NDP leader Adrian Dix said Tuesday his party will use a grass-roots approach to battle the B.C. Liberals high-priced advertising campaign, which he says encourages a vote in favour of the harmonized sales tax.
The mail-in ballot, which will decide the fate of the HST, starts this month. People have until July 22 to get their ballots into Elections B.C.
Dix said they will simply be talking to people, knocking on doors, visiting shopping malls and places like Prince George's Farmers' Market, where he stopped in last weekend. "They're using public money to influence the campaign. We're going to make arguments - run a grassroots campaign," said Dix, referring to a $5-million information campaign by the Liberal government he calls clearly partisan.
Dix said he has already been canvassing in his own riding in Vancouver, and made a stop off in Kamloops Tuesday.
The entire NDP caucus is meant to become involved in the grass-roots effort, including northern B.C.'s three NDP MLAs, who hold ridings west of Prince George.
The Liberals have rolled out a $5-million advertising campaign that feature stickmen confused by the HST debate, with the public being encouraged to seek more information at the website hstinbc.ca. The campaign has been touted by the Liberals as providing information only, but Dix said some of the ads are clearly encouraging people to vote in favour of the HST.
For example, a stickman is shown growing frustrated by two piles of tax papers he must fill out under the old system, only to grow happy when a single, much smaller pile emerges under the HST.
CAN LIBERALS BE TRUSTED?
The HST, introduced by the Liberals last July, combines the seven per cent province sales tax (PST) and the five per cent good and services tax (GST).
The Liberals say the tax will be good for the economy, but Dix said he opposed the HST because it is a tax shift onto families from corporations.
He also said the Liberals can't be trusted to introduce promised HST reductions because they also claimed the new tax would be revenue neutral when it is not.
One of the Liberals' arguments for staying with the HST is the province will lose revenues, as much as $3 billion.
As part of the information available to the public, an eight-page HST referendum guide began arriving on peoples doorsteps. Although the guide was commissioned by the Liberals, Dix said he has less problems with the guide, which includes information from those opposed to the HST as well.
Nechako Lakes Liberal MLA John Rustad said he has no concrete plans to campaign for the HST, noting he has already held a number of information sessions in his riding in the past 18 months. Rustad's riding, west of Prince George, includes the communities of Fort St. James and Vanderhoof.
He stressed that he believes people are looking for information on the HST, not a political pitch.
Rustad said he is willing to provide information to anyone looking for it, but he did take a swipe at the NDP saying he doesn't understand how they can campaign against the HST, which, if it falls, will bring a $3-billion hit to the budget.
"I wonder if they would prefer to have that result because they actually want to see a budget problem so they can hit us over the head some more over budgets."
