will be held, but the HST will no doubt be remembered when British Columbians vote in the May 14 provincial election. 

Donations and sympathy cards, in lieu of flowers, can be sent to the Christy Clark fund, ℅ Today's B.C. Liberals. 

Bend over B.C.!

The July 15 edition of the Whistler Question includes a fine column by one of British Columbia's best journalists, Sean Holman. But Mr. Public Eye, the answers to the Sudoku puzzle and everything else on page 15 are second fiddle to the photo.

I mean The Photo.

An opponent of the unpopular harmonized sales tax affixed a larger than life appendage to the larger than life replica of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics' logo that reads "Bend Over B.C."

The opponent did so on the very day HST collection began. Many have called Premier Gordon Campbell and finance/Olympics minister Colin Hansen liars deserving Pinocchio noses after they said "no HST" during the 2009 election and then introduced it two months later.

At least one person did the math and understands that Olympic host province B.C. is now paying for the $6.5 billion party with the HST. Why? Because of that nasty word that begins with O.

Owe!

Click the photo to enlarge. If you can't read the cutline, here it is:

Phallic protest: Someone who was obviously no fan of the harmonized sales tax (HST) decided to make a statement by altering the inukshuk outside the Pemberton Visitor Centre on July 1, the day the new tax took effect. The message on the other side of the… um, thing said, "Here comes the HST." The alteration was erected and prematurely removed early in the morning.

How to spell HST: Host without the Olympic "o."

In the weeks before the 2010 Winter Olympics opened Feb. 12, a big, white box to the west of the Vancouver Convention Centre, hid something special.

I cornered Premier Gordon Campbell Feb. 8 when he unveiled a tribute to late VANOC chairman Jack Poole at the Four Host First Nations pavilion and revealed the next day that the big, white box on Jack Poole Plaza was concealing the outdoor cauldron.

Wayne Gretzky was taken, by pick-up truck, to the foot of Thurlow Street after the opening ceremony, and marked the official end of the Olympic torch relay by lighting the outdoor cauldron. About an hour later, the one inside B.C. Place Stadium was extinguished for fear that it would burn the air-supported fabric roof.

VANOC, in its haste to organize the Games, didn’t realize the plaza would become a hot spot for shutterbugs. I witnessed one fella climb the chain link barrier to get a better photo.

The excuse was that it was inside the security perimeter for the international broadcast centre. VANOC finally buckled to public pressure. The fencing was altered and a viewing deck opened, but it was still far from perfect, even during the March 12-21 Paralympics when crowds were smaller.

The Terasen Gas-sponsored cauldron burns again during the Canada Day at Canada Place festivities on July 1. The fences that remain are supposed to disappear as the edifice on Jack Poole Plaza becomes a monument to the 2010 Winter Games and their torch relays.

The official schedule shows various indoor and outdoor activities from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., a mass-singing of O Canada when the O Canada horns sound at noon, 7 p.m. Georgia Street parade, 8:30 p.m. light show on Canada Place’s soon-to-be-replaced Five Sails and the 10:30 p.m. Burrard Inlet fireworks.

No ceremony is planned to re-light the cauldron, which is supposed to burn from 10 a.m. until the conclusion of the fireworks.

The Olympic flame was lit Oct. 22 in Ancient Olympia, Greece, flown to Victoria, B.C. Oct. 30 (where it was also protested) and carried coast-to-coast-to-coast around Canada for 106 days by 12,000 people (including your humble servant). But on Canada Day, an anonymous control room operator inside the convention centre will activate the cauldron with no pomp, circumstance or fanfare.

So much for the spectacle and the so-called sacred sculpture.

But why should we be surprised? Such a ceremony would have to involve Campbell. The Premier's worst nightmare is for the anti-HST Red Bloc to show up en masse in red mittens and simultaneously rip them off to reveal one-fingered salutes on day one of the unpopular sales tax shift.

Before it was the site of the cauldron, before it was called Jack Poole Plaza, it was the scene of the Sept. 19, 2009 anti-HST rally that kicked the sales tax revolt into high gear.

Host province British Columbia is now an HST province to clean up the Olympic debt.

Hope you enjoyed the party!