My Independent BC had a big budget surplus yet all the regressive taxes were gone, no PST, no GST, no Carbon Tax. They'd all been replaced by a progressive taxes including a Luxury Tax both in stores and at the borders, a new 'sin' tax legal marijuana, a Robin Hood Tax on every speculative transaction, a Resource Export Tax and new taxes on non-resident real-estate speculators. Plus all the lotto and other gambling money, as always paid mostly by the poor, went into the schools, hospitals, amateur sports and the arts like it was originally supposed to.
This Independent BC also benefited from having the federal share of other taxes re-directed into its accounts and of course all those million$ of dollars in transfer payments were non-existent. My Independent BC also wasn't losing millions in interest every month to the rich banksters because it had established a Bank of BC, then borrowed from it instead so all that interest went right back to BC's taxpayers via their new Proportionally Represented Legislature.
There was no more NAFTA, no more FIPA, no more free trade mandated raw log exports which meant the sawmills were open again. No more federal Temporary Foreign Workers Program meant more jobs and better pay too. No more threats of lawsuits through corporate friendly FIPA type schemes meant all the decisions about pipelines, about waterway protection, about fisheries, about Coast Guard resources, about anti-GMO laws, about all environmental standards were made in BC and informed by its own un-muzzled scientists.
Gone were the cost of useless overpriced jets and new un-necessary prisons., in their place were safe-injection sites and health based solutions to the drug addiction problems usually at the root of so much crime. Gone were the RCMP now replaced by locally born and raised folks who knew and understood the unique character of each different community.
Undoubtedly many folks would/could add alotta other wonder-filled details of their own to this dream. But when fully awake i realized the biggest boon for an Independent BC - NO MORE HARPER.
