Congratulations British Columbia voters! You stood up and said, ‘where’s our democratic process?,’ when you voted out the HST. You stood up and said, ‘we elected the government to do right by us, listening to and involving our wishes … not to inflict an unwanted extra tax on us in a backdoor, uninformed, surprise manner.’
We will now be told that this will cost billions to reverse or fix. Remember, … ‘we’ did not do this , …. our government did. This victory may come across as costly in a financial sense but remember, that would be because of the push from our government to implement it in the first place.
Had the government taken much more time and properly informed us on all the pro’s and cons of the HST when it would have served them and us better, it may have worked.
However, you may recall that after the general public started putting pressure on the Libs, they started doing ‘damage control’ stating that they had not informed us very well and, in fact, were performing that process poorly, (to say the least).
When a violation to the democratic process, such as this happens, it decreases the value and faith in democracy as a whole, making our elected officials, companies, corporations and so on, seem a little less honest, a little less integral, a little more greedy, a little too powerful, and much too self-serving.
We, the citizens though, will always be the ones that hold our cities, provinces and country together. We, the citizens, the voting public, are the backbone of our democratic society, ….. not the corporations, not the rich, not the elected officials, …. but rather, …. all of us. It starts with us. We have just proven that.
The true colours of our existing political party in power provincially became much more clear during this issue as it ran its course.
The people have spoken and now, when it’s time to vote again, the people know what to do.
I have just had my faith renewed by you, the people of this province. I am very proud to be a citizen in a province where the people are becoming more and more aware that ‘we’ do have a voice.
It is how democracy is supposed to work.
Please, continue to speak and be heard on every issue that is important to you, …. to us. We have a voice.
We are the employers of our governments.
There are certainly some things our government of the day has done well, one of which was/is the ad campaign that surfaced as part of selling B.C. during the recent Olympics in Vancouver.
I can honestly say that, in addition to the obvious, it’s this writer’s humble opinion, the results of the HST referendum today, have just resulted in one more reason why, British Columbia, is ‘the greatest place on earth.’
Rory White
Vernon
