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.