What do I think of last week's vote to kill the harmonized sales tax? Well, it may make us feel good now, but will ultimately prove to be a job killer.
Anti-HST campaigner Chris Delaney called the vote a victory for "the little guy." And Finance Minister Kevin Falcon, the leading HST booster, dubbed it a "manageable bump," which is rather like being a little bit pregnant.
I believe both are wrong.
Doubling back to the confusing, ultra-bureaucratic provincial sales tax and goods and services tax will place a huge economic burden on B.C., one that'll hurt the little guy more than anybody else.
The vote and the interminable debate that preceded it showed British Columbians don't like to be lied to by politicians. But we also don't like to be told the truth, which is why politicians lie to us in the first place.
Indeed, you could say we're ornery, obsessive and heavily conflicted, especially about taxes.
We don't like the way Victoria seems to squander these taxes on public servants we tend to view as overpaid parasites. But we also insist on government providing all "essential" services, especially anything to do with our health or our kids' education.
We don't like labour unions, especially when they go on strike or, like the teachers' union, threaten to do so after a two-month vacation. But we also don't like snotty union-bashers trampling all over workers' rights.
We don't like businesses, especially large, highly profitable ones like banks and oil companies that provide thousands of good-paying jobs.
We don't like Canadian-based Enbridge's proposal to build a pipeline from the Alberta tarsands to Kitimat. And we especially don't like U.S. giant Kinder Morgan's plans to expand its oil line to Burnaby, increasing Burrard Inlet tanker traffic.
"No pipelines, no tankers, no tarsands," rails the Council of Canadians. To which we might add: "No mines, no roads, no bridges, no cellphone towers, no highrises, no monster homes . . ."
No is our default position. But we're a tangled mass of contradictions.
We didn't like B.C. Ferries when it was an all-at-sea public service, with locally built fast ferries taking the slow boat to oblivion. We like it even less now it's semi-privatized, with new German-built vessels and a brash American-born boss making a million bucks a year.
Yet, we don't mind one bit if some fourth-line Vancouver Canuck pockets the same amount.
We've never liked the Insurance Corp. of B.C., the government auto insurance monopoly. However, if it ever were replaced by competing private companies, we'd be equally unhappy.
Almost all our ire, though, over the past couple of years has been focused on the HST. And that's largely because it brings to mind grim Gordo and the other "B.C. Rail-betraying Fiberals."
Which is why we've sent it, him - and potentially them - packing.
The only problem is, we seem to have a very hard time indeed figuring out what it is we do like . . . and what we will not say no to.
Which is why, all too often, we cut off our nose to spite our face. The HST vote, in my view, is a classic case in point. ?
jferry@theprovince.com
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