According to Tom Fletcher, the citizens’ recall movement is “the rough beast of recall” and a “venomous venture.”
Unfortunately Tom goes off-message as he zealously criticizes the recall leaders, Bill Vander Zalm and Chris Delaney. For this clashes with Ida Chong’s tactic – expressed in three brochures delivered to my home – that claims that recall is a secret NDP plan.
Tom ignores the democratic basis of the Ida Chong recall movement. Recall, for any purpose deemed worthy by the electorate of any riding, was approved in a 1991 referendum by 81 per cent of B.C. voters.
Tom echoes Ida’s line that getting rid of her won’t get rid of the HST. Recall would, however, provide an opportunity for the citizens of Oak Bay-Gordon Head to get rid of a Liberal cabinet minister who supported the HST immediately following a provincial election in which she promised not to introduce this unfair $2-billion annual tax shift from corporations onto individual taxpayers.
The recall movement is the people’s protest of a Liberal government that has deceitfully imposed the unfair HST at a time of fragile economic recovery. It is, as ex finance minister Carole Taylor stated, “the wrong tax at the wrong time.” It is, as she rightly said, both ideological and a loss of our province’s sovereignty over the provincial domain of the sales tax.
The recall movement is a cry for honest, accountable, and democratic government for the 21st century. Ida and the B.C. Liberals ignore this grassroots movement at their political peril.
Ron Faris
Saanich