Canada is watching.

If you live in Canada, you know that BC's premier Gordon Campbell made headlines when after the BC provincial election where he stated that a HST was not on the radar, suddenely did a flip flop and announced that there would be the imposition of the HST after all.

For those who are not Canadian, HST means Harmonized Sales Tax. Currently, we have two seperate taxes applied in BC.
One is a 7% social services tax which has a number of exemptions. And the other is the federal Goods and Servives Tax. It is 5% and has fewer exemptions.

The blending of the two taxes will mean that consumers are going to bear the brunt of the tax while large corporations who support the Campbell Liberal government get additional tax breaks.

For consumers in BC, a family of 4 will be paying an estimated $2100 per year in taxes that we already cannot afford.

Why? Because the party that ran on their supposed record of being fiscally responsible, has mismanaged so badly, that they need to accept the bribe from the federal government of $1.6 BILLION to offset the screw ups. This years deficit in the provincial budget is pegged at some $4 1/2 Billion (after you include the bribe). But BC is also hosting the 2010 Olympic Games. And it is expected that BC is going to take an economic bath on this two week party. And this Liberal government will not tell the public the truth.

So, former BC premier Bill Vander Zalm has spearheaded plans to run a citizen's initiative to hold a referendum on whether the government should be allowed to impose the tax at all.

BC is the only province in Canada with Recall and Initiative Legislation in place. The legislation in place was not drafted with the people's control of politicians in mind. However, Gordon campbell has done the one thing no other BC premier has managed to do. That is to galvanize the voters hatred towards him and the HST.

Today, September 19th, noon Pacific time, some 15 communities province wide will be holding rallies to tell the BC Liberal government to abandon this tax change.

Barring a willingness to do this, there are plans moving ahead to submit an application for an initiative to proceed. After it is approved, there will be 90 days in which 10% of the people on the voters list, in each and every of the constituencies of the province must sign the approved signature document. After it is submitted, Elections BC goes over each and every signature to validate them.

Assuming this part of this massive undertaking is given the okay, it is up to the government to schedule a referendum on the issue, or simply abandon the plan making our hard work for nothing. Except, if it is abandoned, we win. If it goes to referendum we win.

All of this effort is delivering a poison pill to the arrogant Gordon Campbell and the BC Liberal Party. The question is whether the poison pill is going to merely make them sick, or whether the pill will be lethal.

I am the go to guy in Prince George BC and thrilled at the opportunity to see this move ahead because our party fully advocates the voter veto of anything politicians do.

It's nice to be on the winning side for a change.