The Stephen Harper Conservatives in Ottawa are just as much to blame for the harmonized sales tax as the Gordon Campbell Liberals in Victoria, federal New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton said Tuesday during a stop in Prince George.
Had the federal government not dangled $1.6 billion as an incentive to accept the proposal, the controversy would never have erupted in the first place, said Layton, because B.C. would never have agreed to harmonize its provincial sales tax with the federal goods and services tax.
"The H in HST stands for Harper and people need to understand that," Layton said while he and Lois Boone, who is seeking the NDP's candidacy for Prince George-Peace River, stood in front of the constituency office Jay Hill, the now-retired MLA for the riding.
He pointed to legislation passed in Dec. 2009, with support from the Liberals, that made the HST possible in B.C. and Ontario as the smoking gun.
"It was done just before Christmas, nobody was watching and it was rammed down the throats of the people of British Columbia and Ontario without them having been asked and that is what, I think, has people so upset," he said.
But Cariboo-Prince George Conservative MP Dick Harris said the Tories are obligated to provide the $1.6 billion after other provinces took advantage of old legislation passed in the 1990s by the Liberal government to receive a pay out for harmonizing.
Under the constitution, the federal government must treat all provinces equally, Harris noted, and therefore could not refuse to give B.C. and Ontario a transition fee when they agreed to sign on.
"It's not a bribe, it's an obligation that the feds have under the legislation and they can't not do it because under the constitution there would be a challenge that we'd be treating some provinces different from others," Harris said.
Should the HST go down in the coming referendum, Layton asserted the Conservatives have an obligation to help Victoria make up the ensuing budget shortfall.
"They're certainly going to have to work something out because they're the ones who rammed it down the throats of the people of British Columbia and so there's going to have to be some kind of accommodation, some kind of strategy worked out," Layton said.
But Harris said Victoria will have to forego the $1.6 billion. "It's as simple as that," he said, and noted Layton was among the MPs who voted against lowering what is now the federal side of the HST to five per cent from seven per cent.
Layton also called on Harper to immediately call a by-election in Prince George-Peace River, to match the province and eliminate the federal share of sales tax on home heating and to reinstate the tax credit program for home renovations.
Harris said Hill's constituency office continues to operate, noted there was a goods and services tax on home heating fuel prior to the HST, "so nothing has really changed," and contended the economy is recovering well without the tax credit.
