Ontario Tories storm out of legislature over HST

Ontario's PC opposition members walked out of question period en masse on Monday morning to protest the government's new harmonized sales tax legislation.

The HST, which is scheduled to come into effect July 1, 2010, will blend the current eight per cent provincial sales tax with the five per cent GST. It is designed to shift the burden of taxation away from business and on to consumers to make Ontario more attractive for business investment.

The bill to create the new tax was officially tabled at Queen's Park last week.

Since then the Tories have been trying a variety of stall tactics and attention-getting manoeuvres to push for public hearings on the 13 per cent HST.

They are threatening to hold up smooth passage of the bill, which requires a total of 13 hours of debate and five hours of committee consultation before it can pass.

The Liberals, however, have threatened to postpone the legislature's Christmas break in order to pass the budget bill containing the HST.

The legislature is slated to break for nine weeks beginning Dec. 10, but the Liberals this week presented a motion to extend sittings of the legislature as late as Dec. 22.