HST - Once Again An Unfair, Undemocratic Process
By Peter Ewart
Friday, April 15, 2011 03:43 AM
What would people think if, during a boxing match between two fighters, the promoter of the fight stepped into the ring and started bashing one of the fighters with a chair? Two against one. Scarcely a fair fight.
But that is precisely what the BC Government is proposing with its HST Referendum “public engagement” that it purports will cost $1.7 million. On the surface, it appears all so fair and even handed. For example, the government will be providing $500,000 of the $1.7 million for an “information campaign” which will be “shared” between supporters and opponents of the HST.
Another $500,000 will go to a “public dialogue fund” to be “independently” managed by BC universities and colleges to hold “public dialogue sessions” throughout the province.
Still another $700,000 will be used for a “comprehensive voters’ guide” which will supposedly “summarize” the positions of the pro- and anti-HST sides, as well as sum up the findings of the government-initiated “independent panel”.
It looks sort of “fair”, doesn’t it? That is, until you realize that the government, according to various news reports, plans to run its own separate “advertising campaign” in addition to the above measures. In other words, the government will be spending the public’s dollars to promote its own pro-HST advertising campaign over and above the so-called fair “information campaign”, “public dialogue sessions”, and “comprehensive voters’ guide”. According to news reports, the government has so far refused to tell either the press or the public how much it will be spending on this marketing campaign.
Thus, the BC Liberal government is setting up a so-called “fair” debate, but is keeping in the shadows the fact it will be using its huge advertising and other resources to back one side, i.e., the pro-HST side. How many millions of the people’s money will be spent by the government hawking this hated tax? We don’t know.
Of course, the other neat little card trick the government is pulling is to use the word “independent” to describe the panel whose “findings” will be put in the “comprehensive voters’ guide”. Even the most hardened government advocates know that this “independent panel” is made up of supporters of the HST who were handpicked to rubberstamp the tax.
In addition to all of this, the government will also be spending considerable amounts of money on what it calls its “Talking Taxes” initiative, which, according to a government press release, will “engage” the public in “tele-town halls” and “stakeholder meetings” to “help determine what improvements may be made to the HST”. In other words, while the actual referendum process is going on, Finance Minister Kevin Falcon will be using the “Talking taxes” initiative to soften up public opinion for the acceptance of some kind of modified HST. No matter how the government tries to dress it up, this is pro-HST propaganda and is blatant interference in the referendum process using public funds.
Perhaps what we, as voters, should do is keep track of all the public money that the BC Liberal government and its MLAs will be using to promote the pro-HST side (over and above the $1.7 million mentioned above) , and then present the individual Liberal MLAs or even the BC Liberal Party itself with the bill afterwards.
In any case, the BC Liberal government has shown, once again, that it is incapable of conducting anything that resembles a proper democratic process regarding the adoption of a new tax system.
Peter Ewart is a columnist and writer based in Prince George, British Columbia. He can be reached at: peter.ewart@shaw.ca
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Posted by: Eagleone on April 15 2011 6:40 AM
Their idea of democracy is "one corporation, one vote".