Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. If British Columbians vote to extinguish the HST it will increase the provincial debt by an additional two billion dollars, $1.6 billion we will owe back to Ottawa, $.4 billion to reinstate the PST and GST, plus cost of getting a new building to house and rehire the 300 staff that was let go. This process will take at least two years.
As the provincial government cannot just print more money, they will have choices — raise taxes to cover deficit, run a large deficit and pay interest on debt, cut or not expand government services (health care, hospitals, education and teachers) or leave a mess for the next government. Public sector workers will be looking at a diminished budget in the coming years and even more cut backs and than now.
I look for the government to increase taxes (carbon tax, income tax, gas tax) to cover the cost of debt and cost of programs already in place.
The government will not be defeated by the HST referendum vote. The only people hurt will be ourselves, as tax payers.
S. Gordon Sciotti
