Reversible

I posted yesterday on how Dalton McGuinty is at best presenting a misleading historical picture in pretending that there's no precedent for reversing a decision to move toward a harmonized sales tax. But let's take a look at the more important issue: leaving aside the general sliminess associated with a government entering into a controversial and ill-advised deal without public input then claiming that it's too late to change anything, what are the actual prospects of reversing the decision to harmonize?

McGuinty's argument that nothing can be done is based largely on the terms of the agreement signed between Ontario and the federal government. And it's accurate enough to say that as long as the agreement is in force, Ontario is bound to push ahead with the HST. But what McGuinty conveniently leaves out is that agreements can be changed or ended by the parties involved - and there's little reason to think that either Ontario or B.C. would have trouble getting out of the current agreements if they made a public decision to do so.

To see why that's so, consider the circumstances in which McGuinty or Gordon Campbell would make a request to terminate their HST agreements. Presumably that would come after public outrage grows to the point where the province concluded that the HST simply wasn't going to be politically palatable - based on the size of protests, the volume of public commentary, continued polls slamming the tax and perhaps a recall movement in B.C. At that point, the premier involved would likely have little choice but to make a public appeal to the federal government to release it from its commitments.

So how would the federal government respond at that point? Keep in mind that Stephen Harper has apparently already decided that the HST isn't something he wants associated with his government, which is why he's issued a gag order on Deficit Jim Flaherty and set up a party message that the provinces are responsible for the decision.

Needless to say, that position would become completely untenable if the Cons received a public request to reverse an HST agreement and ordered either B.C. or Ontario to push ahead anyway. At that point, every single major political party in the affected province on both the provincial and federal levels would be aligned in one direction on an issue which would form the main topic of political conversation. And given the choice between either going along or trying to fight the current alone while facing the likelihood of being swamped in the process, the only sensible course of action for the Cons would be to go along with the province's request.

And if they didn't? Well, that's where the Cons' minority government would become particularly significant. Presumably any attempt to stand as the lone defender of a massively unpopular tax would take a substantial bite out of the Cons' standing with the public - leading to exactly the type of situation where the federal opposition parties could all agree that a trip to the polls is in order. And a resulting change in government in an election fought on the issue would almost certainly mean the end of the HST, since the federal Libs' position that they don't want to break a deal with the provinces wouldn't make much sense after the provinces have already declared they want out.

Of course, McGuinty's hope is apparently that people won't think through the above scenario, and will instead buy his argument that it's not worth bothering to protest since nothing can be done. But the reality is that there's an obvious path to reverse course - and he and Gordon Campbell are exactly the pressure points which the public needs to hit in order to make that happen.