Editor:
It’s no surprise to see the BC Liberals’ pro-HST damage control has begun.
It’s also no surprise to Fight HST supporters that the Liberals continue to miss the point.
The Liberals believe the public is angry about the tax.
They are right; we are angry about the added consumer burden.
Exactly when are we going to see those HST savings?
But more than the tax itself, people are upset about the lie.
Remember the “HST is not on the radar” statements?
Even Boundary Similkameen MLA John Slater is missing the point.
In the Sept. 29 Penticton Western News, he quite rightly admits his vulnerability to the coming recall, but he also makes a puzzling statement.
If the HST is supposed to stimulate the economy, he certainly isn’t helping the restaurant industry by saying if consumers want to avoid paying the tax, “…(then) they buy food and don’t go to restaurants a lot and those sorts of things…”
Since the Liberals wish to sweep aside the election deception and focus on the tax itself, let’s look at their arguments.
One argument is that the government needs taxes to pay for health care and education.
True, taxes pay for the services British Columbians depend on, but the HST was not supposed to be a revenue source for the government.
The HST was billed as a “revenue neutral tax” – a seven-per-cent tax credit for business and a seven-per-cent tax increase foisted upon the consumer.
Unless the HST is scrapped, British Columbians will be ponying up an estimated $1.9 billion (this figure is from the BC Liberal fact page: Benefits of the HST) every year for the rest of their lives – the same amount businesses are expected to save.
So where is this money for health care and education?
Could it be that $1.6 billion enticement (a one-time payment) from the federal government to implement the HST?
Rather than funding health care and education, that $1.6 billion will likely be allocated to reducing the province’s deficit over the next three years.
Another argument is that scrapping the HST would be too costly.
The province would have to repay the $1.6 billion “gift” from the feds.
Since this $1.6 billion was our federally collected tax money in the first place – it did not come from another country – why is this so daunting?
Isn’t it better than paying $1.9 billion every year with the HST?
Paul McCavour and Julie Turner,
Fight HST Regional Organizers for the Citizen Initiative
OSOYOOS TIMES-October 13, 2010
MANY CANADIANS DO SUPPORT GUN REGISTRY
Editor:
I feel compelled to respond to Robert J. Dunn’s letter to the editor, Sept. 29, in support of the gun lobby.
In this letter, he claims that “about 85 per cent of respondents wanted to see the long gun registry abolished.”
This is a very serious misrepresentation of the facts.
Who exactly are Mr. Dunn’s “respondents?”
A new poll published in the National Post shows that two-thirds of Canadians support the long gun registry.
“This has a very substantive resonance across the country,” Ipsos-Reid senior vice-president John Wright said Tuesday (Oct. 4) of the registry.
I personally have a vote and a cheque for our local MP’s support of the police chiefs, the doctors, the nurses and the women of Canada on this issue.
Margaret Resin,
Osoyoos
OSOYOOS TIMES-October 13, 2010
