Please quit embarrassing yourself. I used one tongue-in-cheek example as a reference to another post in this forum, and you continue to bitch about it... Get over it man.

And quit trying to derail the thread by bitching about not being able to fail site admins. If you don't care, stop bitching about it

No, I am sick and tired of idiots who don't appreciate healthcare workers for what they do and insult them. They're out there saving lives and here you are bitching about how much they're being paid. :thumbsup: Guess being a rs admin doesn't give you the same respect as a health professional.

People like you are the idiots who come into pharmacies telling us, "oh you just put a sticker on the box".

OK. Fair enough. I didn't read all your posts, so I apologize if I was hasty in my reply.

Nonetheless, I still strongly disagree with your comments regarding "CEO's and corporations"... and I hope you'll see how important it is to encourage economic growth if we want to have universal, publicly-funded health care.

I am huge supporter of nurses, too. They have a very difficult job, I respect what they do, and I hope they're always paid accordingly. I also hope we continue to enjoy the economic conditions that allow us to pay their salary every month.

Yes, I know. And I don't blame people for that, because it's human nature to think "me first". But we definitely need to move beyond.

When you look at the big picture, you realize that you can only afford that iPod if you have a job and disposable income. And you'll only have a good job and decent wages if there's someone to employ you. Your employer can't pay you if they're drowning in production costs and taxes.

When you look at the big picture, you begin to realize that everything starts and ends with the economy. A healthy economy means high employment, high wages, and disposable income to spend on iPods.

Thankfully, there are some people who can see the big picture. People like Paul Martin, who saw the big picture, looked toward the future, and turned this country's finances around. People like Mike Harris, who saw the big picture and knew that huge government cutbacks were necessary in order to save his province from bankruptcy. People who saw the big picture, who weren't blinded by short-term thinking, and who have the balls to enact policies that eventually result in a higher standard of living for almost everyone.

Often, the most unpopular policies are the ones that have the greatest benefit to the general public.

I've been indifferent to the HST, but I understand the necessity of taxes. Thanks for your insight, Amaru. I'm in the pro-HST camp, now.

Good to know someone read my rant, thanks. :thumbsup:

I wish Colin Hansen, Gorden Campbell and the rest of the current cabinet had articulated something similar to what I wrote (with fewer spelling errors :D) when they first pitched the HST to the public.

I really believe that the average British Columbian cares more about the long-term health of the province than they do a small increase in taxes. But not everyone enjoys economics, and even fewer people enjoy the intricacies of taxation policy. No-one wants to pay higher taxes if the government can't justify them in simple language.

As proof of this, you can look at Paul Martin's mission to balance Canada's federal budget back in the early 1990's. He knew that doing so would be impossible without the support of average Canadians, and he knew that they would be willing to endure major government cutbacks if it meant Canada would be better off in the long-term. He justified the reduced social service expenditures to the public, and people bought into his plan. (Most importantly, Chretien agreed with him, and he too pitched the importance of fiscal prudence to the Canadian public.)

This is essentially the same concept: a hugely unfavourable policy needs to be put into place to help secure the province's future. But nobody will support that policy unless the long-term benefits are explained and the costs are justified. And rightfully so... why part with your money if the person taking it can't explain what you're getting in return?

My biggest fear is that the HST will end up destroying the BC Liberals, and the NDP will form a majority government by campaigning on a promise to repeal the HST. This would be disastrous for two reasons:

1) It would mean that they're essentially giving corporate British Columbia the middle finger by repealing a pro-business policy and ignoring the advice of almost every economist in this country;

2) It would be an absolute disaster financially. A change in taxation policy is hugely expensive. It has no doubt already cost billions to put the HST into place. To repeal it and re-instate our old tax structure would cost countless more billions, and it would reduce the province's income stream by $1.6-billion annually.

You can't spend that much money eliminating a source of income and alienating businesses (which also reduces provincial revenues) without creating a fiscal nightmare that will take years to recover from. How will they make up for the loss of income and the expense of repealing the HST? Certainly they won't make up the difference by slashing spending, because that will be politically disastrous too. So they'll end up running large budget deficits, driving up our annual interest payments and putting the province in a poor position to handle an impending demographic crisis and crumbling world markets.

In short, repealing the HST would be far more painful and costly than simply sticking it out for the long term.

I'm not suggesting that you should vote Liberal in the next election, by the way... just that all British Columbians should be careful not to oust the current government simply because we're blinded by our hatred of the HST. Doing so will make our current sacrifices worthless, and, as a worst-case scenario, will turn the province's economic outlook from bright to bleak.

For anyone interested, this PDF file summarizes the provincial budget for 2010.

It shows where the HST money will be spent, how BC is taking logical steps to encourage economic growth, and how the government intends to balance the budget by the 2013/2014 fiscal year.

Not everything in the document will come to fruition, and the government's goals are lofty... but it shows that there is at least a plan in place to strengthen and diversify the BC economy without major public service cuts.

Well spoken. I've been on the fence the entire time, though I've wavered both ways after reading different opinions and the actual HST benefits. I just wanted to say a couple things though:

Of course economists are able to support the HST... they actually understand the technobabble behind the million page report. The general population takes their taxes to accountants, use a calculator for math questions harder than 12x7 and think that Fox News is a reliable source of unbiased news. I've read a whole bunch on the HST and I still don't understand all of it. I don't expect people who have read a few snippets in The Province or Vancouver Sun to fully comprehend what it's all about.

Oh, and of course businesses will be fully behind it. A large portion of businesses out there will be able to recover a far larger portion of their taxes, if not all of the tax they pay.


This is what bothers me, unfortunately. One of the major platforms that was used to tote the HST was that because businesses will be paying less money overall, they'll be passing the savings on to the consumer. Yes, in a perfect world that will happen, but I highly don't see that happening at all. Maybe it's just the cynic in me, but even after talking to a couple big wigs at major retail companies, I know that wont be the case.

Even if I ignore everything else that went wrong with the implementation of the HST, this is the one thing that bothers me the most about Campbell's attempt at persuading the public that it's good for us.

I don't think the general public is upset about taxes in general. Okay, I know we all don't enjoy paying taxes and, if this was a perfect world, we wouldn't, but I think we all accept it as a way of life. We live in a semi-socialist country. We know Health Care doesn't pay for itself. I think what people are upset about is the perceived notion of unfair taxation between pay rates ($25,000 vs $250,000), tax breaks for people that allegedly don't deserve it, taxes for services people think they don't use (Translink and transit... though most people tend to be wrong about this), and having new taxes pushed onto them without any form of consultation or any real notification as to why it's being done. I could go onto metaphors involving Crown Corporations (*coughICBCcough*) but I'm feeling too tired to bother. :lol


That's an easy answer: Nothing. Canadians in general complain... and then do nothing once they remember the hockey game is on. This HST petition is an exception to that rule, and only because the BC public forgot about all the controversies and conflict of interest scenarios Bill Vander Zalm found himself in when he was the Premiere of BC. He's only doing this because he has found a weakness that he felt that he was able to exploit. I don't believe for a minute that he's doing this out of the "goodness of his heart."


Again, Joe Public isn't going to know that, much less understand why we're holding up better than many other countries.

I'll agree, and add that there is at least one major industry in BC that will benefit quite a bit from the HST simply because tax credits and rebates are now much more easily managed, and they get back far more than they had under the old GST/PST.

However, as with any new tax, the government needs to be responsible to the public that put their faith behind voting them into office and better relate exactly what they're doing and why they're doing it. They need to be clear, concise and, above all, honest about it. They can't just say it will be good for us, throw a couple examples that will likely never manifest, and then show us a website that has only slightly more information that only experienced lawyers can understand.

Quite frankly, I could not agree more with everything you've just written.

The HST is a good policy, and the BC Liberals implemented it with this province's best interests in mind. I don't believe for a second that the tax is self-motivated on the part of this government, because it does not and has not benefited their political standing at all. (Quite the contrary, the HST as a whole has been an absolute nightmare for the BC Liberals.)

There's no weight to the allegations that this is all a ploy to raise revenues and hide a deficit, either. Surely Campbell and Hansen are smart enough to see that the public's outcry over the HST would far outweigh any flak they may have taken for running a very big budget deficit or making a few service cutbacks.

Politics aside, the sad truth is that the general public will not support taxation if it's not thoroughly explained and justified to them. And this justification has to be presented in simple terms that anyone can understand. Essentially, the government needed to explain why the benefits that stem from this tax will eventually outweigh the costs.

As you pointed out, the argument that "prices for consumer goods will fall" almost certainly made things worse. This pitch is based on shaky economic theory, and most people won't buy it. Small business owners and average British Columbians will see prices increase by 7% on a number of everyday items.

Instead, the government should have taken a page from the book of other successful recession-era politicians. I already mentioned Paul Martin; Margaret Thatcher is another very obvious example. They successfully implemented very unpopular policies - but only after they worked long and hard to bring the public onside. They explained why things needed to change, and how it would eventually be in the best interests of the nation/province/etc.

Ironically, just before I read your post, I wrote a letter to the editor of the Victoria Times Colonist newspaper. It was in response to this article about the government's latest attempt to sell the public on the HST....

Re: "Province tries to dig itself out of HST marketing mess," July 2 2010

The Campbell government is about a year late on its pro-HST marketing blitz. Had they provided a sensible pitch in favour of the harmonized sales tax when they first announced it, they would have saved themselves a lot of grief. The tax itself is based on sound fiscal and economic policies, and it will be beneficial to the economy of British Columbia for as long as it is in place. But if any government is going to increase our tax burden, they had better provide a strong justification for it. We won’t hand over our hard-earned money unless we know we’re going to see tangible benefits.

As it stands now, most British Columbians are too blinded by anger to listen to any pro-HST arguments. They've lost all faith and trust in the Liberals, and even the most sensible and well-justified pitch will fall on deaf ears.

The Liberals were on the right track when they decided to implement policies designed to secure this province’s economic future – but they forgot to explain these policies to their constituents, who just happen to be footing the bill. Unfortunately, their current marketing campaign is a classic case of “too little, too late”.

It's clear that the HST will prove to be the final nail in the casket of this Liberal government, and few people will shed any tears because of it. But it will be a shame if the HST dies along with them. If that happens, taxpayers will be out several billion dollars and our province will be as unattractive to businesses and investors as it always has been.

OK now you're just trolling, and I suggest you stop now. I never said anything of the sort, so quit trying to put words into my mouth to look for an excuse to get all pissed off at me.

You brought up people insulting those who work at the pharmacy counters 2 or 3 times now... You obviously have some deep seeded issues that have nothing to do with what we were talking about here. So stop before you go too far.

Excellent post. This is the part nobody seems to get. Everyone is me-me-me - how much is this going to cost ME, how much is this going to affect ME. OH NOEZ, MY overpriced latte is going to cost ME an extra 40 cents! Oh the humanity!

I wouldn't even say nobody understands how a healthy economy can benefit them in the long run.... nobody even stops to think about it; they just go into panic mode.

Doesn't help, of course, that you have Bill Vander Zalm out there blowing his vuvuzela... oh wait, I guess that's his regular voice, oh well... but anyway, out there stirring everyone up and not giving them a moment to think RATIONALLY.

I do take issue with one thing:

This is incorrect. Campbell has never, to my knowledge, actually made such a statement, at least not in relation to the last election, which is the main accusation people are making (that Campbell lied to get elected - wow, no politician's ever done that before). So far, nobody I've asked has been able to point to radio or TV news clip, or a direct published quote, that establishes this.

If Colin Hansen is to be believed (let's assume that he's on the up-and-up about this), this whole "Campbell lied" BS stems from the fact that two out of a stack of generic pre-election surveys included a question about implementing an HST, and those questions were answered - by some lowly cabinet staffers, NOT Campbell - with the statement that bringing in the HST *was not part of the election platform*. Not that they wouldn't do it... but that their campaign wasn't being run on the promise that they would!. THAT'S ALL.

And now that has been misconstrued (and largely perpetuated by the Zalm, and the likes of Mike Smyth) into Campbell personally lying through his hat about it.

Actually, if Hansen is to be believed, implementing the HST has been *wanted* by the Liberals since they day they took office... but doing so would have taken too much control out of the provincial government's hands. It was only two weeks after the BC election that the rules were changed *by the feds* to make it a VIABLE option for us... and they jumped on it. Any claims about not bringing it in before that were of the type, "it's not on our radar"... NOT "we have no plans to do it." There's a subtle but key difference there that, unfortunately, people want to ignore.

I loved when Carole James was asked directly on the radio, whether the NDP would rescind the HST if they were elected... which led immediately to much beating about the bush about how difficult it would be, yada yada. I think she fully understands how the tax is beneficial to the BC economy and how it's a good thing as whole, but needs to ride the anti-HST wave as much as possible to have any hope of winning the next election.

No question about this! Both Gordo and Hansen have admitted as such numerous times, especially in the last couple weeks, as have the HST boosters like Michael Levy (I think that's the thing that annoys him most, heh).

Likewise! Actually, it's not even that, so much as I get severely irritated when people just go off on an irrational, illogical tangent whenever anything like this happens. Hey, show me PROOF of the "Campbell lied" mantra, and I'm more than happy to reverse my objection to THAT... all I ask is a link to a news clip, a direct published quote... so far, nobody's come up with one.

I'm right with you there, too. My brother is a nurse (I guess "murse" the preferred term now :rolleyes:)... he teaches now at VCC, but he's paid his dues in the proverbial trenches as well, and from some of the stories of the shit - literally - that he's had to go through... man, you could NOT pay me enough. He's cleaned up more kinds of bodily fluids than most people probably know exist. He's done the palliative care. He's been shit on - figuratively - by everyone from the doctors to the patients to the patients' families, and just had to take it all with a smile.

People see nurses as just the bimbo who brings your meds and changes your sheets while you're trying to take a piss during your hospital stay, but that's just the thin surface of what they have to do. And any one of them who LOOKS like they have a "cushy" position now... 99% guaranteed, they had to dig their way through all the nastiness to get to that point, too.

I won't go into any more detail in deference to those who are reading this while eating breakfast. Suffice to say, nurses are worth every fucking cent they're paid.

Just feel happy that you don't have to pay the 20-25% they do in Europe :)

:fuuuuu:

I completely understand that the HST is a strong long-term revenue generator based on what I've read before and what Amaru has posted here, but the one thing that has me disliking the tax is, again, the fact that the tax was simply dumped in the people's laps without ANY notification. I also thought that Gordo didn't have the HST on his election platform, but would up implementing it on the end.

What I've read here has leaned me away from anti-HST quite a bit, but I'm still on the fence about it.

remember boys and girls, a good policy for economic development is governed by serving the "Greater good" (Nash Equilibrium to an extent). In a new policy there will always be those who win and those who lose out. In the case of the HST it's the consumers who are losing out, whereas the individual firms gain. Although it may seem that all the consumers in BC are being shafted right now, the fact is that the boost in cost transaction efficiency, as well as an increase in government income (and its consequent spending) will simply bring a far greater benefit than the hit endured by consumers.

The combo is $4.39 at certain locations...

Well that's the thing: it WASN'T in their platform, because despite thinking it was a good CONCEPT, going there would have given up too much power to the federal government too much control and on the whole, wouldn't have been... I guess the right term would be, "beneficial ENOUGH" to be worth doing.

When the feds unexpectedly changed the rules to allow the province more control over their part of the taxation, the Libs pounced on the chance. Presumably the timing of this was entirely coincidental with the BC election, and all through the time leading up to the election, the Liberals had no plans to go HST, because of the "federal control" issue.

Granted, this is all based on what Colin Hansen has reiterated numerous times in the media... take it for what you will. Seeing as no-one has yet come up with one shred of empirical proof that "Campbell lied" I think it tends to be fairly plausible...

As you say, the real stumbling was in failing to sell it properly to the people... and of course, the timing of it made for terrible optics. If they'd stepped up, said outright, "we've been wanting to do this for a long time and now the rules are changed to make it attractive", and then spent a couple months selling the benefits and at least APPEARING to welcome public input, rather than just saying out of the blue, "Hey we're gonna do this!" it would have been a LOT cleaner all around.

It's not just that... if it lowers the cost of operating, that makes business - especially small and medium business - more efficient and more profitable. The boosters say that will lead (eventually) to lower prices on goods, and this is hotly debated... but what that WILL lead to, is businesses being able to expand and hire, which means more people working, and more people contributing to the economy, rather than just leeching off of it.

Someone on EI might be complaining right now that things will cost them more out of pocket, but if means they're more likely to find gainful employment in the near future, is it really so bad for them? EI, welfare, etc. will run out eventually... unless there's a solid economy to support them.

I work for a small company (just the boss and his wife running the office, and two of us working for them)... they're stoked about this, both for how much it will reduce paperwork by not having to deal with two different taxes, and how much overall they've calculated it will save the company.

The movie explanation of a Nash Equilibrium is incorrect.

Hence the qualifier, "to an extent".

Not even. In fact, I will say it's completely wrong.

^You're an NDPer, aren't you? Good at pointing out mistakes but short on actual solutions?

As soon as they announced the HST, my greatest concern was that this would open up the possibility for the NDP to win an election. And based on all the people freaking out, it looks like that could happen. Hopefully by the time the election comes around, cooler heads will have prevailed. I think it's time for Gordon Campbell to step down as leader though, his non-popularity could screw the Liberals over.

Your ignorance as to what a Nash Equilibrium is is not a problem that requires a solution.

Thanks for the long informative post Amaru, learned quite a bit of things acutally :thumbsup: