Anti-HST recall rally set for B.C. legislature

Hundreds of people are expected to rally Saturday afternoon outside the B.C. legislature building as a prelude tothe firstrecall campaign over the HST.

The Liberal MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head, Ida Chong, has been named as the first target in what is planned to be a series of recall campaigns sparked by the harmonized sales tax.

When they get the green light next week,canvassers plan to take the anti-HST recall petition to every voter in the cabinet minister's riding, recall co-ordinator Colin Nielsen said.

"There are 129 voting areas within the constituency," Nielsen said. "We have them all mapped out We have canvasser kits made up for everyone of them and we have two fixed signing sites, which will be operating seven days a week."

Thousands of signatures needed

"I would call our group eclectic," he said. "We have seniors, 20-somethings, we have university students, we have small business owners and people ranging in age from their mid-20s to their 70s."

Nielsen, 64, a retiree who said hevoted for the B.C. Liberals in the last election, said his team is made up of 217 canvassers. The recall campaigners have 60 days to sign up a minimum of 40 per cent of the voters who were on the voters list in the last general election.

In Chong's riding, that amounts to 15,366 signatures.

However, they can't begin their task until the B.C.'s chief electoral officer gives them the go-ahead, which Neilsen said could come as early as Wednesday.

The18 planned recall campaigns across the province areseparate projects from the anti-HST petition initiative, which successfully gathered signatures in every riding in the province, prompting a referendum next September.

Both signature-gathering campaigns have been led by former premier Bill Vander Zalm, who said in June he was initiatingthe recall campaigns because, despitethe successful petition initiative,the provincial government has refused to withdraw the 12-per-cent harmonized sales taxand reinstate the provincial sales tax.