By Ian Austin March 3, 2010

Now the B.C. Liberals want you to think of the HST as the health-services tax.

In his latest bid to sell the harmonized sales tax — which the Liberals vow to bring in July 1 despite promising they wouldn’t during the last election — Finance Minister Colin Hansen announced that any money collected under the HST will be spent on health care.

The government has plunged in the polls because of the HST flip-flop. The vast majority of British Columbians oppose the tax, and now Hansen is trying to pitch it as a health tax to bolster public opinion.

“It’s a laughable and pathetic attempt to distort the reality of the tax,” said NDP finance critic Bruce Ralston. “The tax was first announced in July 2009, and this is the first time that they’ve tried to use this phoney explanation to sell a deeply unpopular tax.

“No one will believe them.”

To add insult to injury, after taking a pounding in the polls, the Liberals announced that they will, in fact, lose $113 million in tax revenue this year because of the introduction of the HST.

Originally conceived as a 12-per-cent provincial/federal tax on virtually everything, B.C. has relented to intense lobbying and public uproar and will refund HST to a number of sectors, including municipalities, school boards and non-profit groups.

The effect of all those exemptions means that as well as taking a political hit, the government will lose $113 million while desperately trying to get back on the road to a balanced budget.

“The net effect on revenue is $113 million less under HST than we did in a non-HST world,” said Hansen, whose chances of becoming premier have stalled because of a tax that will actually make it harder for him to balance the books.

Ralston calls the Liberals’ handling of the HST incompetence.

“In an environment where tax revenue is important, it’s incompetent to run a new tax this way,” said Ralston.

“They lied about it and now they won’t even get the revenue that they said they would.”

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