BC Business
With B.C.'s controversial HST, are the wins worth the losses? The HST seems to have given British Columbians a big injection of angry. But you know, I've got to say I'm altogether unmoved. Maybe it's the end-of-summer lethargy at work here, but my reaction to the new taxation system is a resounding "OK."
The HST seems to have given British Columbians a big injection of angry. But you know, I’ve got to say I’m altogether unmoved. Maybe it’s the end-of-summer lethargy at work here, but my reaction to the new taxation system is a resounding “OK.”
Don’t get me wrong. This is a serious public policy issue and deserves attention. But I take it as a given that the tax system, like any other complex and important social mechanism, evolves; it undergoes adjustment, change. And any time you change something this important, there will be winners and losers. So the question we face with things such as HST is, Are the wins worth the losses? And my judgement so far? Well, sort of.
I picked up the following critique from the Progressive Economic Forum, a blog more likely than most to pillory the B.C. Liberals. Economist Marc Lee writes, “In principle a harmonized tax is indeed a good idea. It streamlines the administration of the tax, and moving to a value-added tax is more efficient than a straight sales tax.” He then poses the following: “Will the HST create jobs, long-term growth, make us more competitive, enhance productivity and increase investment? I doubt it. There may be some benefits from the new approach but they will be very small in magnitude.”
You see? Meh.
But it’s funny how everyone gets mad at whatever’s the latest thing, although I guess that’s understandable. As mentioned, there are always losers in any change, and I suppose they have a right to be indignant. For myself, however, when the HST is stacked against other truths about our province, it pales.
From 1999 to 2006, B.C. has had the highest percentage of people living in the low-income bracket of all the provinces. Every year. In this timeframe the GDP grew about 50 per cent, from $121 billion to $180 billion. In that time, the unemployment rate went from more than seven per cent to less than five. After all that, we’re still dead last in Canada when it comes to poverty. And the Liberals stick fanatically to their stance that more jobs will fix everything, refusing to adopt a broad-reaching anti-poverty strategy (as called for by these people).
See, that makes me angry. In fact, it’s worse than that, it makes me ashamed of my province. But the issue of poverty is not particularly new, is it? We’ve lived with it for years. And rather than that making it a more important issue in the eyes of the public, it seems to makes it less so. This, obviously, doesn’t make sense. But I guess angry people often don’t.