The Fight HST petition reached a new benchmark this weekend, gathering signatures from 15 per cent of registered voters in all of British Columbia's 85 ridings.
The campaign reached their goal of 10 per cent in May, meeting the minimum threshold set by Elections BC. In total, the petition has 35 per cent more signatures than required.
"This means that one of every three signatures would have to be discarded in any one of our ridings for the petition to fail," lead organizer Chris Delaney said.
Although the anti-HST campaign has reached its goal, canvassers will continue to collect signatures until the petition is submitted to Elections BC on June 30, Delaney told ctvbc.ca.
Delaney said that if any one riding has to be dropped, the petition is void. His group will try to fatten the numbers in ethnic communities in particular, where people may have signed against the harmonized sales tax without having registered as voters.
The announcement comes less than week after former energy minister Blair Lekstrom resigned over the HST.
"We think he did the right thing," Delaney said, who hopes other Liberal MLAs will follow suit.
Fight HST Leader Bill Vander Zalm is calling on Premier Gordon Campbell to cancel the tax before it takes effect on July 1.
"Cancelling it prior to that date would save everyone from having to change their lives to accommodate the tax, only to have to change it all around again when the tax is repealed in the fall," he said.
