Anti-HST team launches constitutional challenge

Organizers of the Fight HST campaign in B.C. have launched a constitutional challenge of the new tax because it was never passed into law by the provincial legislature.

Former premier Bill Vander Zalm, Chris Delaney and Bill Tieleman made the announcement on the steps of the B.C. Supreme Court on Monday morning.

The B.C. government brought in the harmonized sales tax with an order-in-council and brought in legislation only to repeal the old provincial sales tax legislation, according to Vander Zalm.

'The only place that representation and consent of the people can be expressed is in the legislature.' Joe Arvay, lawyer

Well-known lawyer Joe Arvay, who will be representing the Fight HST challenge in court, saidthe government can't introducea new tax without the consent of the people.

"The only place that representation and consent of the people can be expressed is in the legislature," Arvay said. "This tax was imposed by executive fiat. It was not imposed by the legislature and that's the reason it's unconstitutional."

Over the past two months, Vander Zalm and his group collectedmore than700,000 signatures on a petition calling for the repeal of the 12 per cent HST.

Butlast week, a coalition of businesses applied to the B.C. Supreme Court for a judicial review of the petition, arguing that the effort to repeal the tax under provincial initiative vote legislation should be dismissed because the new tax was created by a federal law.

Vander Zalm said he was launching the new constitutional challenge as a counter-strike to what he called "their undemocratic attempt to kill the people's petition."

Initiative tangle

Under B.C.'sinitiative vote legislation, unique in Canada, ifthe petition is declared valid in court the government has two options it must exercise within four months. Itcaneither senda bill drafted by Vander Zalm to the legislature orit can hold a provincewide referendum.

Ifthegovernment holds a referendum and the initiative challenge gets the support of more than 50 per cent of all registered voters a challenging proposition the governmentwill have to send the bill to the legislature.

In either case,ananti-HST bill would be unlikely to pass in the legislature, given the 13-seatmajority held by Premier Gordon Campbell's Liberal government.

But Vander Zalm and his team say they will use the province's recall legislation to target legislature membersto get the government to change its stance on the HST, which took effect July 1.

Opponents say consumers will pay more under the tax because it applies to goods and services thathad beenexempt from provincial sales tax, including haircuts, funeral services and movie and theatre tickets.

The provincial government argues the HST will reduce costs to employers, savings that will be passed on to consumers, and help create an estimated 113,000 jobs.