Politics in Plain English: HST

As the interview began I told Crawford that I was working on understanding HST. I told him I knew the negative implications but wondered where the upside was. The short answer: he laughed and asked "upside?" in a lightly sarcastic voice before letting me continue.

“I saw Gordon Campbell on television last night being interviewed by Bill O’Donovan from CFCJ," Crawford began. "Bill said ‘well you know tell be about HST’ and the first thing that came out of the premiere’s mouth was ‘this is the most important thing we can do to improve the British Columbian economy. It is more important than anything else the government can do.’”

Crawford said it was as if to say this is something that the government must move ahead with even though it is unpopular it will be the one crucial thing that can be done to improve the economy.

“Provincial campaigns are usually pretty short—four weeks—but that was probably enough time for the premier, minister of finance and all the other incumbent MLAs to at least actually speak about their plans for the economy.”

And yet the HST was never mentioned. It was clear last Spring during the election that people were hurting because of the economy and yet we didn’t har then about ‘the most important thing we can do to improve the economy,’ Crawford explained to me. In other words, he never said vote for us and we will bring in the HST, if it was so important why wasn’t it mentioned.

“Why didn’t he put his agenda on the table?”

“This has created a lot of cynicism about politics that people are taking a step back from it. They aren’t seeing politicians as honest, they aren’t seeing the entire process as transparent, and it has become something many people find distasteful. And the HST for me is just a really good example of that. Because when you raise that issue in discussion with people: ‘what do you think about HST?’ almost the first thing people say ‘they never told us they were going to do that.’”

Either they were lying by not mentioning it during the campaign or they just were too stupid to think it up then.

‘This is the most important thing we can do to improve the economy.’ This has become their message. Perhaps by continuously saying this line the people might get used to it and begin to believe it really will improve the economy, Crawford said a little sardonically.

BUT HOW!?!, I ask. How exactly will this improve the economy? My next stop will be Kevin Krueger. He must know how this important thing will save us all.