S E R V I N G
M I S S I O N
S I N C E
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85¢+HST
FVHS CONTINUES TO HELP THOSE IN NEED Local society still requires support from the community
THURSDAY, SEPT. 1, 2011
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Blast off The jet cars were at Mission Raceway Park last weekend for the annual Smoke, Fire and Thunder event. Here, the Gravity Storm, driven by Andy Beauchemin, rockets off the start line en route to a 280 mph-plus run Saturday night. BOB FRIESEN PHOTO
Mission votes down HST Local voters follow provincial pattern BY ADRIAN MACNAIR Mission Record
The harmonized sales tax in British Columbia has been vanquished, thanks to a provincial referendum in which nearly 55 per cent voted to “extinguish” it. Just over 45 per cent voted “no” to repeal the HST and reinstate the PST and GST, with a combined 52 per cent of registered voters weighing in. According to results released by Elections BC, 54.63 per cent of 18,106 voters in the electoral riding of Abbotsford-Mission voted to keep the tax, while 55.8 per cent
of 19,219 voters in the electoral riding of Maple RidgeMission voted to get rid of it. Abbotsford-Mission MLA Randy Adlem Hawes said he doesn’t think regional disparities had anything to do with voting choice based on which party represents the riding. “I don’t read anything into any of that, it’s just people’s personal feelings about whether they think the tax was good or bad. “People look at their personal thing and they don’t look at the big picture, and unfortunately in B.C. this is going to impact business, and business is where jobs come from.”
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But Mission bbusiness owner Ted Adlem, a forT mer director on the m bboard of the B.C. Restaurant and R Foodservices AssoF Billinger ciation, welcomed the news. “I would say the people have spoken, and had the government listened to begin with, they wouldn’t have put the people in a position where they had to speak,” he said. Adlem said the restaurant industry instantly saw between a seven and eight per cent reduction in sales when the HST was introduced. He also expressed skepticism at the suggestion that reverting to the PST would make B.C. less competitive, citing Alberta,
which doesn’t have the tax. Carlo Billinger, co-owner of Rex Cox Men’s Wear on First Avenue, was sorry to see the results. “The HST worked a little fairer for my business in the respect that everybody was paying the same tax,” he said, before adding he wasn’t surprised. He said people were understandably angry about the HST, not because of the tax but the way it was introduced. “They should have taken it off food, and haircuts and beauty products and kept it at 12 (per cent) just the way it was and I think people would have been more receptive to it.” Mission Regional Chamber of
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DERBY DRAWS 59 RACERS Stave Lake Street was closed off Saturday to vehicle traffic for the annual soapbox derby. See the results inside. PAGE 3
SIGN ME UP The Record’s Back to School/ Sign Me Up section is in this week’s edition. Get advice on backpack choice, and some ways to encourage healthy eating and activities. Also, the full bus schedule is included. PAGE 19-22
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