During the short legislative session I raised the possibility that the HST Referendum would be interrupted by a mail strike and that a strike of any length may create the possibility of a legal challenge to the referendum outcome on the grounds that Elections BC could not guarantee that every British Columbian received a ballot in a timely manner and that all marked ballots were received by Elections BC in time to be counted.
After a few weeks of rotating strikes, Canada Post has now locked out the postal workers. It’s uncertain how long this lock out will last and, as such, how big the backlog of mail will be to sort through after it ends. This is particularly problematic for rural BC, where anti-HST sentiment is the strongest and the time needed to get ballots out and clear any backlog will be the longest.
Some people in our region don’t have their ballots yet. Others have mailed theirs only to have them become part of a growing backlog of mail.
When I raised this issue in the Legislature, I also proposed an amendment that would have given the government and the Chief Electoral Officer the right to cancel the mail-in ballot and revert back to a single day vote on September 24 if a mail strike added uncertainty to the mail-in process.
Unfortunately, I could not formally move my amendment because non-government MLAs cannot propose legislation which commits the Crown to spending money.
Nevertheless, the Minister responsible, Attorney General Barry Penner, could have put my amendment forward as a government initiative in the blink of an eye. Instead, he agreed that a mail strike may create an opportunity for a legal challenge against the referendum outcome but stated the government was willing to take that risk. His rationale: the constitution only guarantees people the right to vote in a general election, not in a referendum!
Minister Penner’s point being that if the referendum outcome was challenged the government would likely win any legal battle because voting in a referendum wasn’t a constitutionally guaranteed right.
As if the way HST was foisted on us wasn’t bad enough; the political posturing by both parties around the referendum and the future of the tax isn’t confusing and partisan enough; we now add a Canada Post lock out and a possible legal challenge to the referendum outcome into the mix.
Could BC’s HST debacle get any worse?