John Horgan, HST, and Recall

John Horgan wants to be the next leader of the BCNDP. Assuming his performance in front of a room of North Island NDPers yesterday was representative of his abilities and beliefs, I'd have no trouble voting for him.
Part of the unease I had with Carole as the visible face of the BCNDP was that, although she improved somewhat over the years, she was not a natural in front of an audience or the camera. When she did well, my first reaction was invariably relief. It's not a good if your partisans are always slightly worried when you have the stage.
Not so Horgan: he's extremely comfortable speaking extemporaneously and, perhaps more importantly,  has an ability, rare in public speakers, to make all the people in a room feel as if they're a part of a conversation among friends.
Of course he was among friends, and I haven't yet decided; it's still early days, and I haven't heard Mike Farnworth.

Someone asked him about taxation, and specifically the HST. As I'm still planning to vote in favour, I thought his reply interesting, especially given his audience, many of whom are quite sure the HST is an evil conspiracy. He said, of course he planned to vote against the HST in the upcoming referendum. However, he pointed out, consumption taxes aren't necessarily bad taxes. He mentioned visiting his son in Helsinki, where the consumption tax is over 20%, and pays in large part for the social services for which Finland is famous. The difference, he noted, is that the tax is built into the price of things, so there aren't constant irritating reminders.
That strikes me as a very reasonable, informed response. It appeared to go down well with the North Island audience as well, but he might want to consider ducking the issue if he's talking to his (judging from Facebook, many) partisans in Oak Bay, some of whom have invested literally months in the anti-HST cause.

Which is a nice segue into the Oak Bay Recall Campaign, which got only just over half of the signatures it needed before it timed out.
I think we dodged a bullet there, which is not to say no harm was done.
For one thing, look what it did for Ida's profile! (Who had ever heard of Ida Chong before this?)
And then there are the optics: her nice Asian lady face is all over the front pages today, having trashed the campaign against her led by an old, myopic white guy, also pictured.

Last week I was on the way to visit my dad when I saw a gaggle of elderly ladies and one gentleman flooding out of the Zocalo Cafe and Gallery on the corner of 5th and Cliffe, right in the middle of downtown Courtenay. They were turned out in yellow vests that said "RECALL". Although obviously embarking on the Comox Recall Campaign, they looked like a tour group of pensioners, out on an expedition.
You had to laugh.
There's no reason to think this campaign will be any more successful than the one in Oak Bay, even though there will be few provincial civil servants (who apparently refuse to sign because they're afraid!) or apartment dwellers (access is difficult) to complicate the task.
For reasons I've explored in a previous post, I'm with those who will not mourn the failure. I just wish the Comox NDP was not going to be tarred with it.
However, it will not help that the Zocalo Cafe is well-known in Courtenay as owned and operated by Catherine Bell, former NDP MP. And the recall Proponent plus (no doubt) many of the workers are prominent NDP partisans. Don McRae, a thoroughly-minor-league MLA (you may remember an earlier post that attributed his victory largely to the criteria by which the NDP candidate was chosen) will inevitably benefit from the publicity. I'm pretty sure he gains credibility and the NDP stands to lose.

That's two seats we'll have trouble winning back, I suspect..