"What are the Options": Transitioning funding to implement BC's HST. BC Rail Trial Indemnity too? Perhaps!

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 19, Number 6

 Page 6086

Hon. G. Campbell: As I said in the last estimates, there was a meeting scheduled for Finance Ministry officials. The Minister of Finance did have a discussion with regard to the transition funds that were available. When they had left the meeting on the 14th, as I understand it now, the Deputy Minister of Finance did say: "What are the options?" 

 There were significant dollars that had been provided to Ontario as part of the transition, and the first time that he actually had the opportunity to meet and suggest or ask questions of the federal Minister of Finance was at the meeting at the end of May. I believe it was May 25, but I'm not certain of that date.

C. James: The Premier meets with the Finance Minister. The Premier meets with the deputy Finance Minister on May 14, just a couple of days after the election. He gets the new numbers and finds out that his deficit number is blown and then informs them to explore policy decisions. Yet he doesn't have any discussion about the HST.

Does the Premier expect us to believe that it was actually a coincidence that the very next day, the tax official phones the federal government to inquire about the HST? 

Hon. G. Campbell: Again, let me reiterate that the meeting that took place on the 14th of May was a time when we received the benefit of the results of the review that was done and launched on the 12th of May and ready to go on the 14th of May. At that time I said: "Look at the options that are available to deal with this." I set the goal of looking at the option and coming back and meeting the February budget, which is what I had been told, and I had told the public, to expect.

So the Finance officials would naturally go back — as, frankly, senior officials do across government….

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Its not clear whether on May 14, 2009, one day after the BC Liberals had won an election,whether it was the deputy Finance Minister or Premier G. Campbell who blinked first and raised the topic of "Options" in regard to the transitioning funding on the HST.

Premier G. Campbell was still at the helm of the BC Liberal Government while the BC Rail Trial was happening.  Was there another set of goals that he put in place with options being sought, ones that would give the Special Prosecutor the leeway to finance Guilty Pleas from David Basi and Bobby Virk, therefore stopping the Crown's Star Witnesses from testifying in October?

A bit too much of a coincidence for my liking, that the deputy involved found a way to substantially reduce Campbell's deficit position one day after the election was won, and then be involved in the co-signing of a $6 million expenditure that should have rightfully been dealt with by Campbell's Cabinet.