Signed, sealed, delivered: anti-HST petition hits Elections BC

Fight HST campaign head Bill Vander Zalm delivers the final petition to Elections BC in Victoria. June 30, 2010. (CTV)

Former B.C. premier Bill Vander Zalm has done a lot of heavy lifting in his anti-HST petition -- and he even carted the boxes containing the thousands of signatures opposed to the tax.

Vander Zalm drove a one-tonne moving truck to the front of the Elections BC office in Victoria, B.C., and personally unloaded the boxes full of the petitions.

Vander Zalm's anti-HST petition drive collected over 700,000 signatures, well above the threshold of 10 per cent of registered voters in all 85 B.C. ridings.

About 50 supporters cheering, "recall, recall" greeted Vander Zalm as his convoy arrived at the Elections BC office.

Vander Zalm says he is not trying to change the world, but called the petition initiative one of the most compelling moments in Canadian democracy since Confederation.

The 12 per cent HST, which combines the federal five-per-cent good and services tax with the seven-per-cent provincial sales tax, takes effect tomorrow.

HST fallout?

Meanwhile, disagreement over the harmonized sales tax may be tearing apart B.C.'s struggling Conservative party.

The first vice president of the B.C. party has quit -- claiming other members are steering the party toward the HST.

Mischa Popoff says the B.C. Conservatives -- who don't have a sitting member in the legislature -- have been "riding on the coat tails" of anti-HST leaders Bill Vander Zalm and Chis Delaney.

He says he decided to resign after learning of what he claims are numerous secret meetings to develop a pro-HST position, even though the Conservatives announced in September that the party had "totally rejected" the levy.