To clearly stand out a guest blogger entry, all such headlines will begin with [GB]

Last weekend, Ribiao Chen, Overseas Chinese Affairs Consul of the People’s Republic of China’s Consul-General, attended the celebration lunch for the Chinese Spring Festival and the inauguration of the second session of the Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations. The gentle-mannered Consul Chen delivered a speech which was taken to heart by everyone in the room. What he said made a deep impression on the majority of the audience.

About a hundred people attended the luncheon; they were all leaders of the Chinese community associations. There were four main points in Chen’s address:

1) Community events should start punctually. Programs should proceed on time. Invited dignitaries are busy people; organizers shouldn’t make their guests wait and hold up their time.

2) Those on the floor should respect those who are speaking on stage. They should not talk or make noises.

3) Organizers should respect participating politicians and treat them fairly. They should not selectively pay attention to or ignore invited dignitaries.

4) Community leaders should respect Canadian law and the rules of the society; leaders must step down when their term expires and let others succeed them.

These points might sound like basic common sense, but they were a wake-up call to some leaders in the community.

From what I have observed, some of the Chinese community leaders run their societies in ways that are close to being disrespectful and improper.

Vancouver Mount Pleasant MLA Jenny Kwan has recently sent a letter to the organizers of the Vancouver Spring Festival celebration parade and banquet, complaining that politicians were badly treated.

This is what happened. When Kwan and other parliamentarians tried to enter the VIP section of the Spring Festival parade, she was stopped by a volunteer because her name was not on the list. In fact, none of the names of the NDP MPs or MLAs, including the Official Opposition Leader, were on the list. Although Kwan was rejected, some unlisted dignitaries did enter the VIP section.

Kwan is the MLA representing Chinatown and she has contributed a lot to Chinatown and the Chinese community. When the NDP was in government, she worked hard to secure funding for infrastructural projects for Chinatown. Compared to some politicians who only showed up before the election, Kwan participated in the parade every year, come rain or shine.

That evening, Kwan, her leader Carole James and many NDP MLAs and MPs attended the banquet. Although Kwan and James were arranged to be seated at a table in the front row, other NDP MPs and MLAs were seated at a table at the back corner close to the washroom. Kwan discovered that people sitting beside her were friends of the performers. While she was puzzling as to why her NDP colleagues were positioned so far away, she realized that the master of ceremonies did not introduce the NDP leader, MPs and MLAs.

Witnessing the mistreatment of NDP parliamentarians, many of the dignitaries seated in the front also expressed discontent. Parliamentary secretary MP Alice Wong, representing the federal government to attend the event, questioned why the MC would read a greeting note from the federal Liberal Party leader whereas the BC Official Opposition Leader who was attending the show was not invited to speak, not to mention being introduced.

When Kash Heed, the Solicitor General who represents BC, spoke on stage, he first introduced the Opposition Leader and her fellow MLAs. Vancouver City Councilor George Chow went around to collect the business cards of the politicians not introduced and brought them to the MC on stage for them to be introduced. The staff member of SUCCESS who was responsible for registering politicians showed me her list of the dignitaries. She said the list was passed to the organizer and she did not know why the faux pas happened.

This is indeed a blunder and a discourtesy, but these kinds of things happen almost every year at the Spring Festival celebration banquet.

This writer recently communicated with leaders of the Victoria Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association and the experience was horrible.

Unlike previous years, the Spring Festival celebration parade and banquet in Vancouver and Victoria Chinatown were hosted on different weekends. As advisor to the New Democrat Opposition, I recommended that James and her Victoria MLA participate in the Victoria Chinese celebration. When I tried to reserve places for them, the process was not smooth. The CCBA lady responsible for reservation told me that they had already invited MLA Rob Fleming, so they had no more seats for James and MLA Lana Popham. I was surprised that with a banquet seating about 30 tables and one month ahead of the event, the organizer could not find two seats to accommodate some dignitaries. I asked whether they could just accommodate James, who is also the MLA representing Victoria Chinatown. The celebration would be a good occasion for her to greet and meet her constituents. The CCBA lady said, “Maybe next year. This is a private function and we have the right to choose whom to invite.”

Later, I asked the president of Canada’s Dart Coon Club to talk to the CCBA and he helped James reserve a seat in the banquet. On the day of the parade and banquet, I met and thanked the CCBA leader who helped secure a seat for the Opposition leader but I was told that James could not distribute the Chinese New Year red packets in the evening. The reason? Because the guest from the other political party did not observe the custom of distributing red packets, it would be unfair, so it seemed to CCBA, if they allowed us to distribute.

So all these strange arrangements were due to partisan politics. When the Liberal Ida Chong did not give out red packets, NDP political figures shouldn’t either. Forbidding people the handing out of red packets during the Lunar New Year is totally in violation of Chinese tradition and practice.

This writer would like to remind our respected leaders that Chinese community organization is not a private company, nor is it the campaign arm of a political party. That association is organizing the celebration in the name of the Chinese community, and politicians attend to celebrate and show their respect for the Chinese community. A social function in the name of Chinese Canadians must be carried out with equity and decorum. Otherwise, not only would the organizing association be brought into disrepute, the image of the entire Chinese community will suffer as a result.

This is, I believe, part of the message behind Consul Chen’s words from the heart.

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Disclaimer: Views expressed by guest bloggers are theirs and may not represent those of CIV.

By inviting guest bloggers to write here, I’d like to see us grow together with more diverse ideas and perspectives. If anyone believe the idea is cool, please don’t hesitate to submit your stuff to me. We use real names and identities here. Thank you.

To clearly stand out a guest blogger entry, all such headlines will begin with [GB].

The year is coming to an end; now is the time for a sober review. Today, if I say that the 2009 BC provincial election was won by deception, I think not many people would object to my conclusion. After all, whether it’s the HST, a deficit six times over the claimed amount, drastic cuts to health and education, cancellation of the funding to community and cultural organizations, instructions to delete email evidence in the BC Rail corruption trial during election, or BC being the second worst economy in Canada… any one of these issues, if revealed during the election, could well yield a completely different outcome.

At Vancouver-Fraserview, the riding for which I ran for election, the contrast before and after the election is similarly stark. Prior to the election, my rival Kash Heed was praised by columnists of the two local English dailies. Heed even complained to the English media accusing his election opponent of running a nasty campaign.

Kash Heed’s campaign strategy in Vancouver-Fraserview focused on two issues: his capacity of being police chief and the smear that “the NDP will bring in inheritance tax.” Heed had produced two campaign leaflets. The first piece was to promote himself by way of his photograph as police chief. His second leaflet was only distributed to the homes of residents in the last few days prior to the voting day. In it, it stated slanderously that the NDP would bring in an inheritance tax. The interesting thing is, in this English-Chinese bilingual leaflet, the English text did not attack “the NDP’s inheritance tax.” Likewise, Heed’s campaign office also issued a Chinese written media release to the Chinese media criticizing “the NDP’s inheritance tax.” Apparently, Heed’s office didn’t send this media release to the English media.

So why should Heed only criticize “the NDP’s inheritance tax” in the Chinese media and to the Chinese electorate and give up such an opportunity to raise the same issue on the English media and to English-speaking voters?

I would suggest that Heed’s act is a deliberate attempt to deceive the Chinese electorate and the Chinese media. He probably understood that the smear that “the NDP will bring in inheritance tax” wouldn’t carry any weight on the English media and such a dirty tactic might even backfire. It’s a fact that the NDP election platform had never mentioned any inheritance tax and the BC Liberals or Heed had not attacked “the NDP’s inheritance tax” on the English-language media.

I have good reasons to believe that the Liberals and Heed made up the threat that “the NDP will bring in inheritance tax” to deceive Chinese voters. Today, it’s no longer news that a political party would advocate some policy in order to get the Chinese vote, but applying a strategy to deceive Chinese voters is very rare.

Heed’s campaign focusing on his position as police chief has also raised some concerns; in fact, the Liberal candidate might even have broken the law. Heed was indeed the police chief of West Vancouver before he quit. The concerns here are not his title but his use of the official photograph as West Vancouver police chief and his uniform for campaign purposes.

According to Section 9 of the code of professional conduct under the Police Act, a police officer “commits the disciplinary default of corrupt practice” if he or she uses their authority or position, or equipment or facilities as a member of the force “for personal gain or purposes unrelated to the performance of his or her duties as a police officer.”

In addition, this official photograph belongs to the West Vancouver Police Department and the City of West Vancouver and Heed’s unauthorized use of the photograph smacks of the unlawful use of government property.

A more intriguing point is this: if people take a closer look at that photograph, they will discover that Heed’s insignia on his uniform had been air-brushed to make it unrecognizable. What it means is that Heed realized that it’s a problem using this police-uniform photograph. It also indicated that this was clearly a deliberate use and not a case of mere negligence.

Some people might think that Heed was former police chief so this is merely a technicality. Unless Heed could provide the City of West Vancouver’s authorization (but how could the city authorize the photo for election purposes?), the use of the official photo is an infringement of copyright. The more serious point of this matter is that Heed is not any ordinary citizen who might not know these kinds of legal offence. He was a senior, and now the most senior, police officer in BC responsible for upholding the law. What had happened to his predecessor, Solicitor General John van Dongen, was still fresh in people’s mind: Hagan was forced to resign after his speed driving offences had been revealed. Although ordinary citizens may commit a speed driving offence, it’s a completely different matter when the head of the police force was caught deliberately breaking the law. Van Dongen might not have needed to resign in disgrace if he had not been in that official capacity.

During the provincial election, Kash Heed adamantly denied he resigned his West Vancouver police chief job because of the two complaints against him. He said it’s very, very unfair to him because he had spent over 30 years in policing with the utmost integrity and he criticized those who used such “low tactics” to defame him.

Obviously, Heed didn’t apply his utmost integrity in his election campaign. I wonder if he practiced what he said as a police officer. Otherwise, the February 2009 issue of the Vancouver Police Newsletter wouldn’t publish such a comment as this: “A police group says Heed displayed ‘callous disregard’ for the well being of an officer. His actions were called ‘despicable.’”

After the election, we can see a rather different situation. The first complaint was against Heed’s disclosing information about a child-pornography investigation to a co-worker of the suspect. Not long after the election, the revelation of an email indicated that the complaint is not “completely, completely without substance.” The email was from a member of the West Vancouver police board and it indicated that Heed had allegedly disclosed such information to a co-worker of the suspect. Because of this email, the Vancouver Sun demanded that Heed step down as solicitor general to face an investigation. If he refused, the editorial went on, Premier Campbell should remove Heed. Michael Smyth, the provincial affairs critic of The Province, also wrote an article making the same demand. But both were ignored by Campbell and Heed. It’s unfortunate that the Liberals have shown quite different sets of standards before and after the election. (Van Dongen resigned for his speed driving prior to the election).

As regards the second police complaint against Heed, the two police who made the complaint have recently filed a case in court against the former West Van police chief. Although we cannot deduce that Heed has done any wrong simply because he is being sued, with individuals willing to spend their money to bring this matter to court, it suggests at least that this complaint is not “without substance” as claimed.

On the contrary, if these two complaints against Heed are not without substance, then it would make people wonder whether it had anything to do with Heed’s abrupt resignation as police chief. (According to BC’s law, if a police leaves his job, the complaint against the officer would be dismissed.)

I’ve seen extraordinary dirty tricks in action in Vancouver-Fraserview during the election and I would like to reveal some of them. There’re people who were willing to break the law (Election BC has ruled that the leaflets were illegal) and spend a lot of money to print over 100,000 English-Chinese bilingual leaflets to slander the NDP. These leaflets were planned to be distributed by the post office to the families of three Vancouver eastside ridings. The Chinese population in each of these three ridings is over 40%.

The NDP learned that there’re huge numbers of these leaflets at the post office ready to be distributed. The matter was reported to Election BC and that government body instructed the post office not to distribute it. Unfortunately, distribution was only stopped for Vancouver Kingsway and Kensington but was made to the families in Fraserview. When the media asked Heed about this matter, he said he had nothing to do with these illegal leaflets. But amazingly and coincidentally, these leaflets also criticized “the NDP’s inheritance tax.”

So who would spend a lot of money on printing over a hundred thousand leaflets and on postage and risk breaking the law to smear the NDP during the election?

The above was merely the prologue. On the eve of the voting day, my campaign office received several calls from Chinese voters telling us they’d received two Cantonese telephone broadcast calls to their home. The voters then asked us whether the NDP was going to bring in inheritance tax. When they realized that it was a dirty trick, they were furious.

After the election, we discovered that many of the Chinese electorate who said they were planning to vote for me got the two telephone broadcast calls. In addition, on election day, they received a mailed envelop with leaflets inside slandering the NDP (since the leaflets were put inside the envelops, the Post Office didn’t know the leaflets were illegal; therefore, there was no way of stopping them).

The effect was this: in the final week of the election, numerous Chinese voters living in Vancouver-Fraserview had received three sets of leaflets (including one from Kash Heed) and two telephone recordings with the slanderous untrue claim that “the NDP will bring in inheritance tax.”

I got a copy of the telephone broadcast from a voter’s answering machine and it was truly a sensational and well-manipulated campaign message. This is the translation of one of the anonymous telephone broadcasts:

“Happy Mother’s Day. I’m calling because I’m very worried about members of my family. The NDP will bring in inheritance tax. The reason why we work so hard is for our next generation but the NDP is taking away the money I’ve earned, so there is nothing left from me to my children. Please think very very carefully before you cast your vote on May 12, WE CANNOT LET THE NDP EXPLOIT US.”

The intriguing fact is that not only is this message very similar to the message in Heed’s second leaflet, we discovered that only Chinese families who indicated that they would vote for the NDP received these telephone broadcasts and the leaflets. My friends and volunteers had checked with non-Chinese voters as well as Chinese families who did not say they’re going to vote NDP. None of them received the calls and the election day mailed leaflets.

This is an extraordinary finding, because making the calls and mailing the leaflets are beyond the capacity of ordinary citizens. What was involved was not only money. The perpetrators also possessed very accurate voters’ information, which included their name, address, telephone, race and voting preference. As mighty as Election BC is, it would only have knowledge of the first three kinds of information. It took a lot of work to pick out Chinese voters with their last names. It took the candidate and his volunteers weeks of telephone calls and door knocking to find out the voting preference of their electorate.

Thus, only a very few number of people would have the capacity to pull the above dirty trick. Other than the campaign offices of the NDP and the BC Liberal Party (the Green Party didn’t have the resources to compile it), I would be interested to know who else could obtain such voter information, and I urge anyone who knows this matter to contact this writer.

I am certain that the honorable solicitor general, if asked about this matter, would deny he is connected with such dishonorable tricks.

The matters involved in the whole nasty affair go far beyond one election. They are about the acceptability of certain campaign tricks, the deliberate breaking of the law, and the targeting of Chinese voters for political deception.

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Disclaimer: Views expressed by guest bloggers are theirs and may not represent those of CIV.

By inviting guest bloggers to write here, I’d like to see us grow together with more diverse ideas and perspectives. If anyone believe the idea is cool, please don’t hesitate to submit your stuff to me. We use real names and identities here. Thank you.

To clearly stand out a guest blogger entry, all such headlines will begin with [GB].

Lately, friends in Toronto and Hong Kong contacted me, urging me to watch a Hong Kong TV show on Youtube. The evening talk show, hosted by former Vancouverite Albert Cheng, is a copycat of the Late Show with David Letterman. The talk show is recent. The host was debating with celebrity guest Joe Nieh (another Vancouverite) about me and the following was their exchanges:

Cheng: “When I was fired by Winnie Yu (operator of HK Commercial Radio), I heard that you’re one of the people who recommended [that he fill my chair]…”

Nieh: “Yes, I was among the group who made the recommendation.”

Cheng: “What, to go to Vancouver to recruit that fool Gabriel Yiu? He is an idiot.”

Nieh: “He is good, his style is like the current [show host] Wing Wong. I think he is good, he is candid. I think you’re good too.”

Cheng: “Both of them are bad. Let me tell you why Yiu is an idiot. Having me talk about him here is doing him a favor. The reason why the local English media there let him write articles was that they wanted him to do one thing. They wanted him to take the Chinese people to task. That is something you and I won’t do. You are not in your right mind admiring such a fellow!”

Nieh: “It depends on whether there are valid reasons for the criticism. If there are good reasons, I would do the same as he.”

Cheng: “You said you once lived in Vancouver, to lodge under another person’s roof (Chinese proverb, which means to survive relying on somebody else’s charity). The reason why Wenzhou people are so successful is their solidarity, and keeping the dirty linens within the family. Why did an English newspaper in Vancouver give him a column to write? It’s to make use of his Chinese identity to criticize the Chinese. How can you support such a guy?”

Nieh: “Your attitude is different from ours. Yours belongs to granny’s generation. We immigrated to Vancouver, we see ourselves as Canadians. When I sang the national anthem of Canada, I was deeply moved.”

Cheng: “Of course that’s not true.”

Nieh: “I sang it with my heart. I had finally chosen my country and nationality. I’m Chinese, it’s my racial background, that cannot be changed. I’m a Chinese Canadian… I’m Canadian.”

Nieh: “I admire Gabriel Yiu a lot.”

Cheng: “Wow, you admire his betraying the Chinese people?”

Nieh: “No, I admire his candour. If he sees himself as a Canadian who has been assimilated into the local society, he can be impartial. A Chinese person doesn’t necessarily have to support Chinese people.”

Cheng: “There are matters you don’t understand. You were in Vancouver for only a short while. You never fought for the interests of the Chinese when you lived there. The question is, why didn’t the paper appoint others to write but him? They have an agenda, do you understand? Let me explain it to you. Be smart, be smart, my boy.”

Nieh: “Even if they have an agenda, they still need to be reasonable. What you are saying is that, as a Chinese writing for an English-language newspaper, I cannot write anything about the Chinese if they did something wrong. Even if I have reason on my side, I shouldn’t write, I need to abstain?”

Cheng: “They ask you to write because they have an agenda.”

Nieh: “Even in today’s Hong Kong, every newspaper has its agenda. That doesn’t mean that you have to betray your conscience.”

Cheng: “There is a racial problem involved, you don’t understand. I don’t want to talk to you Canadian.”

Nieh: “Racial problems might mean more to you. When I live in Canada, I see myself as Canadian.”

Cheng: “That means you can foul-mouth the Chinese?”

Nieh: “If the Chinese did something wrong, then I would criticize them. if the Caucasians did something wrong then I would criticize the Caucasians. Does it mean that Caucasians shouldn’t criticize Caucasians? There’s a generation gap between us.”

Cheng: “Caucasians can criticize Caucasians, because they’re the mainstream.”

Nieh: “What happens when we assimilate into mainstream society, or feel that we’ve assimilated? “

Cheng: “That is just a feeling of yours.”

Nieh: “This feeling is good enough. My six years living in Canada was wonderful.”

Cheng: “Wonderful? Congratulations! So you should be up and gone, up and gone.”

Nieh: “That means I can go now?”

Cheng: “I asked you to return to Canada sooner. You’re such a good-for-nothing, spineless.

Nieh: “This is not the way to look at things. We live in a global village.”

My editor told me that nowadays a great many people here don’t know who Albert Cheng is, and I need to say something about his background. Albert Cheng, nicknamed Taipan Cheng, immigrated to Vancouver in the late 60s and returned to Hong Kong in 1983. He hosted the most popular and influential radio show called “Tempest in a Teacup” for the HK Commercial Radio between1995 to 2004. After he was fired, he surrendered his Canadian citizenship and ran for the Hong Kong Legislature. In his campaigns, he vowed to promote democracy, fight for the freedom of speech and work for the people.

First, I’m very grateful to Mr. Nieh for recommending me in the past. I’m especially grateful for his standing up to Cheng’s bullying ways, and defend me as well as state the values and faith of Chinese Canadians. Chinese Canadians are definitely not second-class citizens as Cheng believed them to be.

The quality of argumentation of Hong Kong’s “top broadcaster” is astoundingly low. A commentator should put forward a case with facts and reasons, not with harrowing personal attacks. Cheng’s rude slang betrays a lack of reasoning in his arguments, and it also shows the level of his culture.

When Cheng was fired by the Commercial Radio, he cried out about censorship and the loss of the freedom of expression. Now he slaps himself in the face saying that a Chinese should not express certain opinions on the English-language media.

Furthermore, what Cheng accused me of is untruthful. It’s indeed his style to attack people, taking words out of context, and twisting facts and people’s comments. When I wrote the column for the English-language newspaper, it was I who decided on the topic and content.

Cheng himself is a columnist for Hong Kong magazines and newspapers. When he said a columnist has to follow a paper’s agenda to criticize certain people, I don’t know whether he was stating the norm of Hong Kong’s print media or his own experiences. If he was, it’s pathetic. If Cheng were to make such a comment on a Vancouver media, accusing the English paper I wrote for of giving me a column with the purpose of criticizing the Chinese, I don’t think any responsible media here would carry such a reckless comment. If the comment were published, the English paper would take legal action over it because this is a very serious accusation. Doing what Cheng said it did would violate not only the media’s public trust, its reputation, and media ethics, but the law on racial non-discrimination. It would stir up racial conflict.

What makes Cheng’s accusation all the more absurd is that during my time of writing for the paper, between 1997 to 2001, Cheng did not live in Vancouver.

Here, let me list out the dozen or so columns I’d written for the paper between May to December 1999 (Several major news related to the Chinese occurred during that period):

May 1999. Three US cruise missiles hit China’s Embassy in Yugoslavia resulting in Chinese people killed and injured. The incident triggered protest rallies in front of the US Embassy in China. The foreign affairs columnist of this English paper wrote an article criticizing China for allowing angry young protesters to storm the embassy. This commentary drew huge responses from the Chinese media with community leaders rebutting and criticizing the columnist. I wrote two articles in response to that columnist and criticized him for confusing cause and effect. I also translated comments of the Chinese community leaders and had them published in the English paper.

In June, I wrote a review on the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen Incident, commenting on how the student movement had changed China, Eastern Europe and Canada. I urged the leaders of China to redress the wrong and promote democratic reform.

Later, I wrote a column slamming a Chinese RCMP who wrote a novel about how the CIA in the US had helped organize the 1989 student movement in China and supplied weapons to the students.

In August, I wrote about why a great many Chinese immigrants thought that the China boat people should be returned. On a separate column, I advocated the establishment of a Vancouver multicultural arts festival to promote cross-cultural exchanges and racial harmony through an appreciation of arts from different cultures.

In September, I analyzed why Chinese immigrants were dissatisfied with our education and stated the merits of Canadian education. The Chinese version of the same article was given wide coverage on the Hong Kong Ming Pao Daily.

After the massive earthquake hit Taiwan, I wrote two consecutive columns criticizing Canada for its refusal to dispatch its rescue team to Taiwan.

In December, the title of my three columns were “Japan has a responsibility to recognize its war atrocities”, “Hunger strike highlights need for refugee law reform” and “Getting out the vote” (My conclusion is that today’s Chinese do not cast their votes according to the race of the candidate).

I’ll let readers judge whether Cheng’s personal attacks on me have any merit.

Friends asked me why Cheng like attacking me (That’s right, this is not the first time, even though he lives in Hong Kong and I’m in Vancouver).

This is his character, his style and I have written a commentary about it, part of which as below:

“Although Albert Cheng, who was brought up in Vancouver, talks about promoting democracy as his mandate, the way he delivers his commentaries shows quite a different picture. His commentary style violates the fundamental values and practice of democracy, i.e. fairness, justice, impartiality, participation, communication and respect for different opinions.”

“In his radio show, he often refuses to give others who hold different opinions the opportunity to speak and respond. Cheng uses harsh and violent language to attack his opponents. He doesn’t cite reasons to justify his harsh treatment and verbal abuse of his targets. What Cheng has established is a type of hegemony and it’s the opposite of promoting democratic participation.” (The language he used in the above interview was pretty mild compared to what he used in his “Tempest” radio shows.)

“Cheng’s success is based on his strategy of siding with the majority. His capacity for commentary and debate is not strong; thus he has to rely on loud rebukes and sensational language to undermine his target. Although this style defies fairness, since he is often on the side of the masses, the fiery language and the letting off of steam are what matters. Whether it is fair or reasonable is of secondary importance to the populace.”

I made the above comments in 2004. That was a time when Cheng was being praised as a “people’s hero” in Hong Kong. Nevertheless, after he was elected to the Legislature, Cheng showed another face and the media gave him a new nickname “the insider of the Chief Executive” (the name implied that Cheng was the Chief Executive’s spy in the pro-democratic camp).

It’s truly incomprehensible to me that a person with such standards and ethics was trusted with establishing a new radio station in Hong Kong.

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Disclaimer: Views expressed by guest bloggers are theirs and may not represent those of CIV.

By inviting guest bloggers to write here, I’d like to see us grow together with more diverse ideas and perspectives. If anyone believe the idea is cool, please don’t hesitate to submit your stuff to me. We use real names and identities here. Thank you.

To clearly stand out a guest blogger entry, all such headlines will begin with [GB].

During the last provincial election, the BC Liberal Party stated in black and white that they would not bring in HST. Just as they did not honor their promise in the 2001 election that they would not sell BC Rail but sold the crown corporation to Campbell’s good friend, Campbell’s Liberal government have no sense of honor and now they betray British Columbians yet again.

According to a calculation by Fairchild TV’s “26 Minutes Magazine,” a Chinese family of five would have to pay an extra $2,688 in tax after the implementation of the HST. Accordingly many areas of our living expenses, like restaurant, soft drinks, coffee, housing (new house, property management fee, maintenance and repair), beauty and hairdo, sports and exercise, school supplies, newspapers and magazines, movie, theatre, concert, local travel, environment friendly-appliances… all would have added to them an extra 7% HST.

Whether it’s giving birth (baby shower party/banquet), getting sick (non-prescription drugs, vitamins, traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture), getting old (pension fund) or passing away (funeral service), through every stage of your life, you have to pay an extra 7% HST.

We work hard to raise our family. Taxes are regularly deducted from our pay cheques. Other than paying for all the living expenses, we also need to save for retirement. The most absurd point is that when we have saved and put our money into the pension fund, the Liberal government would tax us yet again with the HST!

According to the Investment Funds Institute of Canada, the HST is a tax on savings. It contradicts the goal of encouraging the public to save and it has a huge impact on people close to retirement. The IFIC calculated that a saving of $5,000 each year will lose close to $40,000 over a 35-year career due to the 5% GST plus 7%HST. This compounding of GST/HST each year adds up to eight years of savings.

Many citizens think that the HST is brought in to pay for the increasing health, education and social service expenses. Unless the finance minister lied to us, apparently this is not so. According to Colin Hansen, the HST is revenue neutral, meaning that government revenue would not be increased due to the harmonization. The $1.9 billion taken from consumers’ pockets each year will be given to corporations as tax cut.

Speaking as the owner of three small retail stores, I can tell you that the HST is bad for small business. First, all the supplies and products we purchase for re-sale purpose as well as courier service are exempted from paying PST. After the implementation of the HST, we have to pay the 7% extra sales tax on all supplies and services. It would take four to five months to receive rebate from the government, so cash flow is going to be more sluggish.

To a great many small businesses with small capital investment, we’re not paying much PST because supplies and services are exempted. It’s correct that we could claim the PST in purchase like computer or cash register machine but these are items that don’t need to be purchased on a regular basis. Nevertheless, to high-capital big corporations or resource businesses, the PST rebate would be quite beneficial. A University of Victoria economics professor pointed out that the HST could result in a tax saving of $140 million for the forestry industry annually while the oil and gas industry would get a tax cut of $80 million. Mining and other large corporations are also big winners. This is where the extra tax taken from consumers go; the government simply transfer it to big corporations.

Currently, merchants who collect PST for the government receive a commission as high as $2,376 per year, but it would be abolished after the sales tax harmonization. Worse, the extra 7% HST would have a negative impact on consumers. Small businesses would suffer a reduction of sales.

When the federal government brought in the GST in 1991, it was a blow to the restaurant industry, resulting in a 10% drop in business and a $50,000 average business loss per restaurant. As a result, numerous jobs and restaurants disappeared.

So why does Gordon Campbell want to bring in the HST? Why does he put shackles on consumers during these adverse economic times? Why does he want to increase the burden of British Columbians heavily? Do you really believe what the Liberals say, that the HST would create jobs, stimulate the economy and that this is the best the BC government could do for the economy?

The Liberal government has been giving away our public wealth to big businesses which also happened to be generous donors of the BC Liberal Party. The HST is simply yet another transfer of public wealth to big corporations. When the government has a surplus, the support to the big corporations comes from the treasury, but faced with a huge deficit, Campbell has to find a new way to support them.

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Disclaimer: Views expressed by guest bloggers are theirs and may not represent those of CIV.

By inviting guest bloggers to write here, I’d like to see us grow together with more diverse ideas and perspectives. If anyone believe the idea is cool, please don’t hesitate to submit your stuff to me. We use real names and identities here. Thank you.

To clearly stand out a guest blogger entry, all such headlines will begin with [GB].

The BC Liberals often claimed that economic development and management are their strengths but this bubble is bursting right in front of our eyes.

BC’s economic performance record was second last in Canada last year and the number of jobs we are losing also leads the rest of the country. Well, the Liberals might try to shed the blame on the financial tsunami but the question is, why do other provinces which also suffer from the global economic downturn do better than us?

The bigger question is, why is it that after spending $7 billion to host the Olympics with all the big tag constructions, our GDP was negative and trailed behind other provinces?

PriceWaterhouseCooper has recently released their report commissioned by the federal and provincial governments with the brief to find out the economic benefits brought about by hosting the Olympics. Boy, it’s quite a contrast to what the Liberal government was telling us. Before the election, Gordon Campbell said the Olympics’ economic benefit would be $10 billion. The finding of the PwC is that in the 6 years between 2003 and 2008, being host to the Olympics generated $680 million to $880 million of economic benefit. The report said the Olympic economic benefit is insignificant. It only added 0.1% to BC’s GDP, i.e. one-thousandth of our GDP! The report also found that the effect of job creation was an increase of a mere 0.1%.

So the huge economic benefits of the Olympics claimed by Premier Campbell and Finance Minister Hansen year after year are either all bluff or a colossal mismanagement of the economy of the Olympics. They have simply screwed up the once-in-a-life-time Olympic opportunity.

The Liberal government said the tourism industry would be greatly benefited by the Olympics before, during and after the games. It would attract a great many tourists and bring in $500 million of revenue. The conclusion of the PwC report is that the Winter Games gave no help to tourism. What the government boasted simply “did not materialize.” “The 2010 Winter Games have not had a measurable impact on tourism’s gross domestic product and share of the economy.” The report stated that during that period, the total number of international inbound travelers to Canada declined by 22%.

And what about the Liberal government’s claim that hosting the Olympics would promote our convention and exhibition business?

The PwC report states: “The number of attendees to conventions actually declined 40 per cent in the period… More facilities to host meetings, more upgrades to existing infrastructure, increased industry capacity…” have “no impacts.”

The government spent almost $900 million to expand the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre three times its old capacity, while our convention business is dropping.

And what about the claim that hosting the Olympics would help diversify BC’s economic development? Again, the report concluded that there is no impact.

The PwC report is yet another reflection on whether Gordon Campbell is trustworthy (especially when you compare what he and his government said before and after the election). It has also shown the Liberals’ capability in terms of management and economic development. The actual economic benefit is merely one-tenth of Mr. Campbell’s $10 billion claim. The $500 million tourism benefit ended up between $1 to $5 million; that is 0.2% to 1% of the Liberals’ original target. This kind of management capability is truly amazing. If Gordon Campbell and his team work in a private company, they will either get fired or the company goes bankrupt.

The more stunning part is this: the period of time that PwC looked into was a time when the global economy was rosy and the US economy red hot. Not only have the BC Liberals not made good use of the Olympics to diversify our economy or boost our tourism, but our tourism and convention businesses have gone downhill instead. Spending $7 billion to host the Olympics but our GDP still falling behind other provinces’ — what can it be if not bad management and lousy economic development?

While we are talking about tourism, Guangzhou is currently running the huge Guangdong Cultural and Tourism Festival. Although our sister province has eagerly invited BC to participate, the Liberal government has declined the great promotion opportunity. No wonder BC’s tourism has been struggling, and the Liberals are responsible.

If BC implements HST next year, our tourism industry will receive an even bigger hit. According to the latest report of the Council of Tourism Associations, the HST could mean the loss of 10,000 jobs and $540 million revenue.

BC’s tourism industry hasn’t been doing well since the Liberal got into power. The $500 million Olympic benefits promised by the Liberals have never materialized. Recently, several cruise ships have left Vancouver out from their ports of call. Next year, the HST would cost the tourism industry a reduction in revenue of half a billion. The government is truly reckless. Is this how it should treat this province’s fourth biggest industry?

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Disclaimer: Views expressed by guest bloggers are theirs and may not represent those of CIV.

By inviting guest bloggers to write here, I’d like to see us grow together with more diverse ideas and perspectives. If anyone believe the idea is cool, please don’t hesitate to submit your stuff to me. We use real names and identities here. Thank you.

To clearly stand out a guest blogger entry, all such headlines will begin with [GB].

A recent book against Asian immigrants published by the right-wing research organization, the Fraser Institute, has raised concerns among the general public, to such a point that federal Immigration minister Jason Kenney had to draw a line publicly to distance his government from the writer who was an MP of the Reform Party.

What the Chinese media is concerned about is that not only has the book denied the contribution of immigrants, but that the publisher of the book is the Fraser Institute. This research institute has a great influence on today’s Canada and on the B.C. government. Whether it’s the Conservative Party’s environmental policy or B.C.’s HST, there is a connection with the institute. The think tank also has a strong presence in the media, e.g. the editor responsible for the major English newspaper’s editorial and opinion pages used to work at the institute.

The Fraser Institute’s anti-immigration stand is nothing new, but the stand was not given a high profile in the past. What this book says, however, is that immigration does no good to our economic development: it is a burden to our society, and would increase government expenses and lead to a hike in taxes. The book also claims immigrants have lowered the living standard of Canada and have a negative effect on the sovereignty, culture and social structure of the country.

The timing of the publication of the book reflects the institute’s tactic to get maximum effect. The book is published at a time of worsening economic downturn, when people worry about job loss and taxpayers are concerned about government raising taxes. The purpose of the book is to attack Canada’s immigration policy and to defame immigrants.

Nevertheless, immigration is not the only target of the Fraser Institute. The right-wing think tank also hosted movie screenings and invited oversea speakers to challenge the consensus of the world’s top scientists that the human factor contributes to climate change.

The Fraser Institute’s action denying climate change and its stout defence of the oil industry’s interest are being criticized by local scholars and the independent media. It has been revealed that big oil companies have handed out millions of dollars to North American right-wing think tanks, which include the Fraser Institute.

Likewise, when the Campbell government was under immense pressure because of the HST, the Fraser Institute stood up, together with representatives of big corporations, to support the new tax.

If one examines the so-called “research” of the right-wing think tank, one will see that it’s all about the interests of big businesses.

I once read a Fraser Institute report comparing the health care systems of Canada and other countries. It was quite biased and figures were manipulated in order to produce the desired result. The Fraser Institute has long been advocating privatizing Canada’s health care and bringing in American big private medical corporations. Again, this is to serve the interests of big businesses.

Last year the Fraser Institute released a report attacking public auto insurance. On its press release, it said: “Independent study after independent study come to the same conclusion: public auto insurance is more expensive on average than competitive, private models, despite contrary claims by government auto insurers.” It sounds so authoritative, but is it true? Well, if one goes to the website of the Canadian Consumers’ Association (http://www.consumer.ca/1525), one will find that the independent organization has done many studies on this same topic, which include a very comprehensive study comparing over 7,000 auto insurance quotes from 40 cities in 10 provinces. The conclusion of all these studies is this: “Public auto insurance systems offer the lowest rates for consumers.”

The Fraser Institute’s so-called “study” not only found a contrary conclusion, it also totally neglected all the studies conducted by the Canadian Consumers’ Association.

So who is more trustworthy? Who is working for the interest of the public and who is serving big business. I will leave it to the readers to draw their own conclusion.

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Disclaimer: Views expressed by guest bloggers are theirs and may not represent those of CIV.

By inviting guest bloggers to write here, I’d like to see us grow together with more diverse ideas and perspectives. If anyone believe the idea is cool, please don’t hesitate to submit your stuff to me. We use real names and identities here. Thank you.

To clearly stand out a guest blogger entry, all such headlines will begin with [GB].

The recent visit of the Taiwanese academic and public intellectual, Professor Lung Ying-tai, created quite a splash in the immigrant communities from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Her two public lectures at UBC were delivered to a full house. The thousand or so seats in the Chan Centre were not only filled, late comers had to stand at the foyer to watch the video of her talk. The audience was touched by the sad stories of ordinary Chinese people in the year 1949 when the Communist took over China and the Nationalists fled to Taiwan.

Lung said her latest book, “Big River, Big Sea–Untold Stories of 1949″, was dedicated to the people who were trashed, abused and wounded during that time.

As I left the Chan Centre concert hall, I couldn’t stop thinking about 2009. Who would care for the little people being trashed and abused in our era?

1949 was the year of political, social and economic changes.

Although history has shown that communism has failed, in 2009 we have seen great chaos brought about by capitalism. The problem is getting worse and it’s global in scale.

In the past, “evil” was generated by hatred, religion, the differences in political systems and the struggle for power. Today, “evil” comes from greed and wealth.

When war is waged against a country, and innocent civilians become casualties and communities devastated, the ulterior motives behind it are the interests of the weapon and oil industries.

Earlier, the United Nations released a report on the living condition of our world. Over 1 billion people are starving. The problem of the gap between the rich and the poor no longer exists between countries, nor between developed and developing countries. The problem is getting worse everywhere, in every country, be it Canada, US, China or Hong Kong. The wealth of the rich is expanding, the burden of the middle class is increasing, while the number of those with low income is swelling and their living condition worsening.

Today, hard working people in North America may not earn enough to feed the family. Wages in China and India are cheap, so “low skill jobs” are being exported to these countries and abandoned at home. The frightening fact is, even high skilled jobs are also being exported (the most advanced computers and mobile phones are now manufactured in China) while the workers in local jobs that cannot be exported are being exploited. The workers on the phone who answer our technical enquiries on the latest high tech devices are technicians in India. Rather than buying from North American shipyards, the B.C. government had our ferries built in Germany.

Earlier, I watched an interview with a renowned Hong Kong social worker. He talked about the suffering of the working people. Some workers had dedicated over 30 years of their life to an industry that was being moved to China. At an age close to retirement, how could these people upgrade themselves and find a new job and a new way to live? Are these people responsible for their situation and their suffering? Do they deserve their miserable fate?

Under the banner of globalization, big businesses move their plants and jobs to developing countries in the name of maximizing efficiency and profitability. The model of lower wages and a disregard for environmental responsibilities has indeed given big corporations more profits and consumers cheaper merchandise. But the increased consumption, energy depletion and environmental pollution are not good for our planet at all.

When a society blindly follows globalization and the so-called “free economy” and “free market” and exports its industries and jobs to other countries, does that serve its national interest and confer benefit on its people in the long run? Or does it just serve the interests of international big businesses? When a country’s many industries and employments become hollow, what is there on the other side of the equation to balance the huge deficit of social and human resources? How many sad stories of ordinary people are there waiting to be told?

In today’s capitalistic world, honest hard working people have little future whereas cheaters, exploiters and speculators amass riches. The recent financial tsunami has shown that the entire Wall Street, with its banks, insurance, accounting and audits, risk and credit assessments and monitoring, is collectively responsible for the subprime mortgage fraud. The question remains: who pocketed the money and who is going to fill the hole?

In order to protect its own interest, the cigarette industry had an elaborate mechanism to bribe politicians, bureaucrats, scientists, media, think tanks and business organizations to deny and challenge the notion that cigarette are harmful to health. Today, there are 6 million deaths every year resulting from smoking cigarettes.

Although the evil of cigarettes is finally exposed, the tactics of the cigarette industry are now deployed by the oil industry in order to deny and challenge the notion of climate change, even when the world’s top scientists have concluded that climate change is man-made. But in order to protect its own interest and wealth generation, the oil industry does not stop from trying every means to deceive the world and to block the world effort to tackle climate change.

Whether it’s the private health care industry fighting to break into Canada, or its desperate and despicable efforts to stop public medicare in the US, behind their contradicting logic, lies and high-sounding slogans lies the motif of big money.

The mechanism of political donation, media manipulation, collaboration of think tanks and business organizations runs slickly in today’s world. The resulting scenario played out day after day is like this: earning big money requires paying little tax; market is monopolized with regulations removed; public resources are given away to private enterprises; business taipans collude with politicians; labour is exploited; the environment is polluted; hate is ignited to become war; benefits are transferred back and forth from government to business; and so on and so forth.

What I’m trying to say is this: it is clear that capitalism has many faults and weaknesses. There is a need today to re-examine it and reform it. To give one example, protectionism is widely seen as a bad thing. However, if North America does not have a tariff mechanism to protect its auto industry, there won’t be any Japanese auto plants in the US and Canada. Whether it was the former Japan or today’s China, their economic foundations are built not by free market or free economy, but by planned economy and protectionism. The point is not difficult to comprehend. The problem is that the public has been brained-washed by the corporate media and right-wing think tanks.

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Disclaimer: Views expressed by guest bloggers are theirs and may not represent those of CIV.

By inviting guest bloggers to write here, I’d like to see us grow together with more diverse ideas and perspectives. If anyone believe the idea is cool, please don’t hesitate to submit your stuff to me. We use real names and identities here. Thank you.

To clearly stand out a guest blogger entry, all such headlines will begin with [GB].

At the very beginning of BC’s Throne Speech, there appear these sentences: “As British Columbia endures its worst recession in 27 years, many are worried about their economic future. Families worry about their prospects. Government shares their concerns. It will dedicate its efforts to improving B.C. families’ prospects and economic circumstances.”

So how would Gordon Campbell help our economy and assist families? The answer is, HST!

I’m not making this up, nor have I twisted facts like the Liberals; this is precisely the message in Gordon Campbell’s Throne Speech.

During adverse economic times, government is supposed to find ways to encourage consumer spending and stimulate the economy. Nevertheless, the Campbell government is doing exactly the opposite. It raises sales tax dramatically and slaps it on consumers.

Accountant Francis Chen has calculated how much more a family of four would pay for the HST and the amount is staggering, over $1,500! This is the case for an average family. If you live in a bigger house, have to pay property management fee, subscribe to high definition cable TV channels, dine out frequently, receive guests, host celebration banquets, or if you include the long-term maintenance cost of your house, or need Traditional Chinese Medicine and acupuncture treatment, or count funeral service, the extra HST bill would be higher.

I’m not fear-mongering. Even if you use the government’s own figures to do the calculation, you will get similar results.

To this day, the Liberal government still insists that HST is revenue neutral, meaning that the province would not collect any extra sales tax from the harmonization. Yet businesses would get a tax benefit of $1.9 billion; this benefit would have to come from the extra amount of tax paid by consumers. If we divide this sum by 4.1 million British Columbians, it comes to an average of $463 extra sales tax per head, so a family of four would pay over $1,800.

If you’re senior aides or appointees of the Liberal government who get handsome pay raises, you might not care a whiff about HST. But how can ordinary families especially pensioners find the extra money to meet the tax burden?

Ordinary citizens have no alternative but to reduce their spending. Since hydro, gas, TV, telephone and internet are the basic necessities of today’s family, the spending cut would fall on dining out, clothing, beauty and hair care, travel, newspaper and magazine, etc. What would be affected are not only items that are exempted from PST right now, but even items that are currently subject to PST or would be exempted from HST like clothing, books, food or cakes.

Amongst various industries, restaurants would get the severest blow. It’s because dining out is often the second highest item of family expenses after housing. When people have less money in their pocket, they would dine out less, or reduce the amount spent. No wonder when the federal government implemented the 7% GST, the restaurant industry was hit hard and about 10,000 workers in B.C. lost their job.

The Liberal government kept stressing that the HST would reduce business cost, and the reduction would be passed onto to products and services, thus reducing the cost for consumers.

It’s clear that this kind of economic theory, or propaganda, is already bankrupt. The public has seen it too often: when big corporations are making record profits year after year, we see no price reduction or benefit to consumers.

To those big corporations which stood up for Campbell’s HST like the telecommunication companies, would they make a pledge to consumers that they would cut their rates after the implementation of HST on July 1?

Campbell will slap the HST on consumers during an economic downturn, slam hard industries like restaurant, tourism and real estate. His ulterior motive is the interest of the major Liberal supporters and political donors. When the provincial government is in financial chaos, it can no longer give away goodies like before (e.g. big cut tax for banks, provide huge subsidy for oil and gas industries, give carbon tax exemption, reduce cost for private liquor stores, remove worker safety measures, cancel government fine, give away land rights, or sell crown assets cheap), so this time the goodies would have to come from the pockets of consumers.

After all, the purpose of doing business is to make money. Generous donation “invested” on political party may also expect a profitable return.

With government exhausting all the excuses and revealing its true face, British Columbians can finally see the true color of the BC Liberals and their supporters (which include some business organizations, some media workers etc.). People can see clearly whether they’re speaking and acting for the benefit of B.C. and the public, or for the interest of big business.

If the B.C. government handed over the right to collect sales tax to the federal government, even if there is a change of government in the future, it would be very difficult to take back the right from the federal government. Like what I’ve said in my previous commentary, HST is not yet a done deal. If the general public stands up against it, by means of petition and rally in big number, even someone as arrogant as Gordon Campbell has to re-think, for the political future of his party. In the 1993 federal election, the ruling Conservative Party which brought in GST faced near annihilation with only 2 seats left.

To oppose the HST, people can sign the petition, join the No HST facebook group, express their opinion to Liberal MLA offices, or participate in the September 19 rally.

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Disclaimer: Views expressed by guest bloggers are theirs and may not represent those of CIV.

By inviting guest bloggers to write here, I’d like to see us grow together with more diverse ideas and perspectives. If anyone believe the idea is cool, please don’t hesitate to submit your stuff to me. We use real names and identities here. Thank you.

The HST is a done deal? I don’t think so.

Premier Campbell said harmonizing the federal GST and the provincial sales tax as HST is the best thing he could do for BC’s economy, and Finance Minister Collin Hansen said the public opposes the HST because they don’t understand it sufficiently.

It’s too much that our government leaders should say such things to insult the public’s intelligence.

Hansen has been actively showing up on media as well as meeting with the BC Restaurant and Foodservice Association and the Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations. What these show is that the Liberals are feeling the heat; otherwise, how can you get to meet the finance minister so easily? Normally, even if the minister is willing to see you, you have to wait for weeks.

The crucial question is this: would these organizations abandon or loosen their fight after they got the chance to meet and talk to the finance minister?

Hansen has stated very clearly that the Liberal government is going to implement the HST. He might look tough and decisive, but the final decision still depends on the public’s response. If the opposition to the new tax is too loud and too strong, and it would underline the foundation of support for BC Liberals, the harmonization plan could still be abandoned.

After the landslide victory in 2001, the Liberals captured all the 79 legislative seats except two. Under the one party regime, with the opposition in disarray, the Campbell government abruptly announced the privatization of the Coquilhalla Highway, selling this public tolled highway to private business. The plan triggered a huge community uproar and opposition. Even though the Liberal government tried hard to promote the “benefits” of the privatization, local residents knew too well that it’s just a government plot to raise a cash cow and they would have to pay more to use the highway.

Eventually, due to strong community opposition which shook the foundation of support for the Liberals in the interior, the Campbell government cancelled the privatization. That resulted in the defeat of the first Liberal privatization scheme and the government’s loss of $6 million.

In September 2008, in order to strengthen their votes in the interior, Campbell abolished the toll for the Coquilhalla Highway.

Likewise, Campbell’s sudden reversal and violation of his election promise regarding HST has indeed aroused a public uproar and it affects the entire province. So far, we’ve heard clearly that many long-time Liberal supporters, including the party’s business friends, are discontented and some of them felt betrayed.

So the crucial factor to topple the HST is whether British Columbians (who include traditional Liberal supporters and those who usually don’t pay attention to political affairs) would accept the words of the finance minister that the harmonization is a done deal and swallow it.

In the 90s, when the Atlantic provinces harmonized their sales tax, Newfoundland reduced their provincial sales tax by 4% point, while New Brunswick and Nova Scotia cut theirs by 3%. Today, the Ontario government plans to give a $1,000 rebate.

Here in BC, the Campbell government is neither harmonizing the federal and provincial sales taxes with a reduced tax rate, nor providing a rebate. They even dare to deny that it’s a tax grab.

We already got a carbon tax that would increase 50% annually. Now, we’re given the highest BC tax increase in history: according to the CD Howe Institute, the HST would grab $4 billion from BC residents in three years!

If we give free rein to the Liberal party and swallow this bitter pill, in addition to tolerating the way it openly retracts its promises made during an election and fools the electorate, then Gordon Campbell will do whatever he likes without regard to public opinion.

Is HST already a done deal? Well, it depends. Say a quarter million people petitioned against it. How about a great many BC Liberal Party members tear up their membership card and return it? Or people and businesses who have donated to the party send their ultimatum to the BC Liberals that they will never donate again. Do you think that the Liberal government would still stand firm on the HST?

In addition, if there is a federal election in fall, would the most hated HST not become an election issue in BC? In the last election, hitting the carbon tax was the Conservatives’ favorite sport in BC. Let’s see whether Ignatieff would hit back with the HST.

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Disclaimer: Views expressed by guest bloggers are theirs and may not represent those of CIV.

By inviting guest bloggers to write here, I’d like to see us grow together with more diverse ideas and perspectives. If anyone believe the idea is cool, please don’t hesitate to submit your stuff to me. We use real names and identities here. Thank you.

During the provincial election, the Liberal candidate for Vancouver-Fraserview, Kash Heed, sent a news release to the Chinese media (but not the English media), accusing the NDP, quite groundlessly, of wanting to impose an inheritance tax on the public if it got elected.

The following message appeared on Heed’s Chinese media release and his campaign leaflet: “In every corner of BC, the general public like you and me work hard everyday. We comply with the law, we dutifully pay tax and our hard work brings a warm and comfortable living to our family. In this way, you pay tax to the government and pay for other expenses. With some difficulty, you have managed to make a little saving, which you invest into your business so that when you pass away, your family could still rely on it …

This is the biggest problem with the NDP: they will keep increasing the cost of doing business, raise taxes and ruin our small businesses. This method won’t have a good outcome. In the middle of the current economic situation, their plan would result in disaster …

The NDP’s tax system will cause great hardship to our family and small businesses. Now they want to add an inheritance tax. It’s nothing less than taxing people to death. I will not let this happen.”(My translation)

First of all, the BC NDP has never advocated the collecting of an inheritance tax and it’s definitely not stated in the party’s platform. A candidate of the BC Liberal Party spreading this kind of lie to the Chinese media and the Chinese voters is indeed disgraceful. It’s also a deliberate attempt to deceive Chinese voters. Otherwise, why didn’t this Liberal candidate send this message to the English media as well? Or why did only the Chinese text in Heed’s campaign literature carry this message while the English message on the same leaflet carry a completely different message?

Now British Columbians finally realize which party is going to bring in huge tax increases. And which political party is going to ruin our small businesses. And which party is going to create chaos during these adverse economic times. And which party is literally going “to tax the dead in the coffin.”

The new provincial tax to be collected as HST would apply to a great variety of goods and services, other than funeral service. Health-related items like Traditional Chinese Medicine treatment, acupuncture, dental and chiropractic treatment, massage therapy, eye examination, vitamins and non-prescription drugs are all subject to a new 7% sales tax.

To people’s basic necessities like the food we consume (restaurant dining, food, non-alcoholic drinks) and the house we live in (electricity, gas, cable TV, internet, insurance, renovation and repair), there will be added a 7% provincial tax. In addition, on a $400,000 new house purchase, you need to pay an extra $8,000 in provincial tax (government rebate already deducted). If you purchase a house at $800,000, the government will collect an extra $36,000 in sales tax, plus 7% on the real estate agent’s commission.

Other items of our basic necessities subject to the new provincial tax include haircut, beauty services, exercise (fitness club membership fee, bicycle), newspapers, magazines, movie, theatre and concert tickets, local air ticket (whereas overseas air ticket is exempted, bringing about a disadvantage to local tourism), etc. Also, energy-efficient appliances that were exempted by the PST would be subject to the provincial sales tax again.

The Liberal government’s stated purpose to “harmonize” the federal and provincial sales tax is simply a tax grab.

BC’s economy is not as rosy as Gordon Campbell claimed. He declared earlier that even when hit by the financial tsunami, our province’s economy performed better than other provinces. The fact is, BC was already in recession last year. While the national average showed the nation as a whole was still experiencing economic growth, our province was in negative growth. BC’s economy was the second worst in Canada, only 0.1% better than Ontario.

During the election, the Liberal government deliberately over-estimated our economy as well as government revenue. Gordon Campbell stressed and promised British Columbians that BC’s deficit would not exceed $495 million. So after the election, “when the ugly bride has to meet the parents of the groom” (a Chinese proverb), the government has to face the reality, and we see cuts in government services and a drastic increase in taxation.

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Disclaimer: Views expressed by guest bloggers are theirs and may not represent those of CIV.

By inviting guest bloggers to write here, I’d like to see us grow together with more diverse ideas and perspectives. If anyone believe the idea is cool, please don’t hesitate to submit your stuff to me. We use real names and identities here. Thank you.