A Controlled Fury - Thoughts on the Harmonized Sales Tax

In and of itself, the HST isn’t a bad idea. As anyone who has dealt first-hand with the nightmarish world of sales tax collection can tell you, the present system is a Kafkaesque mess of confusion. Tax simplification is a positive good in and of itself. Also, I believe - on both economic and moral grounds - that taxes on consumption, such as sales taxes, as superior to taxes on the production of wealth, such as income and capital gains taxes. The latter class of tax discourages productivity, encourages dishonest economic gamesmanship, and demands an excessive government involvement in the life of the people.

That said, clearly the HST is the wrong tax being levied on the wrong people at the wrong time and the Province, if it has any political common sense, will beat a hasty retreat on the matter. Leaving aside the general foolishness of raising taxes of any sort in the midst of a recession, they’ve also handed a populist rocket launcher to the NDP.

One has to marvel at the lack of judgement it has taken to put the NDP on the right side of a tax issue. For all of the lingering memories of the Fast Ferries and other fiascos, what I - and countless other British Columbians - shall never forget or forgive are the ruinous taxes that the New Democrats imposed upon the people in order to fund their reckless giveaways to their friends in the labour movement. Even had I not already vowed before almighty God and Winston Churchill eternal resistance against the scourge of socialism, I for one would never vote for the party who caused my parents’ tax burden to drift into the 60%+ range as I drifted into my teenage years. Don’t ever expect forgiveness from someone you deprived of a car for their sixteenth birthday. I jest - but only just. And perhaps not at all.

I do have a point (or three) to make out of this.

The first is that, on the tax issue, you can trust the New Democrats as far as you can throw a dump truck. Yes, it’s nice to see anyone and everyone standing up against increased taxation, but it’s also perfectly fair to suggest that installing the NDP in Victoria because taxes are too high is a solution with the logical consistency of treating malnutrition with laxatives.

Second - the notion that a mass recall campaign is any sort of solution to this problem is nonsense. No matter how hot the populist fire may burn today, it’ll be long extinguished by the fall of 2010. The barrier to the recall of any MLA is nearly impossibly high - 40% of all registered voters during the last election (not merely those who cast ballots). And, to tie in with what I stated above, the only alternative government is the New Democrats and, well, we’ve already been over that.

There is another alternative: the other half of the law that permits the recall of MLA’s. That law - the Recall and Initiative Act - permits the introduction of citizen-driven legislation. It’s never been effectively used. But it could be. In this sort of environment - stripped of the partisan connotations of a recall effort - it just might work. Or, at a minimum, might force the government into a course correction.

Finally - amidst this rancor - it’s probably worth reminding people that, overall, a decade under the BC Liberals has been good for the Province. I lived here during the 1990’s, when the toxic combination of NDP-Union kleptocracy and mismanagement sunk us to the status of a have-not Province, when our infrastructure decayed, and when we were the laughing stalk of the nation. Under the Liberals we’ve built roads and bridges. Our taxes are lower - if not as low as they could be. We’ve avoided most - if not all - of the trendy social experiments that defined the NDP years. If the Liberals are arrogant - and there’s really no “if” about that one - it’s because they have a lot to be arrogant about.

So, absolutely, the Liberals clearly need a reminder as to the nature and the scope of their mandate but, please God, let us remember where we are and why we got here. The Liberals are, in many ways, the natural successors to WAC and Bill Bennett, who may have been dull during their three and a half decades in power but who, by God, made the power flow and the Ferries run on time.