-- Download Nova Scotia NDP Increases the HST by 2% as PDF --

Today, as BC’s formal initiative campaign against the regressive HST begins, the Nova Scotia NDP government’s budget includes a plan to increase their HST by 2% back to the original 15% to pull in $214 million more revenue this year.

This will look bad for the BC NDP unless they become more direct in their opposition to the HST.

While the BC NDP correctly states that it cannot eliminate the HST immediately if they win the May 2013 election because the contract with the federal government extends to 2015, they need to firmly promise that they will get rid of the tax, not wait and see what kind of revenue situation they are in.

Why?

In BC’s March 2 budget, the finance minister admitted the HST will bring in $113 million less in revenues than the HST while Vaughn Palmer estimated the amount to be more like $370 million less.

The HST’s regressive tax shift benefits large corporations at the expense of low and middle income earners. Because of this, and the net revenue decline, the BC NDP needs to immediately insist they will eliminate the HST if they win in 2013 so they do not get painted in the same camp as the suddenly not so progressive Nova Scotia NDP.

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Stephen Elliott-Buckley

Post-partisan eco-socialist. at Politics, Re-Spun

Stephen Elliott-Buckley is a husband, father, professor, speaker, consultant, former suburban Vancouver high school English and Social Studies teacher who changed careers because the BC Liberal Party has been working hard to ruin public education. He has various English and Political Science degrees and has been writing political, social and economic editorials since November 2002. Stephen is in Twitter, Miro and iTunes, and the email thing, and at his website, dgiVista.org.

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