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. 

The Fudgsicle Cometh? (updated)

Finance Minister on ice + fudge = Fudgsicle Budget '13

History says you should not believe BC Liberal Finance Minister Mike de Jong when he stands up and delivers his budget speech in the Legislature on Feb. 19.

De Jong was the Attorney General when ex-Liberal aides Dave Basi and Bob Virk copped a plea bargain in the BC Rail corruption trial and got their $6 million legal bill paid by taxpayers after maintaining their innocence for so many years... but let’s put that aside. 

Also, put aside that he’s a BC Liberal, the ruling party that appears to be on the way out of power under the style-over-substance Premiership of Christy Clark. 

It’s just that de Jong is delivering a pre-election budget. British Columbia governments, regardless of ideology, have had serious trouble telling the truth about finances en route to election day. This is the Land of the Fudge-It Budget. This time around, will it be a Fudgsicle?

Former Junior B hockey player and current shareholder in the inactive MSA Fundamental Hockey School de Jong laced up his skates in Victoria and hit the ice at the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre for the cameras on Feb. 18, instead of buying a new pair of shoes, the tradition among finance ministers. He donned a Victoria Royals Western Hockey League jersey and donated $1,000 afterwards to KidSport.

Turn back the clock to March 24, 1988 when Social Credit Finance Minister Mel Couvelier gave birth to the Budget Stabilization fund -- $450 million of goodness to "help us absorb fiscal shocks." 

That was the 1980s and the Socreds evidently didn’t have the best spin doctors in their corner. The media instantly branded Couvelier’s plan the “B.S. Fund." It was the best knee-slapper since Socred Agnes Kripps proposed "BOLT" (Biology on Life Today) replace the word "sex" in 1970 (during the sexual revolution). It was surpassed in June 1996 by the nicknaming of the NDP's Cabinet Policy and Communications Secretariat (CPCS) as "cupcakes." But I digress.

“Due to the boom-or-bust nature of the B.C. economy, government revenues have been difficult to predict," Couvelier said. "In years when revenues peak sharply, transfers will be made to the fund. In years of revenue shortfall, transfers will be made from the fund.” 

Vaughn Palmer weighed-in with a March 25, 1988 column in the Vancouver Sun headlined “Mel’s Mirage: the $450 million jiggle.”

The fund does not exist in the sense that it can easily be turned into cash tomorrow, the way your bank account can. At the extremes, accounts can be manipulated to present a horn of plenty to the stockholders or a deathbed scene to the taxman.Similarly, the government slants its accounts to produce certain effects.Before an election, it wants the balance sheet to look as healthy as possible.

Couvelier sat down for a 90-minute session with the Vancouver Sun’s editorial board, which produced a story on March 29, 1988 in which Couvelier admitted it was an election ploy!

Couvelier said the fund, which amounts to a promise by the government to pay itself $450 million at some point, could be used "to support social programs or lower taxes or whatever the government decides to do with it - build highways, get themselves re-elected, whatever they want. . . "When it was suggested that re- election might be the so-called Budget Stabilization Fund's primary purpose, Couvelier replied: "Okay, that deals with motive. I'm saying the fund is there to be used for a rainy day."Now, my definition of a rainy day is not an election. But that's not to say we won't have a need to spend it in an election year."

On March 28, 1995, Finance Minister Elizabeth Cull heralded a balanced budget. NDP’s Mike Harcourt resigned from the Premiership on Nov. 15, 1995 and Glen Clark won leadership of the NDP in early 1996.

Cull tabled another allegedly balanced budget on April 30, 1996, but the Legislature was dissolved before it could be passed. New Finance Minister Andrew Petter reintroduced the budget on June 26, 1996, after the NDP won re-election. The NDP claimed “Jobs Up, Taxes Down, Debt Reduced, Budget Balanced.”

A July 4, 1996 Vancouver Sun story was headlined “B.C. finance minister admits budget ‘goof."

Glen Clark's NDP government is fighting to contain a mounting controversy over allegations it misled the public by campaigning on a balanced budget that turned out to be a $235-million deficit. Clark campaigned during May boasting that the NDP had brought in a balanced budget for the 1995-96 fiscal year. 

The Province reported on March 17, 1999: “Fudge-it budget led to premier's office: The auditor-general calls actions of two finance ministers ‘inappropriate.'

Auditor-General George Morfitt criticized both Cull and Petter for “inappropriate” actions. Morfitt criticized (Elizabeth Cull) particularly for injecting "$156 million of optimism" into forecasts for how the 1995-96 fiscal year would end up, optimism even above her own staff's most optimistic forecasts. Morfitt's report shows that Cull was frequently uncomfortable with the optimistic figures that were being urged upon her, mainly through the actions of (Glen Clark)'s confidante and top aide, Tom Gunton.

Fast forward to 2009 when the BC Liberals were aiming to get Premier Gordon Campbell his three-peat so that he could soak-up all the glory as B.C.’s Olympic Premier in 2010. 

On Feb. 17, 2009, amid the Great Recession, Finance Minister Colin Hansen tabled a budget with a forecast deficit under half-a-billion dollars. After the election and after the announcement of the Harmonized Sales Tax, Hansen tabled an update. The amount of red ink more than quintupled!

The Sept. 1, 2009 headline in The Tyee said it all: "B.C. budget includes record $2.8 billion deficit, cuts, optimism." 

British Columbia will have a record deficit of $2.8 billion, according to a budget update Finance Minister Colin Hansen presented today. That's five times greater than the $495 million projected in February and insisted upon by Premier Gordon Campbell during the election campaign.Back to de Jong and 2013. 

The Liberals are trying to make it look like they’re more fiscally responsible than the 1988 Socreds, 1996 NDP and 2009 Liberals. They even hired an expert! Tim O’Neill, a former BMO economist from the Maritimes! He’s independent! Shhh, don’t pay attention to the $25,000 he’s pocketing for less than a month’s work that resulted in a 22-page report, B.C. Budget 2013: Economic & Revenue Forecasts -- Review and Assessment. Don’t dare suggest it’s just spin. Gosh, no. The government would never do that. Perish that thought!

Well, it’s 20 pages after the title page and disclaimer. The first and last pages are half each, so that’s really 19. The margins are wide and the print is big. The word count is 4,520. Hey, that’s better than $5.50 per word. Not a bad gig, eh?

The word expenditure is mentioned just once. The word expense is nowhere to be found. 

The government paid for a report on what it will be taking in, not on what it will be paying out. A report on revenue only tells half the story. 

Surprise, surprise, O’Neill has nothing really bad to say, except, perhaps the government is too bullish on natural gas. (A degree isn’t necessary to arrive at that conclusion; one need only have watched the throne speech).

“I have concluded that there are no glaring problems or inadequacies that need to be addressed," wrote O'Neill. "There is ample evidence of professional competence, analytical rigour and appropriate caution applied in the work that goes into producing the revenue projections.”

There you have it. Voters beware! 

Budget tidbit: Will any ex-convicts be on the guest list for this year’s budget speech at the Legislature in Victoria? Just wondering! Last year there was one that we know of: Jaspal Atwal. Both Bill Tieleman and Alex Tsakumis wrote about that scandal. 

UPDATE (Feb. 22): The nearly $44 billion budget did nothing, zip, nada to tame the debt! The debt goes higher: it’s $56.1 billion this year, forecast to grow to $62.7 billion next year and, by 2015, $69 billion. A make-believe scenario to tame the deficit now without anything demonstrative to address the ballooning debt only shifts the burden from today’s families to families of the future. 

How can the Liberals spend more than $16 million of your money on an advertising campaign, which includes a brief image of debt-crushed Greece at the 2-second mark in the famous dominos ad, and claim that it is being frugal and responsible with the province’s finances? Was it really necessary to give B.C. Pavilion Corporation $2.7 million to make a bid to buy the rights for the 2014 Grey Cup for B.C. Place Stadium? Certainly B.C. Lions' owner Sen. David Braley has a large enough bank account to avoid needing a taxpayer-subsidy from a government that really can't afford such discretionary spending.

The best line of de Jong's budget speech? 

"Starting today, as British Columbians travel to other parts of Canada, they will be able to say with pride, “I come from B.C. where the government doesn’t spend more money than I send it. Where the government doesn’t burden future generations with the cost of programs being delivered today.”

Comedy gold. Who writes this stuff? 

Most British Columbians do not belong to the Liberals or any political party, for that matter. They’re not worried about those "socialist hordes at the gate" once feared by Premier W.A.C. Bennett. They’re actually worried about the persistent bill collectors and impatient bankers showing up at the door. 

The budget was skimpy on details. There was no detailed list of real estate for sale, nor was there a recap of major cost-cutting. 

The budget contains tax increases targeted at anyone who uses B.C.'s medical system, smokers, corporations and the perceived wealthy, those who earn $150,000 and up. All, except the health insurance premium hike, are things the NDP would have done. You could just tell that de Jong had practiced his lines. They were repeated over and over in the media. 

“I’d prefer not to have (raised taxes), clearly the guiding principle here was to achieve balance, a whole series of decisions flow from that, some of them very difficult,” he told reporters in a pre-budget briefing. “Those making more than $150,000, we're asking them to contribute a little more.” 

The budget was the bookend to the previous week’s throne speech, which included Clark’s unicorns and rainbows vision (delusion?) of a future in which we’ll be swimming in profits from the export of liquefied natural gas (meanwhile, Russia, Arab states, China, U.S. and even Australia are ahead of B.C.). 

An indication of how the Liberals (aka the Natural Gas Party) have lost the trust of the public is that the first major poll released after the budget, by Ipsos-Reid, indicated 72% of respondents didn’t 

believe the budget would be balanced and 47% of respondents disagreed with the budget. 

Cartoonist and video satirist Dan Murphy (who the Province will someday realize was a mistake to let go) weighed in with his subtle and hilarious Budget Highlights Closed Captioned for the Truth Impaired.

While the NDP called the balanced budget “bogus," independent MLA John van Dongen used more flowery language to blow the whistle on de Jong's misconduct for dealing a bodycheck to the concept of truthful budgeting. Abbotsford South MLA Van Dongen did nothing to flatter Abbotsford West MLA Liberal de Jong with his speech, archived here. 

van Dongen

“This so-called balanced budget,” van Dongen said in the Legislature on Feb. 21, “is designed to manage and manipulate perceptions. As such, it is imaginary, a mirage, a facsimile of the real thing. The facts don't back up the perceptions being left with the public in saying that this is a balanced budget.”

“Madam Speaker, think for a moment of the apparent sleight of hand that occurred Tuesday. Did we loot the treasury as may have happened in Shakespearean days? Did we rob Peter to pay Paul? Or did we bank on selling millions of dollars in taxpayer assets and depend on reaching deeper into the pockets of families and business people as government spending on advertising itself continues to escalate?

“I've been asking questions about the spending of millions of dollars by government, missed revenue opportunities and missed investment opportunities, and my search for the most basic answers has been blocked at every turn. I probably don't have to tell you what those questions are, Madam Speaker, but I can tell you my efforts to pursue those answers have led me to a continued search for good government...

"This budget is a pre-election document that can change quickly after the votes are counted on May 14. The budget faces none of the normal scrutiny of this Legislature, which again emphasizes the need to move to a fixed fall election date to remove the obvious politicizing, regardless of political party, of election year budgets.

“I have always strongly agreed with the objective of a real balanced budget, but I do not believe it is achievable in this fiscal year based on current economic conditions and the measures presented on Tuesday by the Minister of Finance.”

Exclusive: Hansen wanted a run for the border

How did the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics torch relay take a detour into the United States?

On Feb. 9, 2010, Sarajevo 1984 skiing champion Phil Mahre carried the flame through the Peace Arch from Blaine, Wash., to Surrey, B.C.

A March 6, 2008 letter (obtained via Freedom of Information) from Olympics minister Colin Hansen to VANOC CEO John Furlong proposed "the spirit of the Games be spread even further" by including the State of Washington in the Olympic torch relay.

Exclusive: B.C. government wanted Olympic torch to go south

Talk of the Olympic torch going below the 49th parallel had been ongoing for more than a year between key Liberal insiders and the government of Washington. Here's a brief timeline of how it developed.

A May 29, 2007 memo by Mark Jiles of the Progressive Group to Mary Rose, director of 2010 Programs for the Washington government, said "We have had a number of conversations with the 2010 Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) around the idea of having the torch relay enter the State of Washington on its way to Vancouver… Jim Richard (sic), director of the 2010 Torch Relay is prepared to recommend that Washington State be included in the plan that he is preparing to bring to the Board of Directors in mid-2007."

A news release by B.C. and Washington after a June 8, 2007 joint cabinet meeting said: "The jurisdictions have also pursued shared economic, Olympic and tourism opportunities, seeking ways for Washington to participate in events leading up to the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games."

The Progressive Group is the consultancy run by Liberal insider Patrick Kinsella. In its dealings with the Washington government, Progressive pledged to "facilitate opportunities for Washington State to develop important relationships" with Olympic decision-makers, including the arrangement of meetings with Hansen and his top staffers, plus Furlong and VANOC chairman Jack Poole. Kinsella ran the Liberals' 2005 election win. Jiles was Premier Gordon Campbell's constituency campaign manager. Kinsella also ran Christy Clark's successful Liberal leadership win in 2011.

The company's proposal to Washington said: "Progressive Group is located in the heart of downtown Vancouver, while at the same time has a presence in the Provincial capital of Victoria and a foot into the Vancouver 2010 Organizing Committee."

Inflated numbers, inflated celebration

Colin Hansen has a heavy workload. That may be an understatement.

At this time, he is Deputy Premier, Finance minister, Health Services minister and minister responsible for Small Business. He must have a lot in his brain and his briefcase.

Like many politicians, he is known for being economical with the truth at times. He's one of the gang that has often repeated the myth that 3.5 billion people watched the 2010 Winter Olympics. The International Olympic Committee's revised estimate in July 2010 was 1.8 billion actual viewers.

Fellas, use the real number, why don't ya? Stop bamboozling the people.

On Feb. 17, the Legislative sitting ended with lawmakers speaking in tribute of outgoing Premier Gordon Campbell. Hansen, who is also Olympics minister, stood up and said this:

Colin Hansen: "My colleague earlier referenced the Olympics. When you think back that British Columbia only won the right to host the Olympic Games by three votes.... That would not have happened had it not been for the work that was done by our Premier to make sure that we reached out and made sure that British Columbia put their best foot forward in that campaign. I can remember the elation that I felt sitting in B.C. Place Stadium at six o'clock in the morning B.C. time as we watched on the big screens that Vancouver had been awarded the 2010 Olympic Winter Games."

Well, Mr. Hansen, your memory is faulty. Or you're just trying to inflate the importance of the date.

Vancouverites gathered early July 2, 2003 at General Motors Place (now Rogers Arena) to watch the result of the International Olympic Committee's vote in Prague. GM Place has a scoreboard with four sides. B.C. Place Stadium, until the 2010 Winter Olympics, had only one big screen.

B.C. Place was closed the morning that Vancouver was named the 2010 Games host.

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.

HST huckster quietly regains Olympic portfolio

Guess who's the Olympic minister again?

Yes, Colin Hansen. The finance minister. He gave the reins to the Olympic Games Secretariat to rookie MLA Mary McNeil on June 9, 2009 -- less than a month after the Liberals' election win and six weeks before announcing the Harmonized Sales Tax would be forced on British Columbians on July 1, 2010.

On June 30 -- the eve of the HST -- Premier Gordon Campbell returned the OGS to Hansen's hands by way of an order-in-council that was not publicized. I found out when a Freedom of Information clerk told me that the Ministry of Healthy Living's Olympic records were transferred to Finance.

So the high huckster of the hated HST is now in charge of overseeing the wind-down of the government agency responsible for the Games and VANOC.

VANOC hasn't published financial information since December, in violation of a clause in the Multi-Party Agreement of 2002. See sections 4.4 and 26.1 It's supposed to issue a final report this fall.

After VANOC dealt with a recession for which it was not prepared, it held its hand out to governments because sponsors were cutting budgets and tightening belts. Ultimately any red ink is the responsibility of provincial taxpayers.

Now, is it starting to become clear why the HST happened in the former host province?