Success of the Anti-HST Initiative

No one can doubt that the Anti-HST initiative will succeed in getting the numbers they need to succeed.   So what happens now politically?

The government has several options, none of them good.

They could allow the bill to come to a vote in the house and vote it down.  Political suicide.  If they do this, they will see numerous recall campaigns and will be defeated that way.

They could allow it to go to referendum.   A pointless exercise as it should be obvious what the result of this referendum would be.   I suspect this could be enough to keep the government in power as there is no case to have a recall campaign.   The one aspect of this is that the HST will be in place for sometime and people may come to see the benefit.  It will do little or nothing for the popularity of the government.

They could drop the HST - this is a serious political defeat for the government and may not be enough to allow for recovery in time for the 2013 election.  If I were the Premier, I would recall the legislature now and pass the act of the Anti-HST group.   This would be a horrible slap in the face of the premier and an economically stupid move, but the politics of the province make this the only option I can see that limits the damage.  Even if the damage is limited it will likely mean we have Carole James as premier in 2013.

Limiting damage now could stop the complete disintegration of the free enterprise forces and have a viable party ready to take government in 2017.

The success of the campaign has been impressive.   As of this time, the number of signatures in two Liberal held ridings is high enough to be almost reaching the recall threshold of 40%.   In 11 ridings the number of signatures is higher than the number of people that voted for the sitting MLA.

All in all, I can not see how the HST will be able to continue in BC.