Showdown

So much for my concern that the Libs might be quiet about the HST as a federal election issue merely because they'd have to be insane to focus attention on their own nonsensical position. Instead, it looks like they may be just crazy enough to try to use the issue to build outrage against the Cons without offering any suggestion as to what they'd do differently - and it's anybody's guess how the attempt will play out:

The federal Liberal Leader sought to put the 12 per cent HST, introduced after a provincial election in which the B.C. Liberals ruled it out, in play as the “Harper Sales Tax.”

He said his party is concerned the Tories have “pushed” sales tax harmonization across Canada at a time of recession, and “is now walking away from it, saying ‘It has nothing to do with us.' We think that's dishonest. They're fully implicated in this decision, and they should take responsibility for it.”

Without providing details, he said a federal Liberal government would look for ways to make the tax work better for British Columbians.

“For the moment, this squarely on Stephen Harper's shoulders. He keeps pushing this off, pretending it's a silly provincial matter,” he said. “It won't wash.”

The key statement for now is "across Canada": while it sounded before like the Libs might try to wall the issue off as a localized B.C. issue, they now seem to be sending the correct message the issue is effectively the same in B.C. as in Ontario (and in the provinces that are still being pushed to harmonize). With that national focus, there's a significant opportunity to place the HST at the forefront of a federal election campaign - and the "Harper Sales Tax" phrasing can only help that cause.

But for the Libs, there's the small problem that the reality doesn't show any meainingful distinction between the Libs and Cons on the issue.

After all, it was a Lib government which made similar deals with the Atlantic provinces. And more importantly, with Ignatieff himself looking to "make the tax work better" rather than actually wanting to reverse Harper's plan, there would seem to be ample reason to doubt Canadians can expect the Libs to change course to any meaningful degree. Which could bode extremely well for the federal NDP if it can present itself as the real opponent of the HST as its provincial cousins in B.C. have already managed to do.

So while the NDP and Libs are apparently in full agreement that the Harper Cons need to wear the effect of tax harmonization, the current positioning seems likely to set up a head-on collision between the two in trying to capitalize on the resulting outrage. And with the Libs' advantages in money and media access balanced against the reality that they're tied to the provincial governments responsible and can't claim any principled objection to the policy in general, there's obvious reason why both parties might hold out reasonable hopes of coming out on top in that clash.