It's no joke, although the timing may suggest otherwise.
The B.C. Liberal government has finally got around to making good on its promise to get rid of the harmonized sales tax (HST).
B.C. Finance Minister Kevin Falcon is tabling legislation to end the HST and return to the provincial sales tax (PST).
The change takes effect on April 1 next year.
That's April Fool's Day, which is kind of fitting in so many ways.
The timing will help to remind us of how then-Finance Minister Colin Hansen and Premier Gordon Campbell attempted to make fools of us all by
deciding to implement the HST only hours after polls closed on a provincial election during which the new tax had been explicitly left off the table.
But in the true tradition of April Fool's Day - when a practical joke doesn't work, the joker becomes the fool - the B.C. Liberals' HST fiasco put an end to Campbell's premiership and seriously damaged any ambition of political advancement for Hansen.
B.C. voters were not fooled - and they certainly were not amused.
The anti-HST movement grew under the leadership (ironically!) of former B.C. fool - er - premier Bill Vander Zalm, and succeeded despite Campbell's sacrifice of his premiership and a complete change in B.C. Liberal leadership.
The B.C. Liberals still have not recov-ered from the blow that the anti-HST crowd delivered. At least in part, that is due to the time it has taken - and continues to take - to accede to the results of a historic democratic exercise in this province.
It supposedly took only days to implement the brand new HST, but somehow, it has been impossible to eliminate it as quickly.
But when you wake up on April Fool's Day next year, the joke will finally have ended.
