| From: | "M. Kolar" <wddm(at)mkolar.org> |
|---|---|
| Date: | Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:23:40 -0800 |
| Subject: | Re: Little bit of direct democracy triumphed in British Columbia |
We had a landmark referendum in the province of British Columbia, Canada on a
change of the tax system.
(I will not go into much detail, you can find them on the Internet if
interested. In short, B.C. government introduced the so called Harmonized
Sales Tax, that replaced the old federal General Sales Tax and Provincial
Sales Tax. This change amounted to shifting part of the tax from corporations
to consumers.)
People did not like the way how the change was introduced - it was announced
shortly after the last provincial elections after the wining Liberal Party
was promising there will be no tax change.
Although B.C. has (as the only province of Canada) an Initiative and
Referendum and Recall Act, it sets very high threshold on the number of
signatures needed to hold a people-initiated referendum. In spite of these
obstacles, when people got really angry, they managed to overcome them. The
initiative to collect signatures to hold this referendum started two years
ago, the referendum was mail-in, the deadline to submit the ballots was
August 5, and the referendum results were announced yesterday. People won,
54% voted in favour of rejecting HST and returning to the old GST/PST. B.C.
government promised to implement the decision of the referendum.
It is the first time in the British Commonwealth that people had a direct say
in how they are taxed!
In the many commentaries about the results of this referendum, on could hear
also fear of direct democracy, and the comments that the Initiative Act is
apparently not restrictive enough, and the government may want to make it
even harder for a people's initiative to be successful and that it may want
to repel the Initiative Act altogether!
Mirek