Why Won’t The Dean Go To The Heart Of The HST Referendum Matter?

In his latest VSun piece, Vaughn Palmer explains that by pulling the plug on the HST ‘initiative’, which would have required 50% + 1 of all ELIGIBLE voters in all of British Columbia to carry the day, and instead going with the referendum option, which requires only 50% +1 of all those RESPONDING to pass, the re-born BC Liberal government actually made it easier for British Columbians to extinguish the shift of corporate taxes onto to their own backs.

Mr. Palmer then goes on to rationally and coolly explain how the re-birthed Campbell-Clark government will keep on keepin’ on to move forward seamlessly if they do lose the referendum such that they can put this ‘policy’ debacle behind them with as little damage as possible.

But, unfortunately, the thing that Mr. Palmer refuses to ask himself or, it would appear, his ‘sources’ is….

Why?

As in, why, exactly did they do it?

Go with the referendum shuffle, I mean.

Here’s as close as Mr. Palmer gets:

Now.

Let’s parse that for a moment, shall we.

Could the difference in timing have been the reason why the re-born Campbell-Clark braintrust chose the referendum option when they had already, under their now un-dead previous leader, announced they were going ahead with the ‘initiative’?

Hmmmm…..

Could a few weeks difference in terms of the timing really have been the reason?

Well, maybe – After all, the summer is much preferable than the fall if you want to keep bad previews from ruining the new programming…..errrrrr….snap election.

But, here’s what I think is the real thing that the re-born Campbell-Clark government decided they had to avoid at all costs……

The one-day, live-poll, all-in aspect of the ‘initiative’.

Why?

Well, compare all you didn’t see yesterday as the mail-in referendum slowly wound down to what you would have seen, read and heard, over-and-over again if we had had a one-day, all-in and all-done no-holds-barred vote on Sept 24th.

I mean, can you imagine the political damage that would have been done if, say, Ms. Clark, who couldn’t have hidden herself away by offering up the ‘Sorry, but I’m on Holidays’ excuse in mid-September, had been forced, in front of the cameras, to explain why she was now attempting to buy people’s votes with their own money when, just a few months she been babbling on and on and on about how she would never, ever do such a thing?

So.

Given all that, why won’t Mr. Palmer come right out and ask his sources inside the offices of Mr. Falcon, Ms. Clark, Mr. Marissen, Mr. (I’m on board!) Day and/or Mr. Kinsella why they are trying so hard to avoid the public’s wrath that is aimed at this very politically-charged policy debacle?

I don’t know the answer for sure.

But I do know one thing, which is the following:

By not asking this question Mr. Palmer, and the other proMedia pundits who follow his lead, are actually helping the Campbell-Clark braintrust avoid it.

The public’s wrath I mean.

OK?