British Columbians are expected to learn today whether there were enough valid signatures on a petition opposing the harmonized sales tax - but they won't hear the news from Elections BC.
Instead, the provincial election agency is leaving it up to the petition's organizers to declare whether they've won or lost their fight to force the issue back to the legislature.
A campaign led by former premier Bill Vander Zalm launched a provincewide petition earlier this year, and organizers say they collected more than 700,000 names by the time the document was handed in.
Elections BC has been spending the past six weeks verifying whether the petition garnered valid signatures from at least 10 per cent of registered voters in every riding.
The agency is expected to give those results to Vander Zalm by the end of the day, but spokesman Don Main is refusing to explain why Elections BC won't announce its findings directly to the public.
If Elections BC confirms the petition is valid, a committee of the legislature will decide to either put the issue to a vote in the house or send it to a non-binding plebiscite next year.
The agency has until the end of the day Wednesday to complete the verification process.
Vander Zalm has called a press conference for 5:30 p.m. local time.
