Mayor Janice Perrino says she supports plans to modify the HST, but questions a proposal to change the name of the B.C. Liberals.
“Anything that can help to soften the blow of HST would be a good idea,” she said in an interview. She made the comment after B.C. Liberals had met in Penticton over the weekend for their biennial convention.
The gathering — which marked Clark’s formal introduction to the rank and file of the party after she had won a by-election in Vancouver’s Point Grey Riding — gave the party a chance to plot strategy and tactics leading up to a predicted fall election.
But before Clark can think about winning an electoral mandate, her party has to face voters during this summer’s referendum on the Harmonized Sales Tax.
Government officials including Clark herself have promised that the B.C. Liberals would ‘fix’ the HST before mail-in referendum ballots appear June 24.
Observers widely expect that Victoria will cut the HST by a percentage point, possibly as part of a larger package that would also exempt a basket of popular goods.
Perrino would welcome such a move. While she continues to support the tax itself in calling it a “good idea,” she notes that the size of the tax coupled with the timing of its introduction turned out to be “too high” and “poor.”
As for the proposal by former finance minister Colin Hansen to change the name of the B.C. Liberals — he did not offer a recommendation — Perrino called the idea “interesting” but expressed reservations about the cost such a move would generate.
She also questioned the apparent premise of the proposed name change, that being that voters might confuse the B.C. Liberals — a provincial party — with the federal Liberals, which of course, suffered their worst political defeat in their long history during this year’s federal election.
“It (the B.C. Liberals) is a very different party,” said Perrino.
While Perrino expressed some understanding of the reasons that might motivate a name change, it should only take place “for the right reasons and at the right time.”