Fight HST leader Bill Vander Zalm (left) was in town on July 29 with his wife Lillian to talk with local anti-HST volunteers Paul McCavour and Julie Turner about possible strategies for recalling Boundary-Similkameen MLA John Slater this fall. Photo by Paul Everest - Click on picture for larger image
OSOYOOS TIMES-August 4, 2010
By Paul Everest – Osoyoos Times
The Boundary-Similkameen electoral district will be ground zero for a possible recall campaign later this year, said Bill Vander Zalm, who is spearheading a provincial campaign to have the HST quashed.
The former B.C. premier was in Osoyoos on July 29 to meet with Paul McCavour and Julie Turner, who helped organize signature-collecting efforts for the South Okanagan during the Initiative Petition campaign which ran from April to June.
They were working out possible strategies for a recall effort should the government decide to ignore the anti-HST Initiative Petition submitted to Elections BC on June 30.
Fight HST volunteers had collected more than 700,000 signatures from people across the province wishing to have the new harmonized sales tax quashed.
Vander Zalm said if a recall campaign is necessary, he wants to start it here because of how Boundary-Similkameen residents responded to the petition.
More than 40 per cent of registered voters in the riding signed the petition and Vander Zalm said anti-HST sentiment is “consistent throughout the constituency.”.
Boundary-Similkameen MLA John Slater tops a Fight HST list of 24 MLAs who would be targeted should a recall campaign go forward.
He captured a little more than 37 per cent of the votes in this electoral district in the May, 2009, provincial election.
Vander Zalm said the response to the petition here was unlike other parts of the province.
“It came out very balanced. Whereas in Vancouver and some of these places, you don’t have the same balance and that tells me that people might have signed to some degree based on their political philosophy. That doesn’t seem to be the case here.
“Support is across the board.”
Elections BC is expected to verify the results of the petition on Aug. 11, but Vander Zalm said he and his team have not been sitting idle in the meantime.
The organization has been preparing to deal with two separate legal battles related to the HST.
On Aug. 16 Vander Zalm goes to court to face a challenge from a coalition of provincial business organizations that have applied to B.C.’s Supreme Court for a judicial review of the petition.
The coalition argues that the anti-HST campaign’s attempt to repeal the tax under British Columbia’s initiative vote legislation should be dismissed because a federal law is behind the HST.
They want a judge to determine if a draft bill to extinguish the HST is constitutionally valid and therefore suitable for introduction to the Legislature.
Vander Zalm argues, however, that the federal government has said that the HST is a provincial initiative and Ottawa only facilitated the administration of the tax.
Fight HST will also challenge the constitutionality of British Columbia’s HST in B.C. Supreme Court.
Every other province that has brought in a harmonized sales tax had an agreement with the federal government that was approved through the provincial legislature, Vander Zalm said.
But in B.C., the provincial Finance Ministry approved the HST agreement for this province without having the matter go to the Legislature in Victoria.
Vander Zalm said he feels that constitutes taxation without representation since there was no taxpayer input.
He said his organization has been working with lawyers who specialize in constitutional law and a fundraising effort is underway to help pay for the legal fees that will come up for both cases.
So far the group has raised roughly $20,000, he said, but $50,000 will likely be needed to cover the legal costs.
Vander Zalm said he would have represented himself in court to save money, but he felt that without proper legal representation, the people who supported the petition would be disappointed if he was unsuccessful in both matters.
If the anti-HST petition is successful, it will be referred to the government standing committee on legislative initiatives along with a draft HST Extinguishment Act bill.
The committee would then have to either recommend tabling the draft bill in the provincial Legislature or refer the matter back to the province’s chief electoral officer for an initiative vote.
If the matter goes to an initiative vote on whether the HST should be repealed, which would be similar to a province-wide referendum, the next time such a vote could happen is Sept. 24, 2011.
The way Vander Zalm sees it, the government can either give in to the wishes of those who want the HST quashed, or the matter can be dealt with in the Legislature.
If the government votes against the wishes of the people when it comes to getting rid of the HST, then it will be a “piece of cake” to begin recall efforts, he said.
The first day anyone could apply to Elections BC for the opportunity to have an MLA recalled is Nov. 15, 2010, 18 months after last year’s election.
But if a recall campaign does commence in November, Vander Zalm said, it would likely take a few weeks to get the process underway and he doesn’t want such a campaign to interfere with Christmas celebrations across the province.
So it’s likely, he said, that any recall campaign wouldn’t actually gear up until the new year.
Besides Boundary-Similkameen, Vander Zalm said he also has his sights set on the ridings of Kamloops-North Thompson and Cariboo-Chilcotin as the first targets of any recall process and he intends to conduct similar strategy sessions in those electoral districts.
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