Editor:
It would appear that your reporter Laurena Weninger missed a few important segments of Mr. Vander Zalm’s town hall meeting.
Probably the most important thing that Mr. Vander Zalm said is that Saskatchewan had the HST and the electorate of that province, once it was in place, decided that it was a tax that they did not want.
So they voted their provincial government out and the new provincial government got rid of the HST.
Then there was the fact that the HST is a tax whereby the Provincial government will have given its right under the Canadian Constitution to ‘make laws in relation to the raising of money by any mode or system of taxation.’
The HST is a Federal Tax. And the Federal government can then raise or lower, or change the rules, as they see fit. Near the end of the meeting an interesting question was posed: is there anything preventing the Provincial government from enacting a ‘new’ PST after we have all ‘accepted’ the HST? The response was that there is nothing that would prevent the Provincial government from doing that.
She also missed the part where they explained the legal challenge.
Before it ever got to a trial, the organizers will try to get a Court injunction, based on the fact that the tax goes against the Canadian Constitution and possibly with evidence of the fact that the residents of B.C. are angry with the government regarding this tax which would be shown by them signing the petition in all 85 ridings giving Mr. Vander Zalm’s HST movement the required 10 per cent needed to demand his legislation go before the B. C. legislature.
That injunction could stop the tax dead in its tracks.
Those parts of Mr. Vander Zalm’s anti-HST message were important. They let people know that instead of just ’tilting at windmills.’ Mr. Vander Zalm may actually be showing us a way to send our elected representatives who go off to Victoria and then forget about those who voted for them that that can have repercussions.
Teresa Calwell,
Osoyoos
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