DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY
(HANSARD)
HOUSE BLUES
MONDAY, MAY 30, 2011
Afternoon Sitting
MOTION 11 — GOVERNMENT CHANGES
TO HARMONIZED SALES TAX
M. Sather: Well, my oh my. We’re witness to the ongoing saga, the ongoing debacle of the HST that this government has brought upon itself and brought upon, unfortunately, the citizens of British Columbia. We have a new Premier now that has had a number of things to say about the HST.
She’s been in a rush, it seems, to deal with the HST. She’s tried a few things. I’m not exactly sure why she’s in such a rush, but it seems to be tied in with the necessity that she feels to call an election soon. Now, I don’t know. Even her good friend Bill Good is saying: “You know what? Maybe you ought to try governing for a while” — you know, that arcane concept — “and we’ll see how we like you then or not.”
No, she’s bound and determined to have an election soon apparently, but she had that little HST problem to deal with. When she was running for the leadership, she said: “Well, what? That’s no problem. We’ll get rid of it. We’ll just get all those MLAs that are waiting for me to be crowned to go in the House and vote against it.”
Well, you know what? That didn’t go over so good. Some of those MLAs said: “Just wait a minute. You know, we actually have done that already, and we voted for it.” She kind of had to retract that one. That didn’t go over very well.
Then it was going to be a vote on the 24th of June, I think it was. That didn’t happen. Now it’s dragged out to a mail-in ballot and just a tremendous amount of toing and froing.
I’m sure the members opposite probably said to their esteemed new leader: “Look, just show us what the plan is. Show us that you….” They want to see a map, I’m sure, of what they’re in for, but I’m not sure that our erstwhile Premier actually has a map. I think they’re beginning to wonder as well.
Certainly, the Liberals see the train coming down the track, and they are doing anything they can which they think, they hope desperately, will somehow get them over this HST obstacle.
Well, there are more promises being thrown out. We’ve seen promises and broken promises and re-promises around the HST. This is another one. “Oh no, don’t worry, we’re going to reduce it in the future, next year.
“We’ll drop it a percent,” they say, “and then maybe later on, 2014, we’ll drop it another percent. Just trust us.
“Now, you know you can trust us around the HST. We have an immaculate record on that account, so never worry. We may be saying one thing, but it’s not that we’re going to do another. Just trust us.” That’s what they’re asking British Columbians to do, to trust them on a file where they absolutely have no credibility whatsoever.
As far as the corporate tax rate that they, in a Stalinistic fashion, are now raising, they say, 2 percent….. They’re telling business: “Don’t worry. Don’t worry. It’s only temporary, and as soon as we have a balanced budget” — which they still claim they’re going to do in the spring of 2013 — “don’t worry, we’ll get rid of it, and we’ll drop that small business tax and all those goodies.” That’s, of course, before the phantom second 1 percent is supposed to happen.
It is the most unbelievable math you can imagine. I think as we go through this once again twisted — and, hopefully, the last — process around resolving the HST, that British Columbians certainly are seeing through the government’s machinations.
We all know the famous, now infamous, statements that the Premier has made about buying people with their own money. I mean, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Thank you very much, Madam Premier. I’ve got to admit, she can be helpful at times when it comes to looking for quotes from the other side.
Then the government commissioned a report, the Dinning report, saying that the HST is going to cost the average family 350 extra dollars a year, notwithstanding a few big ticket items like a house and renovating a home — those kind of minor deals.
Of course, another study, Stats Canada–based, said it would be $520 a year — or it is that — that it’s costing the taxpayer. That one also didn’t take in housing and home-related investments.
If you look at what some of those costs are, an $800,000 home, which certainly isn’t unusual in the Lower Mainland, knocks you back 19,250 bucks in HST. A $700,000 home, it’s 12,250 bucks. You spread that kind of an expenditure over quite a few years, and you still get an average that gets jacked up quite a bit, I would suggest, above even the $520 figure. The member for Peace River North figures it is costing him between $600 and $800 a year, and he’s probably right. That’s probably around what it is.
The former Finance Minister, now the member for Vancouver-Quilchena, said: “Don’t you worry. Business is going to pass on their savings to the consumer.” Now, I haven’t heard too much about that claim lately, like some of the other ones. The revenue neutrality of the tax — that’s another one that went out the window. But if you just look at the big exporting industries — like oil and gas, like mining — they sell their product on the open market, the international market. It doesn’t make a whit of difference whether there’s HST in little old B.C. or not in terms of what they get for their product. So what incentive is there for them to reduce the cost of their product? None whatsoever, and they don’t. They don’t.
J. Les: The NDP really doesn’t get it.
M. Sather: The member opposite doesn’t get it. We realize you don’t get it, Member. The whole province realizes you don’t get it, and no matter how much you try to spin, no matter how much you try to weave on the HST, the facts of the matter are that it’s a scam. It really is, and it’s a shame.
Deputy Speaker: Member, may I remind you to address your remarks through the Chair, please.
M. Sather: Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I’ll do that.
It actually is a shame and, you know, rather than trying to manipulate again the people of British Columbia, you hear them saying: “Well, okay, we screwed up big time.” Yeah, okay, and there’s that $1.6 billion; they haven’t taken all of it yet. There’s another $500 million that they’re going to collect, I assume, on July 1 before they get to the referendum vote.
“But never mind all that,” they say. In fact, you hear the members opposite telling British Columbians this kind of chiding thing. “Well, you have to support the HST, because look at the ramifications. Look at the results if you don’t, like the $1.6 billion.”
Well, excuse me. That’s their fault that there’s $1.6 billion on the hook. It’s not the fault of the people of British Columbia, and it’s appalling to hear them stand up here and say that British Columbians now have to accept it — suck it up, as the member just said from Vancouver-Langara. We just should suck it up now.
I don’t think so. There’s no reason why the people of British Columbia have to suck it up when a government has been so disingenuous as this government has been around this issue and continues to be so. Over 700,000 people in this province signed a petition to get rid of the HST. You know, we haven’t seen a voice like that before in this province come forward and say how strongly they feel about it.
What effect does it have on the street? I was talking to somebody the other day. I don’t know if their figures are way out of whack. You look at contractors, for example. A friend of mine was telling me they had some landscaping done and they had to get a contractor in. So she was talking to the contractor about the HST and “How does that affect you?” He said: “Well, my problem is that I can’t find anybody that will pay the HST, even when I offer, even when I want them to pay the HST.”
He said “That’s hard for me, to find anybody that will do it.” Obviously he’s got tax forms to fill out next year. so he needs to show something for that. The fact of the matter is that it’s a total underground economy, which there is no accounting of. How much is the HST costing us that way? A lot. You know, the people that aren’t waiting now to see about the renovations, to see if the HST is gone so they can save a whole bunch, are all too many, unfortunately, not paying any HST. They’re going under the table.
You know, there’s the roughly revenue neutrality myth that we know, certainly, was not true. On it goes. Let’s talk a little bit, in the few minutes I have, on what is affected by the HST. A lot. Live theatre, movie tickets, amusement parks — these are costs that weren’t there before, which are now there with the HST — veterinary care; accounting; architecture; wedding planners; caterers; acupuncture and alternative medicine; yoga, dance, cooking and martial arts programs; haircuts; team sport fees; private facility or community centre rentals; ice rink rentals; taxis and commercial bus fares; car washes; auto towing; emergency roadside services; bicycles; school supplies; basic telephone and cable; magazines and newspapers; part of the cost of non-prescription drugs, vitamins and certain other health care products; appliances; new housing.
You know, sometimes we hear that if you buy a new house, it’s only if it costs more than $525,000. But that’s not the case. You’re still paying 2 percent up to $525,000 — a total of $10,500, a lot of money. A lot of money that doesn’t count because it’s one of those big-ticket items. So the hurt goes on and on.
They’re offering some reductions to some folks through this, which is a one-time-only reduction of $175 a year. But it’s going to cost you, by the way, before this is fully implemented — this phantom reduction in the HST, if it ever was introduced…. By the time it is fully introduced, you will have paid another $800 in HST, and that $175 a year is going to take you until after 2020 to even break even. That’s the kind of pig in a poke that this government is offering to the people of British Columbia and expecting them to swallow it.
I don’t think so, Madam Speaker. I think the people of British Columbia are too wise to do that, and I think we are going to see that in the vote to come.
I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the comments by the very nice gentleman — and he is a nice gentleman — the member for West Vancouver–Capilano, who referred…. I won’t even say what he referred to, but I just want to go over some of the economic record of this government.
This government has run up…. This supposed anti-deficit government has run up a deficit of $47.3 billion in this province, on top of which they have another $53 billion in so-called contractual obligations. It’s another word for debt that this government has run up. They’ve run up seven deficit budgets since they’ve been in, including the biggest deficit in the history of the province. They’ve been a have-not province six times, and the B.C. Progress Board report in 2009 found that B.C. was sixth out of ten provinces for business investment. They have the second-lowest rate of productivity growth in the country.
The member called it an oasis of financial rectitude. Madam Speaker, if that’s an oasis of financial rectitude, I would hate to see what the other side of the coin is because it would be a very scary thing indeed. I think what we’re looking at is a desperate attempt — you know, a hail Mary pass. “Let’s throw it one more time. Let’s go. What else can we do to convince British Columbians to believe us now? We’re going to do this; we’re going to do that. If you were to vote in favour of the HST, then we’re going to follow up on our promises” — of course, in like manner that they have done so far.
There’s a whole range of other things — maintenance costs for condos and rental properties going up due to the HST, even the parking tax in Vancouver. Restaurant sales in B.C. are trailing the rest of Canada since the HST was implemented, notwithstanding what the Finance Minister says about restaurants and how disparagingly he speaks of the restaurant association. “They’re lobbyists.” My goodness, this government lives on lobbyists. I can’t imagine them speaking ill of a lobbyist, but there you have it. There’s a lot of amazing things that have happened in the way that this government has presented themselves around this issue.
I think that the government should, you know, not just apologize for the first round of missteps, shall we politely put them, but they should apologize for the whole thing, including the way that they said they were going to equally fund the two sides of the referendum.
Instead, they’ve come out with $7 billion. All but 4 percent of it is roughly designated towards supporting the HST, their friendly HST website, the $700,000 that they wasted last fall with a flyer that got thrown in the trash. There should be apologies for all of that, not more manipulation.
With that, all I can say is that I definitely will be voting against this motion. It’s a sorry tale, but there you have it.
