A war of words is raging in advance of a legal battle next week over the validity of a petition designed to oust the harmonized sales tax.
Former B.C. premier Bill Vander Zalm launched the latest skirmish Friday morning when he said he would submit the successful Initiative petition directly to a legislative committee charged with deciding how the province should respond.
B.C.'s Chief Electoral Officer has refused to pass the petition to that committee, saying the courts must first resolve a business group's challenge of the province-wide campaign.
Vander Zalm says if Elections BC won't act, he will, because the Initiatives Act requires a successful petition be forwarded for action.
The man who will lead the committee, Kamloops-North Thompson MLA Terry Lake, disagrees, saying the former premier should know only Elections BC has the power to set the legislature's wheels in motion.
A spokesman for the campaign to dump the combined federal and provincial sales tax warns if Lake refuses to accept the Initiative petition from Vander Zalm, Fight HST could begin legal proceedings directly against the committee chair.
