08-05-2009
The NDP has been handed a pot of political gold with Gordon Campbell's broken-promise HST tax grab.
The party's online petition against the 12-per-cent tax has so far attracted 8,300 signatures in five days. Compare that to the 4,000 signatures the party scraped up in opposition to the carbon tax — and that took five months.
Over at Facebook, the NO B.C. HST group has over 26,000 members and counting. Signatures are flowing in to the B.C. Restaurant Association's online petition, too.
How widespread is anger over the HST? Just watch the Global TV Newshour tonight. Sources tell me they have an exclusive opinion poll and the HST opposition is massive. And I mean huge.
Will the government blink? They're nervous, I can tell you that. Watch for them to cut sweetheart deals with a few favoured special-interest groups to ease the HST sting. But the terms of the government's agreement with Ottawa leaves little wriggle room and a total climb-down looks unlikely, despite the summer flames of protest.
The trick for the NDP, of course, will be sustaining that anger through a long Liberal mandate before the next election. But think about this:
The tax doesn't take effect for another year. Parents will be especially choked when the tax comes due on school supplies in the fall of 2010. Imagine a Winter Olympics budget hangover being revealed at the same time people get slammed with an HST the Liberals promised not to introduce during the election.
Throw in a B.C. Rail corruption trial that tips over a stinking hamper of dirty Liberal laundry and you can suddenly imagine anger at the government lasting for quite some time...
UPDATE: The astonishing numbers from the Global TV poll: 85 per cent opposed to the HST, just 12 per cent in favour. Can the government stand firm in the face of that degree of anger, and ram this tax down people's throats in a recession when so many are that furious? They're shaking in their loafers in Victoria!
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