Every initiative has to propose an act to pass. This initiative has the HST Extinguishment Act that it proposes to be passed by the BC Legislature. The act is badly written and can not be done. Geoff Plant, former Liberal AG in BC, had an opinion piece in the Vancouver Sun a few weeks back about the constitutionality of the act proposed. His arguments are very valid and make perfect legal sense, problem is that it does not matter.
Over 700,000 people in BC have signed the petition. It is political suicide to not act on this and repeal the HST. If we were elsewhere in Canada, the government could soldier on till the next election and hope for the political winds to change, but here in BC November is pumpkin time. After November it becomes possible to recall MLAs. The people behind the anti-HST initiative have shown they can muster the people to get the signatures. If the government does not make some noises about moving forward with repealing the HST or letting the referendum happen, there will be numerous recalls in the fall.
The badly written act could have been a deliberate ploy because something had to be registered with Elections BC, the intent of the public is clear, the act is not. It is up to the legislature to propose how BC would deal with the end of the HST and the premier would have to request that the PM take action federally to get rid of the HST.
As much as it will suck and it is economically stupid, Campbell needs to go to the Feds and request that they repeal the HST. He could be saved by them because the process to repeal the federal act could take ages of time. It could take till sometime late in 2011 for the Feds to finally act and all of they depends on there be no election. An election would reset the bills in front of parliament back to the start.
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