While B.C.'s Finance Minister still insists the harmonized sales tax wasn't on his radar before the 2009 election -- despite documents showing he was well informed by his bureaucrats -- a former provincial finance minister said he was briefed on the issue while he was in office almost 10 years ago.

Paul Ramsey, who was the NDP finance minister until his defeat in 2001, said his staff was giving him similar advice about the HST a decade ago and it's highly unlikely that Colin Hansen wouldn't have discussed the tax with his bureaucrats, especially considering Ontario's plans to introduce the tax.

"It was an active item on my radar at the time and I think it would be active on all finance ministers for the last decade. What would have heightened it for Mr. Hansen is that the federal government had just inked a deal in Ontario," Ramsey told CTV News from Victoria Thursday.

Ramsey said he's surprised that the BC Liberals so vehemently denied the HST was on their radar before the election and then sprung it on the public so quickly after they were voted back into office.

"The scandal is trying to explain how you could not be dealing with an issue before election and then do it shortly thereafter. And that's where the big political hurt has come," he said.

Ramsey said people will object to the optics of the situation much more than the actual policy.

"The pros and cons of doing an HST haven't changed in a decade. The problem is appearing to do a political about face and doing it without consultation," he said.

Ramsey said while he talked about the issue when he was minister, he didn't bring it to cabinet because he sensed it would be unpopular.

"They were saying this is a tax that will probably hurt business in the short term, it's a huge shift in taxes from business to individuals and it really curtails B.C.'s power to enforce its own tax regime. And that's exactly the advice Mr. Hansen is getting now."

Political fallout

There have been multiple calls for Hansen to step down since briefing notes, emails and correspondence between the federal and provincial finance departments were released to media through a freedom of information request Wednesday.

One of the documents is an 11-page briefing note given directly to Hansen which outlines the pros and cons of harmonizing the tax. The cover page reads: "There is a strong possibility that the British Columbia government will be asked in the next couple of weeks about its position of harmonization."

Hansen said he did read the report, but said he didn't ask for the report and his staff did the research on their own in case he was asked about Ontario's HST plans by media.

"I would have read that to the extent necessary to make sure I felt comfortable if I ever got the media request," he told CTV News Thursday.

"We had absolutely no plans on the HST until after the election."

Among those who called on Hansen to step down Thursday was Jordon Bateman, the president of Housing and Social Development Minister Rich Coleman's Fort Langley-Aldergrove riding association.

He quickly retracted his comments and issued an apology after speaking to the finance minister, who he described as "gracious."

"We spoke about the documents and I feel you should all know that Minister Hansen gave me his direct assurance that the HST was not being planned prior to the election," Bateman wrote on his blog.

Colin Hansen told CTV News that even though his top bureaucrats were discussing the HST and preparing documents and cost-benefit analyses as early as January 2009, he was not made aware of it.

"At no time did this government ask finance officials to proactively do this work," Hansen said.

"This info gathering, up until the end of May was at their initiative and was not something we asked them to undertake."

With files from CTV British Columbia's Jon Woodward