Premier Gordon Campbell with a bad case of Olympic fever.

A friend of mine recently used her Facebook status to pose the following question: Can some one please explain the harmonized sales tax in layman’s terms? The first comment she attracted was a sincere attempt to explain the details of BC’s newest tax structure without any criticism of the hike. My irritated brain immediately commanded my fingers to type – “Everyone in BC starts to pay 12 percent tax on everything. The government gives themselves raises with the extra money and the rest of it gets mismanaged on things like useless projects that lines the pockets of their friends who own big development companies.” There, I thought to myself after posting my contribution, that should incense a few people, perhaps prompting some serious discussion on the topic and awareness of how little taxpayers know of what is actually going on with their money behind the proverbial closed doors. My self-satisfaction lasted as long as it took for two more comments to appear after my own. The first one read “I like glitter and bunnies.” The second? “I like glitter and bunnies too!”
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Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan

Many Ontarians are wondering: where is the official opposition in Queens Park? The Ontario Liberal government is drowning in deficit, mishandling taxpayer money, struggling to deal with the eHealth scandal, and now they seek to introduce a harmonized sales tax. These issues are political dynamite, so why haven’t the Tories jumped all over the wounded doe that is the Liberal government?

Dalton McGuinty and Dwight Duncan have made quite a pair of populist media darlings lately. They’ve been trumpeting the virtues of their new HST exemptions for coffee, newspapers, and homes under $400 000. While the Liberals are magnanimously laying these pearls before the swine, the weak response that has come from the Ontario opposition continues to descend into ineptitude.

Tax harmonization has been a pet project of Federal Finance Minister Jim Flarety for a long time. He has made no bones about his disgust for the high taxes on business in Ontario, going so far as to accuse Dalton McGuinty of administering the most severe tax regime in the entire G8 bloc. McGuinty has made it clear that without the funds and cooperation of the federal Conservatives, the HST couldn’t have happened. In effect, the Ontario Liberals have allied themselves with Stephen Harper’s federal government on this issue.
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HST: How It Works

Two days ago, if anyone had asked me what I thought about the proposed HST in British Columbia, I would have told them that Gordo, the little weasel, had screwed over British Columbians once again. But that was before I actually took the time to learn everything I could about the new Harmonized Sales Tax.

With the recession and promises of no taxes by the BC Liberals, it isn’t a wonder many people in this province, low-income families and small businesses alike, were weary about the HST. Any mention of taxes, save for tax cuts, is bound to stir up outrage, in a recession, no less. But I have to admit the HST is not a bad idea.

Before you go calling me a Liberal patsy or any other such unflattering names, let me state for the record that I am a social democrat at heart and have voted for the NDP since I turned eighteen. But this isn’t about partisan politics. This is about what’s good for the province and the people of this province. Rest assured, I have many qualms about the BC Liberals but the HST may be the one thing we agree on.

Instead of shooting the new HST down, let’s look at the numbers. The current GST in BC is 5 percent while the PST is 7 percent, for a total of 12 percent. The PST is non-refundable, whereas the HST, also at 12 percent, will be. Goods that are currently exempt from the GST will be exempt from the HST. This means that groceries and rent costs will not be taxed with the new HST.
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