From www.strategicthoughts.com

HST as Federal Election Issue

Will Harper's minority government be able to make thechanges necessary in order to implement the HST in Ontario and BC? ConservativeMPs are doing everything possible to place responsibility for thefederal-provincial deal on the HST solely on the provinces, but it will take anamendment to a federal statute in order to implement the HST.

The legal basis for the GST and HST is found in theExcise Tax Act<http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/ShowFullDoc/cs/E-15/20090920/en>.Part IX of that Act, beginning with section 122, spells out the goods andservices tax. It defines "participating province" as the provinceslisted in Schedule VIII of the Act, hence that schedule will have to be amendedin order for Ontario and British Columbia to implement the HST. That could bechallenging for a minority government.

Stopping the HST at the provincial level requires eithera change of heart by Gordon Campbell or at least 8 BC Liberal MLAs votingagainst the provincial enabling legislation that will be introduced early nextyear. Neither of those options are as likely as stopping the tax at the federallevel by simply getting the three opposition parties to announce that theywon't support the required amendment to the Excise Tax Act. Who would havethought that we could have a federal election on the issue of implementing theHST in Ontario and BC! It is unlikely that Harper's Conservatives want that tobe the next election issue, yet defeating his Excise Tax Amendment would be aconfidence vote that could trigger an election.

Of course the Harper government would survive aconfidence vote on implementation of the HST if Ignatieff and his Liberalcaucus vote with the government. That is what Ignatieff assured Ontario PremierDalton McGuinty<http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/699487>he would do. The federal Liberals appear to be saying one thing in BC andanother in Ontario. Sometime before the July 1st effective date they will haveto vote on the necessary amendment to the Excise Tax Act. Let them explain thatvote in BC where it will be both a federal and provincial election issue.Ignatieff's support for the HST will likely cost him some seats, possiblyincluding Ujjal Dosanjh who won by only 20 votes after a recount in 2008. Nowonder Dosanjh is running around BC trying to make it look like he opposes theHST, all the time knowing that Ignatieff will climb into bed with Harper tomake it happen.