VANCOUVER — The debate over British Columbia’s controversial harmonized sales tax landed in court Monday, with opponents of the tax offering an old-fashioned civics lesson as they asked the court to throw it out.
Former premier Bill Vander Zalm has been fighting a fierce campaign against the HST since it was announced last year, launching a province-wide petition against the tax and a court challenge, which is being heard this week.
His lawyer argued the province trampled on the public’s rights when it signed a deal with Ottawa to combine the federal and provincial sales tax, ratifying the agreement through a cabinet order rather than a vote in the legislature.
“The constitution demands that there shall be no taxation in British Columbia without representation and consent,” prominent constitutional lawyer Joe Arvay told Chief Justice Robert Bauman.
“The only way that representation and consent can be manifest is for the provincial executive to introduce the agreement in the legislative assembly for ratification following a meaningful debate.”
The provincial government announced plans to adopt the HST soon after the B.C. election campaign last spring, during which the governing Liberals said they were not contemplating a switch to the new tax regime.
The HST, which took effect July 1, combines the PST and GST into a single 12 per cent tax, and applies to many items that had been exempt from the PST.
Vander Zalm launched a petition and collected more than 700,000 signatures to either force the government to send the issue back to the legislature or hold a non-binding referendum.
But that petition is on hold because of a second, competing court challenge by a coalition of business groups in support of the HST. It argues the petition is invalid because the HST is now a federal tax that can’t be overturned by the province.
Arvay said the HST is the responsibility of both the province and the federal government, and each level needed to pass legislation before it could be imposed on taxpayers.
The federal government did that, but the only piece of legislation ever passed by the province was to repeal the PST, not to ratify the HST.
Arvay said Ottawa has made it clear it only took steps to implement the HST because the province decided to make the switch.
“If the province does not ratify this agreement, then the federal government would not enforce the HST in B.C. because it would be illegal to do so,” said Arvay.