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The B.C. government has again postponed plans to mail out flyers outlining the benefits of the harmonized sales tax, even though the flyers have already been printed.
Finance Minister Colin Hansen said furore over the tax seems to have subsided and the information has been posted on the Finance Ministry's website instead.
“The feedback we've had from the public and from many of the MLAs, many felt that it might even be in fact counterproductive at this stage,” said Hansen.
The minister originally planned to send out the flyer in April to counter what he called misinformation in former premier Bill Vander Zalm's petition campaign against the HST.
But regulations prevented the flyer from being mailed out during the petition drive and Hansen decided to wait until August to send it out. Now the mailing will be halted once again.
“I think the other factor we had to consider was that the two court cases with regard to the petition are going to be heard, starting in the middle of August, and that's about the time that the mailer would have been hitting mail,” he said.
Some of that material will be included in a different mailing as part of the annual pre-budget consultations, said Hansen.
Money wasted, says NDP
But NDP finance critic Bruce Ralston doesn't think that's a good use of taxpayers' money.
“Not only … is it wasteful of public money, it seems doubly wasteful to print them and then not mail them on some vague pretext that they might be used at some future date,” he said.
Ralston said he thinks the finance minister was afraid of further inflaming public opinion.
“I think this is just a part of the continuing litany about the HST where the B.C. Liberals — despite the opposition hammering away at them in the legislature over the past year, despite the public outcry, despite the 700,000 signatures — they just refuse to listen to the people of British Columbia,” he said.
The 12 per cent HST came into effect on July 1, replacing the federal GST and the provincial sales tax on almost all goods and services.
The government says the tax will be revenue neutral and more efficient, but critics say the increased tax on items that were exempt from the PST, such as restaurant food, will hurt consumers and small businesses, while cutting taxes for big business.
CBC News
