Pay and Pay Again with HST

    March 27, 2010. Special to the Record. The Big Three in life can be summed up as Hatching, Matching and Dispatching - birth, marriage and death. My New Westminster constituents can look for all three to be more expensive, thanks to the proposed Harmonized Sales Tax, or HST.

    Yes, you will be paying and paying again for everything from cribs to car seats, to the wedding dress and organist, to funeral costs. These are hardly luxury items - well, some weddings do go overboard, but most are quite modest and families strive to stay within their means while still creating a special day.

    As I heard at the HST community forum I hosted Tuesday night, the HST will hit my constituents in the pocketbook day in and day out if it goes ahead.

    And what's particularly galling is the B.C. Liberals promised they wouldn't bring it in - they even put that in writing during the election campaign less than a year ago. The kindest interpretation would be that they have short memories.

    A more accurate interpretation would be that if they had told the truth, they wouldn't have formed government.

    How many people do you know who would have voted Liberal if they knew they were looking at a $1.9-billion tax grab? The B.C. Liberals lied about the HST, did not consult with British Columbians and don't have a mandate to bring in the HST now.

    I was pleased to see more than 100 people of all ages, ethnic backgrounds and economic positions come together in New Westminster at my public meeting with the goal of joining others from around the province to stop this tax.

    I heard that the HST will hit particularly hard in New Westminster because of the number of small businesses located here. They will have to charge seven per cent more for both goods and services, a charge that will without question be passed on to the consumer. Restaurants, for example, are small business too, and the restaurant industry forecasts the HST will cost as many as 12,000 jobs across the province.

    Restaurant owner Jasbir Sandu told the forum the tax will mean more expensive restaurant meals, lower food sales and job losses.

    He agrees with Mark von Schellwitz, western vice-president of the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association, who said recently, "As one casual diner said to us, it's tough enough now. But with the HST, when you sit down at a full-service restaurant, you know you're going to be paying 30 per cent more with HST and tip before you have anything to eat."

    The tourism industry expects to lose 10,000 jobs. Many of these are minimum wage jobs - I don't need to remind British Columbians that we still have the lowest minimum wage in the country - held by young people who are supporting themselves while they go to college, university or get technology training.

    So, if the HST is going to hit consumers and small businesses, who does it benefit? The answer is big business, which will pay less tax. Businesses will be able to get their money back, thanks to HST rebates. Hardly seems fair to me, that we provide rebates for businesses but not for families, especially as we are doing our best to recover from a world-wide recession.

    I have to admire the Liberals for their chutzpah in trying to pitch the HST as a way to pay for health care. As columnist Vaughn Palmer said in The Vancouver Sun, "this is a doubly silly attempt to deflect opposition to the HST" because all tax revenues go into the general fund, and the HST will be no different. Of course some of the proceeds will go toward health care, but this shim-sham PR campaign has nothing to do with that.

    I'm sure my constituents are having the same problem I am, trying to sort out exactly where the truth lies with the HST. We hear about the government collecting $3.7 billion, then in the next sentence are told that with rebates and the elimination of the PST, there will be $113 million less in government coffers under the HST. So, what's the point?

    I don't know, either. But I do know this premier and this government never, ever like to admit they've made a mistake.

    In the coming weeks you are going to hear about a provincewide campaign to stop the HST before it becomes legislation.

    I hope the people of New Westminster - indeed all the people of British Columbia - join in hatching a plan to dump the HST, matching wits with the Liberals about what it really means and dispatching it to the graveyard of ridiculous tax grabs.

    Dawn Black is an NDP MLA for New Westminster.