HeadsTheyWin
TailsWeLoseVille
So.
According to J. Fowlie in the VSun, the consortium of business groups that have directly benefitted from the tax shift that is the HST and who have, to the best of my knowledge, not passed along any significant aspect of their savings to the citizenry that is now paying those taxes, have decided to ‘identify’ members of that very same citizenry who wish to continue paying their taxes for them.
Or some such crazy thing:
“….The Smart Tax Alliance is a collection of 43 B.C. business and industry groups brought together for the sole purpose of supporting the HST, and encouraging people to vote “no” in the referendum.
The group is the official proponent for the No side, and therefore has received $250,000 in public funds to mount its campaign.It has also said it is doing fundraising to support its efforts, but has not disclosed how much it has taken in so far.
The group has created numerous videos, has produced hundreds of lawn signs and has embarked on a telephone campaign to help identify those inclined to vote in favour of the HST….”
But here’s the thing….
One of our longtime readers, Jonku, was called by the fine folks from the ‘Campaign Support’ division of the business consortium the other day.
And according to Jonku, who is a pretty sharp guy, he figured he was being push-polled:
They called me yesterday with a poll, “Will you vote Yes to go from HST back to PST?”First I asked who was calling … Campaign Support, working for the Smart Tax Alliance. I inquired further and was told the STA supports the HST.I said I would vote yes. Then the poller asked if I knew that the government was rolling back 2%, every family would gain $150,and so on. I said I did know, they hung up.But it wasn’t hard to pick up the poller’s bias, since the anti-HST forces aren’t push-polling, at least as far as I know.
Has anyone else had a similar experience?
Specifically, are these people stating that they are conducting a poll when they call and then asking leading questions designed to garner support for the tax shift?
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