According to Finance Minister Kevin Falcon, BC will scrap the HST, return to the PST on April 1 2013 and repay $320 million per year to the federal government in each of the next five years to return the $1.6 billion transition funding provided by Ottawa.
The next provincial election is on May 14, 2013.
According to Angus Reid Public Opinion results issued this month, the New Democrats hold a lead over the governing BC Liberals, who drop below 30% for the first time since Gordon Campbell’s departure.
According to me, before departing, the Liberals aim to squeeze out as much lucre as they can for their big business friends while the next government is left to fund revenue shortfalls.
Kevin Falcon will soon impose a 2012 budget and another before next year’s election. The government will introduce new sales tax exemptions for business and other tax relief so corporations continue pocketing the almost $2 billion annual savings gained under HST. Of course, this political party plans a scorched earth policy to make life difficult for the succeeding government.
I also note that Liberals have repeatedly claimed their hands were tied in matters related to scrapping HST but today they announced an increase in the BC HST rebate threshold, a move which is expected to save new house purchasers about $60 million in the coming year. So Liberal “hands are tied” in affecting HST transition, unless they decide their hands are not tied.
The only thing consistent about BC Liberals is the contempt they hold for citizens of this province.
Categories: HST
IN-SIGHTS 
We had spiteful, mean little boy Campbell, get even with the BC people, by destroying BC hydro. Cause we booted him out of office.
The BC people said, no to the HST, we were in a deep recession and already taxed to death. The BC citizens didn't make a deal with the devil, Campbell and Hansen did. However, Harper and Campbell forced the HST on us anyway. Now spiteful Stevie will make the BC people pay him money, that he thieved from us in the first place. Yup, sounds like spiteful Stevie and the Campbell/Clark BC Liberals. They owe the BC people the HST, that was stolen from us. But, we have to pay Stevie for stealing from us.
Of course the BC Liberals, will dump the BC HST debt on the next party. It wouldn't be the Campbell/Clark BC Liberals, if they didn't. They have made the worst stinking mess in BC, ever known in Canadian history. Campbell thieved and sold our BCR. He thieved and sold our rivers. He gave our mill industry to China, along with our raw logs. He gave China our mines. Christy is too much of a coward, to put the blame where it really belongs, on Harper and Campbell. She had the opportunity, to fix things in BC, however, she chose not to.
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HI Norm,
first timer.
You are bang on when you say;
“According to me, before departing the Liberals aim to squeeze out as much lucre as they can for their big business friends while the next government is left to fund the revenue shortfalls.”
2 perfect examples on Fridays evening news.
The usual suspects from the construction industry ( non union of course) backslapping falcon for tinkering with the HST to there advantage but to nobody elses, sucks if you have a restaraunt. Obviously the builders have deeper pockets than the cooks when it comes to donation time.
logs are being shipped out as fast as they can get them on a truck and leaving a wasteland before the NDP get in, but hard luck if you have a sawmill trying to get affordable logs for dimensional lumber.
How soon we forget what happened in Campbell River.
I don't think the libs give a toss how it ends up when they are gone, let someone else sort the mess out they have created or kept quite about as it was happening the entirity of which is frightenly yet to be seen. Off to pensions and/or board appointments for services rendered for the faces we have been accustomed to and tough luck trying for re-election for those that didn't get in on the action.
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True, true. We've now made retirement more lucrative for back bench politicians than continued service. They'll put up with anything to remain long enough to qualify for the pension benefit. They'll also get retirement and relocation payments when voters boot their backsides south.
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Just a question: anyone else concerned that saltspringnews.com seems to be inaccessible?
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They say, “Travail: Concentrated spam attack brings down SSNews.”
Seems to be back ok now.
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Unbelievable.
They even use our voting to get the tax shift off of the backs of those who can least afford it to their friends and uncles best advantage.
Can someone remind me again who paid for that latest 'within striking distance!' poll?
.
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Even the Liberals now know that they are finished. Instead of governing properly, they are going to inflict even more damage on our beautiful province and its people in order to exact their revenge in advance. And just so the NDP and the Conservatives have fair warning, if either of your partys take on refugees from this corrupt party as they sink, You Will Not Get My Vote.
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This entire country is rotten to the core with corruption, lies and deceit. Harper should declare he is governing Canada by his true party, the Northern Foundation Party. He should be owning up he is a Reformer and not a Conservative.
Since Harper's majority, he has made one hell of a mess of Canada. There have been no jobs in this country for six months. Canada is being shunned, because of Harper. The new Trans Pacific Trade Group, have blocked Harper out. Even the U.N. would not give Harper a seat.
BC has been a loss since Campbell, for over ten dreary years. BC has been thieved right to the bare bones.
Fadden of CSIS warned, China was encroaching much too far, into BC and Canada. He was absolutely right.
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Seems like the neo-liberals are engaging is some economic scorched earth policy. Take what they can and destroy anything they can't take.
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The BC Liberals dug a deep financial hole threw BC Rail down it.
BC Rail was in fine health as a money making machine for the provincial treasury when the BC Liberals took office. The neocons drained $$ from the railway and used that as the foundation for the lease.
The BC Liberals also tried to sell BC Hydro, but the public cried foul. Campbell and Co. were only momentarily rebuffed – they 'Enronned' the BC Hydro books by putting all future PPP obligations into outside accounts knowing that when the day of reckoning came they would have a ready excuse to sell BC Hydro.
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Down the road when they're booted out, the next government should hold public inquiries into all the projects started by and while the lieberals were in power. There should be forensic audits done in all departments to see where the money was sent, to which company contracts were awarded and costs.
Then, when it is determined that there is and was corruption, every one of them involved should be held to account and charged.
That to me would be well paid for by taxpayers as we will sue them, their families, their friends involved for every penny they stole from the citizens of this province and country.
I am so disgusted with these leeches and hypocrits.
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The Provincial Liberals are & always have been a party that gives to insiders ; particularly land developers.
They are NOT idealogues they have no conscience.
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The BC Liberals have never been ideaology driven.
They have,however , lined the pockets of their financial supporters.
When all is considered they have driven the BC ecomomy to it's lowest level in 50 years.
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This is where our current system fails. Faced with an angry outgoing party with more than a year left to them we are left with their incompetance for that duration.Our whole system of governance needs an overhaul as it was from a time when the media held these people at bay, that no longer exists and changes are needed.
We have no recourse or ability at this time to remove them immediately. That must change!
Don
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I think improvements could happen if the legislature empowered individual MLA's. Liberals won't do it and no party in power is likely to do it unless it has been made an issue before election.
Would today's Official Opposition be willing to promise changes that would be implemented if elected? Real and consequential changes, not the insincere ones Gordon Campbell promised in 2001.
Remember “The most open, accountable and democratic government in Canada.”
Or, “Hold open Cabinet meetings atleast once a month that are televised and broadcast live on the Internet”
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Thanks to the BC Liberals, our provincial economy, will have tanked big time. Even at its worst the NDP could not even begin to take credit, for the kind of mess the Campbell/Clark Liberals have left us with, after 10 years. Leaving a “scorched earth” financial mess is not only unethical, but should be illegal. As far as PPP's go, that nonsense can be scrapped as soon as a newly elected government takes power. This could be done by passing an order in council, to request a forensic audit and rescind policy decisions deemed “improper” to the taxpayers of this province.
This crap has to stop. The taxpayers of this province…including all of us, not just the rich,
have to have a greater say in policy, in the future. Our system is broken and needs to be fixed…big time.
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It would seem to me that as the NDP loudly opposed the HST that they dug this hole in their own budget fully knowing that the 1.6 billion would need to be paid back.
Had the referendum passed, BCers would now have 1.6 billion extra to spend.
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But, had the Liberals not imposed HST, consumers would have had $4 billion more to spend on goods and services in the last two years. Instead, that money went to companies like Goldcorp, Teck Resources, Westcoast Energy, Teekay Group, Northland Properties, Aquilini Group, Methanex, etc.
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