# Lorne Gunter: Will pathetic B.C. Liberals make a Canadian Tea Party?

Good, lord, you couldn’t script a dumber political game plan than the one currently embarked upon by British Columbia’s Liberal government. Seriously, if you ever want a map for the Road to Ruin, give the B.C. Libs a call. They’re in the Yellow Pages under Political Instincts — None.

First the Liberals decide to impose the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) on their province against great public opposition. Then they insist the new levy will not raise the amount of tax paid by the average family, even though anyone with half a brain can figure out that because the HST will tax more goods than the old provincial sales tax, the government’s assertion simply cannot be true.

This prompts nearly one-quarter of B.C. voters to sign a petition demanding a referendum on repealing the tax. Not only do 700,000 British Columbians sign (although election officials later reject 150,000 signatures as improperly collected), the threshold for forcing a province-wide plebiscite is met in each of B.C.’s 85 legislative districts. The response has few precedents in Canadian history.

Under this pressure, the B.C. Liberal government tries to save the tax (not to mention its own political skin) by proposing a 15% reduction in personal income tax to compensate for the increased sales tax consumers are paying. This was probably too little, too late, but it was also the first sensible move the Libs had made on the HST.

Then late on a Wednesday, just three weeks after having promising the cuts would take effect on Jan. 1, Premier Gordon Campbell reneged on them. Between his promise and this backtracking, Campbell had resigned rather than facing continued public anger and mounting criticism from within his own party. So he went back on his word regarding what some economists have estimated would have been the second-biggest tax cut in B.C. history. Rather than saving $616 on their income taxes next year, the average B.C. family will continue to pay both full income tax and the new, hated HST.

Campbell told reporters, “I felt it was important when I decided to step aside as leader that there be an unfettered opportunity for the new potential leaders to move ahead and make their own decisions about what they wanted to do.” He added he didn’t “think it was right” for him to “lock in” the next Liberal boss to his decision.

Alright, Mr. Campbell, but you don’t seem to mind locking the next boss into a political ship plunging to the bottom of an electoral lake. You don’t see any harm in so damaging your party brand that whoever takes your place can never be elected premier because of your hated policies and the tax cuts you dangled in front of desperate voters, then cruelly snatched back at the last minute.

I cannot recall more clueless wandering from one bad decision to another — ever — in all the years I have covered Canadian politics.

Since the U.S. midterm elections on Nov. 2, I have been asked repeatedly by talk show hosts and news anchors whether I think a Tea Party movement — like the one that had such an impact on the American vote — would ever be possible in Canada.

I have said no each time. We don’t have a culture of protest as they do in the States. We don’t have a history of revolution. Nor do we have a collective memory — real or imagined — of some golden age when government was small and kept its hands out of our pockets. We have been a big-government country since at least Mackenzie King’s day. And for around 50 years we have had socialized medicine, guaranteed income for seniors and universal social programs.

In what other country, for instance, would it make sense to anyone that farmers give their wheat crops to the government because a higher price will be fetched through the magic of bureaucracy than through the efforts of private grain brokers?

Tea Party activists are NOKD — not our kind, dear.

But if this country is to have a Tea Party of its own, it will come from B.C. If any taxpayers in the country have cause to start tossing overtaxed goods into the harbour, it’s British Columbians.

Still, if West Coasters don’t start an anti-tax revolt, then we’ll have proof that Canadians just aren’t the revolting kind.