Oh… and Bill Vander Zalm isn’t a Scientologist.

By Tony Wilson

Maureen Dowd was writing a few weeks ago in the New York Times about the United States going through a “weird mass nervous breakdown, with the right spreading fear and disinformation that is amplified by the poisonous echo chamber that is the modern media environment.” The basis for this was a survey that 18 per cent of Americans believed President Barack Obama was a Muslim; an assertion fuelled by shock-jocks, “birthers” and others who don’t like him because he’s black. Dowd quoted “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds,” which is about why people believe horseshit shovelled by charlatans. “Men think in herds… they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.” And they’re far more likely to believe the “Wondrously False” than the “Wondrously True.”

The HST debate suffers from the same affliction; the madness of crowds. Many of the people who complain about the tax are the same ones who want 24-hour turnaround time for MRIs, well paid teachers and nurses, hospitals without waiting lists, more legal aid, homes for the homeless, and their roads paved. Oh…and Santa too, with nice presents. I hate to break it to them, but taxes are the price we pay for civilization, something people in California and Greece are painfully discovering.

The money to pay for teachers, hospitals and nurses has to come from somewhere, so if you’re going to tax me, tax me on my spending, not my income, and don’t scare business away, because it’s the private sector that generates tax revenue, not the public sector. And in fact, I’ve found the HST is actually attracting business to B.C. Our office (and other law firms in Vancouver) are already advising U.S. businesses who could have otherwise located in Alberta, but are coming to B.C. because they now get an input tax credit for the full 12 per cent and don’t have to swallow the 7 per cent PST anymore. (Note to Anti HST leaders; these are businesses that are hiring British Columbians, you goofballs.)

But to quote Yeats, “the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” Adopting some of the tactics of the shock-jock Tea Party nutbars in the U.S. (tactics such as “The Big Lie”), the Anti HST commandos have gone out of their way to misrepresent the tax in order to obtain some of their 700,000 signatures. David Robertson at Faskens, who specializes in Sales Tax and probably had the most to lose when the PST disappeared, supports the HST. He recently sent a letter to the Chief Electoral Officer outlining 21 false representations made by the Anti HST proponents on the website www.fightHST.com.

Yet some of the Anti-HST proponents won’t accept facts that are at odds with their beliefs. When Robertson joined the Facebook Group No_BC_HST to correct the disinformation on the page, he was dumped from the group after a week, and all his posts were deleted for “offensiveness.” I guess if you’re misrepresenting the HST to pensioners to scare them, facts that run contrary to yours are just “inconvenient truths” aren’t they? Move on to the next nursing home!

As for the “madness of crowds,” just because I think Bill Vander Zalm is a Scientologist doesn’t mean it’s true, does it? Yet just like Obama being labelled a Muslim, some idiots are bound to believe it, because they want to.

Here’s a fact though: the Zalm introduced the Property Purchase Tax when he was Premier and never reduced the PST. Nevertheless, he’ll probably have a cabinet position in the next NDP administration for all his hard work. He’s earned it.

How I long for the return of Faye Leung. You know, for old times’ sake.

Vancouver Franchise Lawyer Tony Wilson practices at Boughton Law Corporation in Vancouver, and has written for the Globe and Mail, Macleans Magazine and Canadian Lawyer. twilson@boughton.ca | www.boughton.ca/people/lawyers/tony_wilson

This article was published in the October 2010 issue of BarTalk. © 2010 The Canadian Bar Association. All rights reserved.