Video: Rafe Mair & Bill Vander Zalm on Campaign to Stop HST!

Canada, Politics, Western Canada, ,
Share

“I can’t believe this bunch. They’re not in touch with the public at all!” -Bill Vander Zalm

Rafe Mair interviews former Socred cabinet colleague and BC Premier Bill Vander Zalm for TheCanadian.org on the campaign to stop the HST. Watch this fascinating 10 min discussion including:

  • Why the HST is bad for British Columbians
  • The ins and outs of this historic push for a referendum to stop the HST…and what happens if Campbell ignores a successful initiative
  • BC conservatism run amok with Campbell Liberals…and why there will be a third party

As of May 12, just five weeks into the initiative’s 3 month window, the campaign of seven directors and 6,700 volunteers has collected over 400,000 signatures from around the province.

In sheer numbers this is already well past the minimum threshold to force a referendum, and just shy of the campaign’s own conservative goal of 450,000. But the signatures must be dispersed around the province’s electoral districts – with a minimum 10% of all registered voters in each of BC’s 85 provincial ridings. So far, the rural campaign has gone exceptionally well, while the key challenge remains urban centres. The deadline for signatures is July 5.

“This is an exercise in democracy that we can’t allow to fail.” – Bill Vander Zalm

Share

About Damien Gillis

Damien Gillis is a Vancouver-based documentary filmmaker with a focus on environmental and social justice issues - especially relating to water, energy, and saving Canada's wild salmon - working with many environmental organizations in BC and around the world. He is the co-founder, along with Rafe Mair, of The Common Sense Canadian, and a board member of both the BC Environmental Network and the Haig-Brown Institute.

2 thoughts on “Video: Rafe Mair & Bill Vander Zalm on Campaign to Stop HST!”

  1. The expansion of taxation by way of an HST by the two regimes holding power provincially and federally is atrocious. There is an agenda being fulfilled here. Clearly the machinery is moving to increase the extraction of money from the middle and lower income part of the populace for the benefit of redirecting that to the richer.

    People, you need to sign this petition, but further I suggest we be prepared for the next battle — initiate recall of government MLAs in November 2010. Money and power drives most of these people, so aim for where it hurts them. Some of them would resign before the process completes due to the drain of the fight and the embarrassment of a defeat.

    #1) everyone needs to sign the petition

    #2) prepare for the next battle – recall of gov’t MLAs

    This is a quasi-democracy folks, but lets collectively take a prolonged stand to make the message loud and clear.

  2. “BC conservatism run amok with Campbell Liberals”. It is not conservatism at fault here but simply arrogance, deceit and corruption. Symptoms of a failing democracy. A successful petition will give us hope for less arrogance, deceit and corruption in BC politics.

Comments are closed.