Well I am sure Bill Vander zalm is pretty happy tonite with the results of the HST vote. While the results of the vote are important, what is even more important is the exercise in democracy that we just conducted.
Think about it, despite regulations to make it as difficult as possible, the group opposing the HST manged to get enough valid signatures on a petition to force a referendum onto the government and then got enough votes to win the referendum. It's a pretty remarkable feat.
Needless to say it was the organization behind Bill that won both the petition and the referendum, but he was the spokesman and was able to harness peoples anger about how the tax was implemented. Bill reminded people that the authority to govern rest with the citizen, the government governs on our sufferance, this referendum is a message that we are not pleased.
Note to Bill this referendum was about the tax, don't be thinking this will allow you to come back. Sit back and enjoy the victory and stay in political retirement. Attempting to run again will likely not go well.