Regardless of how a legislative committee chooses to handle the anti-HST hot potato that lands in its lap today, the result will likely be the same.
“All roads lead to recall,” warned Bill Tieleman, a member of the FightHST triumvirate.
Today, Craig James, the province’s acting chief electoral officer, will forward a copy of the group’s petition and draft bill to scrap the HST to a select standing committee of the legislative assembly.
The move follows Friday’s decision by Chief Justice Robert Bauman to dismiss the arguments of a business-led challenge to the initiative petition and to forward the petition to the standing committee.
The six-Liberal, four-NDP committee will have 30 days to call a meeting, and then 90 days to either call a provincewide initiative vote (held next September) or introduce the bill into the legislature.
FightHST, Tieleman said, would prefer to see the bill brought into the house, even though the bill would likely languish on the order sheet and die without a vote.
