Let's get at it!
Win,lose,or draw...this needs to be done.

I hope this wasn't a bunch of snoke and mirrors from Vanderzalm, it was a good idea, but not doing anything and telling MLA's they "just missed"the cutting block, affects the HST committees credibility. If you don't follow up on your promises Mr. Vanderzalm, then you're no different than the idiot you are tryinag to dethrone.

Get on with it already, you tagged em, now you need to bag em..otherwise it was just another empty promise by just another politician.

To bad about Rustad, would have like to see him twist in the wind.... seems like such a wimp ...in my opinion

You people do know that the government will have to pay the money back I hope you know. That will mean programs cuts. What I think this is just a protest thing brought on by former N.D.P and Vander Zalm. Which in the end will cost more. So what ever we will be sorry I can tell ya that. Oh and there will be blame for sure. This flip flop country just a joke actually.

"Smoke and mirrors"?

What are you talking about highlanderpg?

Mr Vanderzalm has done more for BC politics in the last 12 months than any ELECTED politition has shown.

Mr Vanderzalm has done more for BC politics in the last 12 months than any ELECTED politition has shown


This is the same guy you hated when he was premier and tossed out for being crooked and now he is working for the NDP PGers like him

OK everybody.....the question still needs to be answered by Carole James...

and that is...WILL THE NDP CUT THE HST IF THEY FORM THE NEXT PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT??????????


Gee she still hasn't answered that yet..or maybe by her silence, she has.

Sooo that begs the question, if the NDP form the next provincial government and keep the HST...ARE WE GOING TO DO THIS ALL OVER AGAIN????

To be fair the answer should be YES.

So much nonsense over so little....

"Mr Vanderzalm has done more for BC politics in the last 12 months than any ELECTED politition has shown" REALLY?

I am sorry but this guy has done nothing for anyone lately. Where was he during the last election? Where has he been since he stepped down as Premier? Not one iota of constructive criticism during the run up for the last campaign or any campaign in this Century.
This is the guy who almost 20 years ago created his own scandal and had to step down as Premier of our Province with an envelope of money he took; caught red handed!
I may not agree with everything that has gone on in the past while, but it will be a cold day in hell when I even begin to think that anything Vanderzalm stands for is relevant to our current situation.
Ron J Davis

Remember there wouldn't be a recall if the fiberals had enough jam to kick crazy campbels ass out of government. Campbel had enough cash from the unexpected heigh demand for B.C.'s resources to pay back the feds and drop the H.S.T. but instead he unilaterally ( without any consultatiopn with his cabinet) decided to give it to B.C. in the form of a tax cut. If it was up to the tax payers of this province we would have opted to get rid of the H.S.T. so there you are the bum still wants to play games and the rest of his a**s hole friends want to tag along. Yes Mr Vandersalm we are with you. Lets make B.C. a liberal free zone!!

Don't know how a recall can be done when the petition has been shown to have people signing numerous times and pending charges are pending against those people.

As for Vanderzalm he had to resign when he was in power now people think he is a hero. Go figure.

The HST will save money in the end just give it a chance.

protesting this tax is going to put this province right back where it was in 1990. I bet five bucks on it. It will be the low income people that will bare the brunt of it. Anyone that isn't educated through the teeth or works for a mill will suffer. The rest don't care because they make 100 grand a year anyways.

An interesting show Sunday on GlobalTV.
Basic premise was that legislation passed in recent years has heavily favoured "Big Business" and at some point people may say, "Enough".

Maybe the HST protest is a start. The pre-election lie about the HST ( if they thought it was so good why lie about it) had a lot to do with the tax's unpopularity.

Certainly the gift on Van. Is. to West Fraser and the "shut up" gifts to Basi & Virk over the BC Rail deal are an indication this gov't has to go.
Too bad Campbell wasn't dumped after his impaired charge in Maui. I believe that the media was far too kind to him. Makes one wonder just how much Jimmy Pattison controls what hits the air waves or print.

The NDP is NOT the alternative. They never have been in this country's political history. They are nothing more than also-rans. Their few victories fleeting and marred by scandal. The true alternative is and always has been the conservatives. Let Carole flap her gums - she's chopped liver anyhow.

What kills me most is most of youse put the CLOWN back in after he got the impaired!!boohoo..

Referendum will kill this tax and everyone that signed that petition will kick themselves for years to come. I am not kidding. It was a bad move real bad. If people think of what was left to deal with just as the liberals took office it was a bloody mess in B.C here when the N.D.P were booted out. I am telling ya it was a mess and to bad the public has bad memory. It's really to bad. I of all people don't like taxes but come on there was such a dept here it wasn't funny in 2000. I wish people would use their brains I mean if not British Columbia be a real bad place to live and work.

You forget, conveniently, that Bill Vander Zalm was acquitted in a Court of Law of any wrong doing in the scandal that caused his resignation as Premier.

You also seem to forget that it was the media that incessantly hounded Vander Zalm that he could not be Premier and still own and operate his "Fantasy Gardens" theme park nursery business.

Even though "Fantasy Gardens" didn't do any business with the Provincial government, other than remitting any mandated taxes to it.

That business was as much the sole brainchild of Bill Vander Zalm as "Disneyland" was of Walt Disney.

It wasn't like having a hardware store, as WAC and Bill Bennett did. A well-established business that could easily be put into a "blind trust" and left in the hands of a professional manager to operate while its owners were engaged in Provincial politics.

"Fantasy Gardens" was still very much in the development stage when Vander Zalm returned to Provincial politics in 1986, and won the job of BC Social Credit Party leader, and subsequently Premier. How do you put someone else in charge of developing that kind of business without any further personal input from the guy whose vision started it ? How do you sell it, as he was hounded to do, when it hasn't yet been fully developed, and its future potential anywhere near realised? How do you do that without taking a loss on all that's already been done?

The "perception" of circumstances surrounding its sale, after Vander Zalm caved to the pressure upon him to get rid of it, was that he was doing something illegal. "Perception", in politics, is everything. And Bill Vander Zalm did the honourable thing, and resigned. Whether you think he was crooked or not, the Courts later found the "perception" was not the "reality".

You can like him, or loathe him, or be completely ambivalent. But in this struggle against a tax whose imposition has violated the very principles on which Parliamentary democracy was founded, he has rendered the people of BC an invaluable service. Through which all of us ~ at least all of us usually called the "silent majority" ~ have finally found our voice. WE will be listened to, and WE will prevail, that tax will go, even if we have to RECALL THEM ALL!

Sure hope you're right but it is a very long road and I think there will be too much fatigue before the end is reached.

I know this will be unpopular BUT...
I predict ZERO successful recalls. Sorry. Ten percent for a referendum is a long ways away from forty percent for recall. Its just not gonna happen.

Socredible is right. Vander Zalm resigned as Premier in 1991 when a Provincial Conflict of Interest report by Ted Hughes found he had mixed private business with his public office in the sale of Fantasy Gardens. He was charged with criminal breach of trust, but found not guilty in BC Supreme Court in 1992. The court ruled that while Vander Zalm had put himself in a conflict of interest, he had not done anything illegal.

So lets get off the Vander Zalm guilty trip.

I think its also time that we drop the fact that Campbell was convicted of impaired driving a number of years ago. Seems to me that in our system of justice, once you pay the penalty for the crime, you are then rehabilitated into society. Why are we still harping on Campbell.

Lets look at this a different way. I would be willing to wager that most people on these posts have drove a motor vehicle while under the influence on alcohol, and certainly with a blood alcohol count of over .08. The fact that you were not caught and charged doesnt make you any less guilty than Campbell or any other impaired driver that was caught.

Some people seem to think that as long as you dont get caught you didnt break the law. This of course is pure BS.

For all the Danny Do Gooders out there, I suggest that the next time you drink and drive impaired, that you arrest yourself, take your condesending self to the Police Station, and serve some time.

interceptor. I have a totally different view. I think that these recalls will be successful. One reason is that they can use the Voters List on re-calls which they couldnt do during the Initiative Petition. This of course will save them a huge amount of time

They will be able to go directly to those people who are allowed to vote in the recall and not waste time on people who are not registered. This is a huge advantage.

They are also targeting ridings where there was a very small difference between the Liberals and NDP. One would have to assume that people who voted NDP would probably sign the petition for a recall, so in effect you have a huge number of people already on your side. All thats left to do is get signatures from a large group of people who didnt vote in the election, but who would vote for re-call, and of course a large number of votes from disapointed Liberals, and BOOM you have a successful recall.

The Liberal Governments options are basically recind the HST or lose the Government. They are basically in a Corn Maze, and the HST people have closed off the exit. They are all running around in the maze looking for a way out, but to no avail. The key to get out is to axe the tax. When will they figure that out??

I share Palopu's view of the very likely success of the Recall campaigns. All it takes is ONE, to show it CAN be done, and I believe the others will quickly follow. While the strategy for selecting who to target first is brilliant, one can almost feel a certain sadness that the first five targeted have not been prominent in the decision to bring in the HST the way it was done.

But they're not exactly in the class of being innocent victims either.

They all have committed to defending that tax in the face of overwhelming constituent opposition to it ~ they have refused to act as our "representatives" on an issue where there can be no doubt where the majority stands.

They've chosen to serve their Leader and their Party in priority to serving their constituents, we who are their real 'employers'.

That is grounds for dismissal, for no other reason than to firmly re-establish the fact that we are supposed to be a 'democracy', and they have opted instead for what amounts to 'dictatorship'.