One of saddest statements that Kootenay East MLA Bill Bennett made in his July 7 letter (“Other side of HST debate”, page 7) is, “The NDP are asking you to believe you will pay more sales tax with the HST. They are either bad at mathematics or care more about seeing a government policy fail than they care about the real people they claim to represent.” I am hoping this is just an uneducated statement as opposed to an outright lie.
I have a list of at least 75 things that we are now paying an extra seven per cent tax on, (maybe only five per cent extra in two years) — for example, this paper you’re reading, funeral services, leases and, the most prejudiced of all, adult clothing for children under the age of 15. Mr. Bennett says this will be easier on single moms; I am a single mom, and many of my friends are, and this is not true. It is a hardship.
On the other hand, if you are the CEO of some big company, making your millions, and have to pay a few extra bucks on a restaurant meal, this is an infinitesimally small part of your daily income. The beauty of the HST is that it shifts the tax from big business, onto the low- and middle-income people. If this keeps up, there will be no middle-income people in B.C.
Corporate taxes keep getting cut year after year. Why do they get tax cuts, and we do not — that’s a whole other letter — but I’m sure you can all think of your own reasons. If corporate taxes just would go up one per cent in our province, we would have the money to pay back our $1.6 billion we owe to the federal government, plus add some more to health care, those in poverty, education and all the other social programs.
Please vote yes to get rid of the HST.
Rhonda Barter
Creston