Fight HST Petition hits 15% in 80 of 85 Ridings & Vanderzalm refutes Former AG Plant
Jun 7, 2010 Press Release
Fight HST Petition hits 15% in 80 of 85 Ridings
Vander Zalm refutes former BC Liberal Attorney General Plant
Delta – The Fight HST petition continues to steamroll forward, adding another 9 ridings to the 15% of registered voters’ signatures for a total of 80 of 85 ridings to meet the Fight HST internal threshold.
Fight HST Lead Organizer, Chris Delaney, says the total signatures gathered is over 620,000, more than double the Elections BC threshold of 300,000 signatures required across the 85 electoral districts in BC.
“Even with a rainy Vancouver weekend, we were still able to close the gap in another 9 ridings. We are extremely pleased, and will work hard to complete our internal threshold of 15% in the remaining ridings next week,” said Delaney.
Tags: assertion, attorney general, bc government, bill vander zalm, chris delaney, delta, electoral districts, federal government, gap, geoff plant, lawyers, legislation, lows, orbit, overwhelming success, petition, recent article, registered voters, signatures, threshold
Top 10 BC Liberal Myths about the #HST
Apr 24, 2010 Details
Top 10 BC Liberal Myths about the HST:
MYTH #1 – The HST legislation cannot be undone
FALSE: Page 11, Section 42 of the Comprehensive Integrated Tax Coordination Agreement (CITCA) that BC signed with Ottawa to create the HST says: “The terms and conditions of this Agreement will continue in full force and effect, in accordance with and subject to the provisions of this Part, until the date that is specified by a Party in written notice that is delivered to the other Party setting out the Party’s desire to terminate this Agreement.”
Other provinces have adopted and later repealed the HST. Saskatchewan adopted the HST back in 1989, and two years later, after an election, the HST was repealed by the new government. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: coordination agreement, federal government, full force, government business, GST, HST, input tax credits, liberal myths, mathematical experts, ottawa, provisions, rebates, saskatchewan, seniors, single tax, tax coordination, tax form, taxation, trading partners
Our three point strategy to defeat the #HST in BC
Apr 10, 2010 Details
1. The Initiative Petition: The first phase of our strategy is to successfully complete the first Citizen Initiative in BC (and Canadian) history by obtaining the required signatures of 10% of registered voters in every riding.
Once that is completed, the government has two options – vote on the legislation proposed by us (The HST Extinguishment Act) or:
Conduct a province wide referendum (Initiative Vote) on the question of extinguishing the HST in BC.
If the government tries to use its majority to vote down the successful initiative petition legislation, we will conduct phase 2 of our plan:
Tags: canadian history, citizen initiative, constituents, constitution act 1867, excise tax act, federal government, HST, initiative petition, injunction, legal challenge, legislation, mla, nova scotia, phase 2, provincial legislatures, referendum, registered voters, signatures, taxation, volunteers
Vander Zalm Response to Vancouver Sun Columnist
Apr 8, 2010 Letters
Dear Editor,
Regarding Vaughn Palmer’s column concerning the legality of the Fight HST Citizen Initiative.
Mr. Palmer suggests that our initiative to recind the HST in BC will be off side with federal legislation, and therefore can’t work. He is only half right.
Our “HST Extinguishment Act” will recind the Comprehensive Integrated Tax Coordination Agreement (CITCA) that BC signed with Ottawa. That means the HST legislation passed by Ottawa will be effectively voided, since the CITCA agreement requires the valid authority of British Columbia to stand in both BC and Ottawa. Once that authority is recinded by BC, the agreement is no longer valid, and the federal government would not be able to legally collect a “harmonized” sales tax in BC anymore. In other words, it would no longer be a “harmonized” sales tax collected with provincial agreement, it would only be a federal tax. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: British Columbia, canadian constitution, citizen initiative, coordination agreement, excise tax act, federal excise tax, federal government, federal legislation, federal tax, GST, harmonized sales tax, last time, moot point, ottawa, percentages, prime minister, provincial legislatures, sales tax, tax coordination, taxing authority
Big Business wins and you lose with HST
Sep 9, 2009 Details
Alcan Aluminum alone stands to gain many tens of millions of dollars when they proceed with their already announced Aluminum smelter expansion in Kitimat. They like every other big Company will get the taxes they pay refunded from you the consumer. Alcan, like so many other big public companies, has most of its shareholders in the U.S.A., Europe and Asia – they’ll all be grateful to you for your generosity. The government argues that they need this to compete, I don’t believe for one minute that the big oil and natural gas companies nor the coal companies or the mining operations and Forestry companies will pack up and leave for Ontario or Nova Scotia if they don’t get their taxes refunded.
Even smaller companies will benefit from the tax refunds but they will lose sales because the consumer will have much less money to spend. Losing sales means lay-offs and loss of jobs and this will be particularly evident in the restaurant and tourism related businesses. Mr. Campbell says we need this to compete with Ontario, we never worried about Ontario before, maybe we should be worried about Alberta where they have no provincial sales tax and will not have an HST. Ontario’s economy is very different from ours, we don’t make cars and the likes but it makes a good story.
Why is the Federal Government so anxious that they will pay us $ 1.6 billion? The GST was supposed to be removed completely at some time in the future, it will be removed as a GST when it gets replaced with the HST but as important to the Federal Government is the fact that they too will make much more money. Today any business or individual doing less than $30,000 per year does not have to be a GST registrant and therefore need not charge the GST, this is costing the Federal Government many billions of dollars. With HST everyone will need to charge HST, no exceptions.
The thing they still don’t seem to realize is that this will create an enormous underground economy and not only will they lose the HST in an underground economy but they’ll also lose the income tax because the “undergrounder” will not report the income.
How can we justify taking an extra 2 billion dollars out of the economy during a time of recession when we should leave as much money as possible with the consumer to spend and keep business thriving?
How can we justify taking 2 billion dollars from the person packing the lunch-bucket or the Senior or others on low or fixed incomes, not to fund healthcare or other government programs but to refund taxes to business, especially big business?
Tags: alcan aluminum, aluminum smelter, billions of dollars, coal companies, federal government, forestry companies, gst registrant, HST, hst tax refunds, mr campbell, natural gas companies, nova scotia, provincial sales tax, sales tax, shareholders, smaller companies, underground economy
Why I am against the HST (By Bill Vander Zalm)
Aug 25, 2009 Details
Every well practiced politician can make a case for or against whatever it is being proposed. With the HST, let’s just deal with a few simple facts and forget all the rhetoric.
The B.C. Liberal government has told us that the new HST will be revenue neutral. Revenue neutral, they explain, is that it’s a tax paid by the consumer, not to go to Healthcare, Social Services, Education or some other government program but, to provide tax relief to business by way of tax refunds.
They further state that the HST will bring in $2 Billion (that’s – $ 2,000,000,000) per year. In our province of 4 million people that works out to $ 500 per year for every man, woman and child and that it will probably be about $ 2000 + per family or about $ 1250 for the average senior couple.
For most people that is a heavy extra burden and means cutting back on eating out, going to the theatre, going to a hockey game, getting a haircut and even the much more important things. Economics 101 tells us that less consumer spending means a loss of jobs.
The government tells us that Industry will cut their prices and we will gain by that. The B.C. government fails to tell us that 90% of the B.C. Economy is the resource industry. The only difference to the likes of Alcan, Cominco, Endako, Fording Coal, Shell Oil and the likes is that the tax refunds, from you the B.C. consumer, will help those poor Canadians, Americans, Europeans and Asians that have shares in these companies. It is world wide commodity prices that decide the price of oil, natural gas, coal, lumber or minerals not a tax refund. It’s world commodity prices that decide whether these companies create more jobs and hire more people, not a tax refund.
The Premier and Minister of Finance tell us that in a few years manufactured goods will get cheaper. The best example of what is likely to happen, came from the Ministers themselves. When it was discovered that a bottle of wine would be a little cheaper under HST than PST they annouced that the Liquor Control Board would increase its profit to make up the difference.
What made me especially angry was the way in which the HST was foisted upon us. After saying no HST and no more new taxes, during the election only a few months ago, when they must have been in negotiations with the federal government on it, premier Campbell then foisted it upon us all in a take it or leave it manner. Well, I choose to leave it.
In short it’s a deceitful tax grab, during a time of economic downturn, taken from those least able to pay with most of it going to help out the shareholders in those big companies.
Bill Vander Zalm
Tags: bill vander zalm, federal government, finance minister, groceries, haircut, heavy burden, hockey game, HST, liberal government, logging company, man woman and child, negotiations, noticeable difference, politician, rhetoric, woman and child
