Recall campaign all fun and games
The recall campaign is being compared to the TV reality show Survivor. It’s more like rock, paper, scissors, played by children.
Fight HST is threatening to vote Liberal MLAs “off the island.” Kamloops-North Thompson isn’t an island, exactly, but Terry Lake is telling Fight HST to “stuff it.”
Such is the current state of our democracy. Ordinary people with brains that think logically gave up some time ago trying to figure out what Fight HST is really trying to do with recall. The group has changed its strategy so many times I’m starting to lose track, but here are a few highlights:
Last May, local anti-HST organizer Chad Moats declared that if the “bill portion” of the petition was not passed by Oct. 31 of this year, a recall on Terry Lake would go ahead. He said either the government must pass the bill scrapping the HST or put it to a referendum.
In June, petition organizer Bill Vander Zalm announced a “hit list” of 24 Liberal MLAs who would be targeted for recall if the HST was not withdrawn. Both Lake and Kevin Krueger were on it.
In August, after the successful petition was stalled in the Elections B.C. office, Vander Zalm declared there would be “total recall” of the entire B.C. Liberal caucus. Moats said he would gear up to recall both Lake and Krueger.
After Lake’s committee ignored Fight HST’s demand to refer the issue to a debate in the legislature, the group demanded that the government hold the referendum early or recall would proceed.
This week, it’s no longer all 48 Liberal members, nor even 24 Liberal members, but a “competition” among 18 ridings to create a new hit list. Lake is among them; Krueger is not.
Gone is outright reference to ditching the HST; all demands now relate strictly to the referendum.
Lake, who, at times, has sounded almost conciliatory to the anti-HSTers, is anything but these days. “I think (Fight HST organizer Chris) Delaney is a bully, quite frankly,” he’s quoted as saying. “He’s not going to be satisfied until he gets his way like a petulant child, and as far as I’m concern, he can get stuffed.”
And your mother wears army boots, and my dad can beat your dad.
As she leads the New Democrats in support of Vander Zalm’s Survivor Game, Carole James says, “It’s time for the premier to stop playing games.”
Right, and we’ll all stop playing politics while we’re at it.
Of course, there’s a caveat to the latest iteration of the Fight HST Game. All the Liberals have to do now is obey an expanded ultimatum and — says Fight HST — recall will go away.
One, the referendum must be decided by a simple majority. Premier Campbell has already said that will be the case.
Two, it must be binding on the government. Campbell says it will be, but he doesn’t want to put it in writing.
Three, it must be held under the “legally binding” Referendum Act. No problem there.
Four, the question must be drafted by Elections B.C. and be approved by both the government and Fight HST. Campbell hasn’t gone that far, but says the question will be simple and absolutely clear.
Five, the referendum must be held this year.
Oops. The last is a non-starter. So, recall will go ahead based on this strange new set of Survivor guidelines. That is, until Fight HST changes the rules of its own game once again.
FOX NEWS WINNIPEG: Who do you suppose is a good friend of Charles Adler, the Winnipeg radio mouth heard locally on CHNL, and invited to join the Canadian version of Fox News? None other than that other familiar Winnipeg resident, Kim Sigurdson of Aboriginal Cogeneration Corp. The two often go walking together to catch a bit of fresh air and exercise.
mrothenburger@kamloopsnews.ca
ArmchairMayor.ca 
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