Saturday, October 02, 2010

HST Reduction Shuffle....Mr. Smyth Really Starts Shovellin'

AllTheCrapThatFits
ProvinceVille



We have fully recounted Michael Smyth's willful wurlitzering of the faux HST Reduction Rumour that, according to him originally at least, had nothing to do with the Zalm, but instead surfaced because of the by 'red-hot' nature of the codswallop being flung all over Victoria earlier in the week.

So, when fingers start pointing back at him what does Mr. Smyth do?

Well....

He just starts diggin' a new hole so that he can start shovellin' an entirely new brand of sh*t with a different smell that is still putrid, regardless. Here is the kicker from Mr. Smyth's most recent 'column' in The Province:

"....The government angrily denied Vander Zalm's prediction that Campbell would announce a one-point cut in the hated tax today as a way to soothe public anger.

The premier's office called The Zalm "deceitful." And Finance Minister Colin Hansen said Vander Zalm lives on "Fantasy Island."

Hey, you can't blame the Liberals for being angry. How dare Vander Zalm predict that the government would actually do something popular on the HST!

Just watch though: Campbell will reduce the tax. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but he will. Because as the mud flows and the insults fly, the people will still need to be bought off."


Notice how there is no mention by Mr. Smyth of his own role in the pimping of the 'prediction'.

Notice the back-tracking, self-justifying, not mention fully open-ended new prediction that the reduction "it's a coming".

Meanwhile, real news about really harmful things that the HST has ALREADY done to British Columbia's economy is left completely unsaid.

Sheesh.

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3 comments:

Dave-O said...

Zalm stole the moment, more than likely they were going to do it but being scooped led to them backtracking. If they went forward with the changes it would of been a feather in Zalm's hat and exposed holes in the good ship SS BC Liberals.

I would bet a dollar to a donut that everyone in Victoria is being called into the Premier office being strapped into a chair having a 1000 watt floodlight shone into their eyes and a bunch of faceless people standing around yelling "Confess" Hansen would be allowed to go right up to their face and yell "let me have em" while his chain is fully taunt.

Sounds plausible to me :)

Anonymous said...

BC Cross Border shopping spikes after the HST (gone up 33%!). From the CBC:http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/10/01/bc-hst-washington-retail.html

Don't see that on the Pac Press websites.

Interesting that Smythie isn't backing down on the HST being cut back; suspect the 20 minute ode to the Olympics yesterday was a last minute changeover in Gordo's speech to the UBCM.

Sharon

RossK said...

Dave-O--

That's pretty much exactly how I had it on Thursday morning (ie. a full 24 hrs before Mr. Campbell's UBCM speech) after Mess'rs Smythe, Till, Cluff, Davies and Smart all tood the bait and started crankin' up the Wurlitzer.

Which is exactly the point - all these proMedia types (with the possible exception of Mr. Cluff I would guess) knew exactly what they were doing....And they also knew it wasn't all coming from The ZalmBunk(er).

So for Mr. Smyth to pretend otherwise after the fact is, in my opinion at least, hypocrisy of the worst kind.

(and as Sharon, from above, has noted on his own 'Blog' Jonathan Fowlie did the same thing in helping spin the work of the Queen of Shillophants, Christy Clark)

_____
Thanks Sharon,

I'm archiving each real story like this.

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