The B.C. Chamber of Commerce is dismissing a report from the CD Howe institute on how the harmonized sales tax will affect the province's economy.
In documents released under a freedom of information request the institute suggested it may take five or more years for wages and jobs to recover from the HST.
But Chamber CEO John Winter says the report focused on the implications of the tax in Ontario, not B.C.
"The CD Howe report is really irrelevant, it has no applicability to British Columbia," he said. "It was based on a model that was not the model of HST introduced into B.C."
Winter also said the report fails to mention the HST exemptions in B.C.
"The exemptions that exist in the HST for British Columbia include things like motor fuel, food and medical services and on and on, those are not even referenced in the document," he said.
Other documents released along with the CD Howe report showed B.C. bureaucrats were discussing the HST with officials in Ottawa in early 2009 and had prepared briefing notes on the tax for Finance Minister Colin Hansen before last year's provincial election.
Hansen has insisted he wasn't contemplating the tax before the election and his staff were just doing their jobs by studying the HST.
Hansen suffered an embarrassment Thursday when the president of the Liberal riding association in Langley, B.C. wrote on a blog that the finance minister ought to resign over the HST controversy.
"Under his ministry, the handling and implementation of the HST has been one blunder after another. And now his credibility is completely shot," Jordan Bateman wrote.
But Hansen said he ironed out the disagreement with Bateman and the bog post was removed.
