The Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) was born of misinformation and deception, and the only way the B.C. Liberals and big business know how to keep it alive is through further misinformation and deception.
Families in 100 Mile and across British Columbia know the HST is bad for them, and no amount of slick advertisements will fool them into thinking the B.C. Liberal government's HST is a good deal.
But that isn't stopping them from wasting millions of dollars on a stickman propaganda campaign, and it isn't stopping their corporate friends from airing expensive ads riddled with false claims.
For example, one Smart Tax Alliance ad claims the HST has already been lowered to 10 per cent.
It's blatantly false and misleading.
The HST is currently 12 per cent, and there's no guarantee it will ever be any lower.
The B.C. Liberal government is asking you to trust it may lower it a point or two in a few years.
But families across the province know how much an HST promise from this B.C. Liberal government is worth - zero.
Remember the pre-election B.C. Liberal promise not to bring in the HST in the first place?
They also said the HST would create more than 100,000 jobs and lower prices, but that's also been proven false.
They said the HST would be revenue neutral, but it isn't. They said it would pay for health care, but that claim has been proven to be ridiculous.
The B.C. Liberals also said their expensive, publicly funded stickman ads would not be persuasive one way or the other, but the finance minister is finally acknowledging that it's a pro-HST campaign.
These ads are all part of a desperate attempt by government and their big business friends to save the HST and save a few B.C. Liberal seats in the next election.
Their misinformation, threats and vote-buys that accompany the ad campaigns are a thinly-veiled attempt to stack the deck ahead of the HST vote.
But it hasn't had much of an effect on public opinion. Small business owners and families know the HST is bad for them, and look forward to the opportunity to finally vote "yes" to extinguishing the HST in favour of returning to the PST with all the previous exemptions.
Families want to reverse the seven per cent increase to countless items, such as haircuts, renovations and restaurant meals that were all PST-exempt.
Premier Christy Clark promised, "The referendum will be conducted in the same manner as a provincial election," but sadly the misleading ads and uncontrolled campaign spending just prove the premier has broken another promise.
Provincial elections aren't conducted by a mail-in ballot, and they include controls on spending and have a certain level of accountability for spreading false information.
Adrian Dix and the New Democrats won't be airing slick ads on your dime, but we will continue our conversations with families across B.C., and businesses in every community, and listen to how the HST affects their lives.
We will continue to fight to eliminate the HST by speaking with voters about the true cost of the new tax to families and small businesses, and by campaigning for a “yes” vote to eliminate the HST in the upcoming referendum.
Bruce Ralston is the Surrey-Whalley MLA and New Democrat finance critic.