Time for direct democracy in B.C.

The success of the No-HST campaign makes it clear that people are tired of politicians who say one thing before an election and do something else after. It's time for change, so although the No-HST campaign may not be able to get rid of the HST, it has created the opportunity to re-think how political decisions are made. People want more control over political decision making the way forward is obvious  – it's time for direct democracy in B.C. and today's technology makes it possible.



Now, with advances in Internet technology, it is possible to have cost-effective, direct citizen involvement in decision making. Internet voting already exists in Switzerland and the US. Right here in Canada, the Regional Municipality of Halifax already has Internet voting and found elections costs were reduced. Technological advance means the timing couldn't be better for the B.C. government to implement an Internet-based voting system, for elections and referenda. It would put control back into the hands of citizens and cost taxpayers less than traditional voting systems.

Why must we explore this possibility in B.C. today? Precisely because of the problems the No-HST campaign has encountered with the current system.

Read the full story  here

HST - what's next?

On Friday, BC Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Bauman decided the No-HST group's scrap-the-tax bill is valid and can go ahead to a committee of the legislature. That will probably happen today.

This all transpired because a group of business organizations wanted a judge to decide whether the scrap-the-tax bill was something the provincial legislature could actually vote on. The No-HST group's scrap-the-tax bill calls for the HST to be 'extinguished' in the provincial legislature. The business organizations said the HST legislation is federal legislation so the provincial government doesn't have the authority to scrap-the-tax. However, the judge said the bill conforms to the spirit of the Recall and Initiative Act and so the original decision of the B.C. Chief Electoral Officer to approve the bill was correct.

The next step is for the No-HST group's draft bill to go to an obscure committee of the legislature, the Select Standing Committee on Legislative Initiatives.  The committee was formed 16 years ago after the Recall and Initiative Act was passed, but because no initiative has ever gotten this far, it has never met -- until now.

The committee has 90 days after its first meeting, which will probably happen in September, to decide between two alternatives. Should the draft bill go to the legislature where it could be amended, passed or defeated, or should the bill go to a province-wide referendum. That decision will probably happen around the end of December. If the committee decides the bill should go to a referendum, the referendum would likely happen in September 2011.

The business groups also asked the judge to rule on the constitutionality of the No-HST bill but the judge said that "is a question for another day."

To complicate matters, there is another court case. The No-HST group, headed up by Mr. Vander Zalm, got a lawyer and is challenging the constitutionality of the HST itself.  According to Mr. Vander Zalm's lawyer - the tax is "nullity" because it wasn't explicitly authorized by the provincial legislature. Remember - the only vote in the provincial legislature that had anything to do with the HST was the one to get rid of the PST. What the provincial government signed with the federal government was an implementation agreement  - there was no vote in the provincial legislature on the HST itself. The HST is a federal tax, not a provincial tax. The judge also left the decision on the constitutionality of the HST for another day.

So the HST drama continues. Looking farther ahead, what we can see is a great opportunity for the government to follow through on its 2001 election promise to create workable recall and initiative legislation. The No-HST's campaign success is a clear indication that people are tired of having government dump decisions on their laps and they are ready for change. The government has the opportunity to appease an angry electorate by bringing more direct democracy to B.C., and workable recall and initiative legislation would go a long way in achieving that goal.

HST drama - what's up with that?

The HST drama is playing out in court, starting today, Monday August 16, 2010.

A group of business organizations are challenging the bill proposed by the No-HST group. Recall that the No-HST group's scrap-the-tax bill calls for the HST to be 'extinguished' in the provincial legislature. The business organizations say the government's HST legislation is federal legislation so the provincial government doesn't have the authority to scrap-the-tax. Hence, the court challenge.

To complicate matters, there is another court case. The No-HST group, headed up by Mr. Vander Zalm,  got a lawyer and is challenging the constitutionality of the HST itself.  According to Mr. Vander Zalm's lawyer - the tax is "nullity" because it wasn't explicitly authorized by the provincial legislature. Remember - the only vote in the provincial legislature that had anything to do with the HST was the one to get rid of the PST. What the provincial government signed with the federal government was an implementation agreement  - there was no vote in the provincial legislature on the HST itself. The HST is a federal tax, not a provincial tax.

To try to understand what's going on, let's take a step back.

A provincial law called the Recall and Initiative Act, allows any registered voter to start, or initiate, a bill, or piece of legislation. That's what the No-HST group did. They drafted the scrap-the-tax bill and got it approved by Elections BC. The next step in the initiative process was to sign up 10 per cent of all registered voters in every electoral district in 90 days. The No-HST group did that too.

Next, the signed petitions were delivered to Elections BC and it was Elections BC's job to makes sure there were enough valid petition signatures. Elections BC checked and there were enough valid signatures.

The next step was for Elections BC to send the scrap-the-tax bill to a committee of the provincial legislature. Elections BC didn't.

Craig James, the acting Chief Electoral Officer, decided to hold off on this step until the court cases, which starts today, are decided.

So democracy has to wait for the outcome of the court cases. However, what this process has taught us is we need workable tools to make our democratic system accountable to the people it is supposed to serve. The next step is 'workable' recall and initiative.

Mayor pay -- up and away

Having a citizens' committee recommend remuneration for local politicians is a step in the right direction, but as we saw with the pay hikes at Port Coquitlam (PoCo) City Hall, another step is needed. To keep local politicians accountable to ratepayers, the provincial government must limit their ability to tax and spend by capping property tax rates. 

The PoCo mayor and council recently gave themselves a big raise. The mayor's salary is up 27 per cent and council's salary is up a whopping 42 per cent. According to PoCo Mayor Greg Moore, this pay boost was OK because it was recommended by a citizens' committee.

Oh really?

The committee's March 2, 2009 report says that although "Council is worth more than the current compensation … [it did] not recommend a market adjustment at this time due to current economic conditions where unfortunately wage freezes, rollbacks and layoffs are common place (sic)."

So, do current economic conditions now justify a market adjustment for mayors and councils?

While the PoCo mayor and council, and some in other municipalities seem to think so, not all do. In 2010, the Burnaby mayor's pay goes up by 17 per cent, the Coquitlam mayor's by 4 per cent and the Vancouver mayor's (the highest paid in the Lower Mainland) by 3.8 per cent. However, in other municipalities, such as West Vancouver, Maple Ridge and Penticton, the mayors and councilors will take no pay hike in 2010 because of the -- wait for it -- current economic conditions!

So although some mayors and councilors curbed their salary increases in an economy that is still seeing wage freezes and layoffs, others showed no such restraint.

But the PoCo citizens' committee made another recommendation. According to the report, mayor and council pay should be adjusted by the consumer price index (CPI) starting January 1, 2010. According to the Statistics Canada December 2009 CPI report, the B.C. CPI was zero. So either way, the PoCo pay hike was not in line with the recommendations.

Still, some people say the pay hike in PoCo, although much bigger than many other municipalities, is no big deal -- it will cost the average homeowner the same as an expensive café latte - but don't be fooled. In PoCo, property tax and utility fee hikes will increase costs for the average homeowner by $140 dollars in 2010, and that's after a $170 increase in 2009. That's about 40 lattes per year. At this rate, in ten years, the average homeowner will be out about 400 lattes. Now that's a lot of lattes.

So what can be done to stop local politicians like those in PoCo from slowly decaffeinating ratepayers? Mayor and council pay hikes are a symptom of a much bigger problem -- the unlimited power to spend. To limit this power and bring accountability back to local government, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation recommends the provincial government cap property tax rates. In this system, the municipal government would know how much revenue to expect each year and it would then have to prioritize its spending. It would mean making spending choices instead of raising taxes and fees to cover off every spending whim. Citizens could then voice their opinion on those choices at election time.

You can learn more about how the property tax cap works at www.taxpayer.com.

However, getting the provincial government to help won't be easy. When asked about the big pay hike in POCO, the Minister of Community and Rural Development, Ben Stewart said, "If we were hearing as a government that it was a priority, we would have to make legislative changes and that isn't currently something I'm hearing about." So the provincial government will need a push to step up to the plate.

Yes, forming a citizens' committee to determine pay is a great idea, but ratepayers need some assurance that the mayors and councilors are doing more than just using committee recommendations as a cover for an unjustifiable pay hike. Without action from the provincial government -- without a property tax cap -- the picking of ratepayers' pockets will go on and on, year after year. It's time for that to change.

You can make your views known by contacting the Minister of Community and Rural Development, Ben Stewart, at 250-387-2283 or ben.stewart.mla@leg.bc.ca

Paid Volunteers

The B.C. government made big headlines when it decided to pay some of its bureaucrats to volunteer during the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver. It cost B.C. taxpayers $560,000 for the privilege of giving 376 bureaucrats the opportunity to hang out at the Olympics instead of working at their desks. However, this was nothing less than a slap in the face to the real volunteers who freely gave of their time. 

My sister was one of the volunteers who freely gave of her time. 

She says it's difficult to get people in Canada to freely volunteer and wonders why. 

To explain why people volunteer less now than in the past, I turned to Fredrick Hayek's book 'A Road To Serfdom.' He talks about what happens to traditional values in a socialist system, and this illustrates why there is less volunteerism in our society today. 

Morality flowers in an environment where: we are responsible to our own sense of right and wrong and not to the demands of someone else; we know what we should be doing and do it without being coerced; and we take responsibility for, and bear the consequences of, our decisions. 

Responsibility is exactly what the socialists of all parties promise to relieve us of. Governments today try to regiment and regulate every aspect of human action and leave nothing to chance. Relieved of personal responsibility, we have no reason to take action when we see a problem. 

The effects of this are long reaching and destructive. Far too many people seem to think that if they demand it, whatever 'it' happens to be, the State has the responsibility to do it. The assumption seems to be every social problem should be, and can be, fixed by the State.
But there is an impact on our sense of right and wrong if we do something ourselves or if we shout out for the state to 'do something' about it. 

After all, why would any one of us bother to lift a finger when someone else needs help if it's the responsibility of the State to 'do something'? This goes a long way in explaining why we have less volunteerism in our society today.

Tax Talk on CFAX

Join Maureen and Murray Langdon on CFAX radio on Mondays at 10:00 PST.

You can listen live at www.cfax1070.com