Vaughn Palmer May 27, 2010

The B.C. Liberals started the year by assuming the populist uprising against the harmonized sales tax would falter without any counter-attack on their part.

The governing party passed up the opportunity to register as the official opponent of the petition drive, letting the March 8 deadline come and go without any approach to Elections BC.

Most Liberals turned up their noses at registering as individual sponsors of advertising regarding the petition.

Some two dozen NDP constituency associations and another dozen trade union organizations went that route. Only three Liberals — cabinet minister Bill Bennett and back-benchers Ralph Sultan and Marc Dalton — availed themselves of the opportunity.

Had the Liberals registered as an opponent, they would have been in a position to spend as much as the proponents — almost $1 million based on the formula set down in legislation. Additionally, each advertising sponsor can spend $5,000.

Not to say it would have been wise for the Liberals to have spent to the limit.

A big-budget campaign — presuming the deeply-in-debt governing party could have financed one — would have backfired, given the grassroots stylings of the proponents.

But by deliberately relegating themselves to the sidelines, the Liberals had no fallback when the petition drive took off and they wanted to respond to what they saw as a misleading campaign.

The government tried to intervene with a taxpayer-financed brochure that would be mailed to every household in B.C.

“We will push back against the misinformation,” Finance Minister Colin Hansen told the legislature. He promised the “budget mailer” would be “totally in compliance with the B.C. election laws.” Instead, he ran afoul of them.

Provincial legislation restricts advertising for and against initiatives to prevent the debate from being dominated by well-financed special interests, not excluding big government.

But when the budget mailer was submitted to Elections BC for review, the independent watchdog ruled it was “to a large extent focused on the HST.”

Moreover, the minister’s comments in the legislature implied “that the intent of the mailer is to oppose the initiative petition.”

The verdict in writing was delivered to Hansen on April 28: “Elections BC considers that the proposed budget mailer does indirectly oppose the HST initiative petition and requires modification if government intends to publish the mailer during the initiative petition period.”

With his budget mailer relegated to the dead letter office, Hansen fired back with a litany of complaints about the anti-HST campaign.

The petitioners were spreading misinformation. They were gathering signatures under what amounted to false pretences and engaging in authorized advertising of their own.

“I request Elections BC’s opinion on the validity of names collected through misleading information,” wrote Hansen in a letter to Chief Electoral Officer Harry Neufeld.

“I ask that Elections BC uphold the same standard, fairly and equally, for everyone and immediately enforce the law.”

Neufeld responded with a polite but firm rebuff a week later.

“My office is committed to applying the legislation it administers fairly, consistently and impartially,” he wrote, and he had therefore “looked into the matters raised in your letter.”

Then, taking each in turn, he rejected every one of Hansen’s complaints. They were beyond the scope of the initiative legislation. Or beyond the authority of the chief electoral officer. Or the claim did not stand up to independent scrutiny.

Sample exchange. Hansen complained that the proponents had got some of the new sales tax rates wrong, thereby misleading people about the new tax regime.

Neufeld: “In order to constitute a violation of the act, it would have to be proven that canvassers knowingly misrepresented the petition or the legislative proposal — not the application of the HST to goods and services.”

Hansen’s frustration was complete. The party had blown its opportunity to oppose the petition. Elections BC blocked his attempt to marshal tax dollars in the fight. Now the independent watchdog was saying that the petitioners were playing by the rules.

Hansen was reduced to defending his tax in the few remaining forums open to him.

Question period. Media scrums. Letters to the editor. Any day now, I expect to see him wearing a sandwich board on the front lawn of the legislature.

But after months of being left to his own failing devices in defence of the tax, Hansen and the other Liberals learned this week that the premier intends to take up the fight, as soon as the petition campaign is over and the initiative is certified.

“You may rest assured,” Campbell advised the legislature and his own caucus Tuesday, “that I will be out in British Columbia, and I will be reminding British Columbians that this is about their jobs in forestry, in mining … investment … a competitive tax regime” and so on.

Fearless leader to the rescue. But by the time he mounts his defence of harmonization, a full year will have elapsed since his government launched the HST onto an unsuspecting and unforgiving province.

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