XPost: bc.politics, van.general, vic.general   
   From: cognomen@domus.ca   
      
   Zalmer draws cheers with anti-HST crowd   
      
   Daily News - April 17, 2010   
      
      
   Former B.C. premier Bill Vander Zalm showed he hasn't lost his touch with   
   audiences at an   
   anti-HST rally in Nanaimo Friday.   
      
   The charismatic orator, carrying a message to win a provincial initiative to   
   stop the   
   harmonized sales tax, captivated the audience at Beban Auditorium.   
      
   To win the initiative, volunteers have to collect at least 10% of registered   
   voters'   
   signatures in every provincial riding within 90 days.   
      
   Vander Zalm, whose term in office ended in a cloud of controversy in 1990,   
   told about 150   
   people he got involved at the urging of his wife, Lillian.   
      
   He was shocked last summer to learn the Liberal government would combine the   
   provincial   
   sales tax with the federal GST, after promising during the election they   
   wouldn't.   And   
   he was disappointed with the light media coverage.   
      
   Lillian encouraged him to contact the media. Two days later, his image   
   appeared on the   
   front of the The Province newspaper, with a story on Page 3.   
      
   "I said: 'Lillian, I can't believe it, they're accurate,'" he said, drawing   
   laughter from   
   the audience.   
      
   Soon he was inundated with e-mails and the campaign was born.   
      
   He ignores pundits' predictions the campaign will fail, telling supporters "it   
   not only   
   can be done, it will be done," drawing raucous applause in the room.   
      
   Concerned about what the HST will mean for seniors, 80-year-old Victor Eaton   
   said   
   afterward "there is a definite ground (swell) movement afoot," which he   
   believes will roll   
   across the country to stop tax harmonization.   
      
   At 55, Mike Fabbro, one of the youngest in the audience, lamented Vander   
   Zalm's retirement   
   from political politics.   
      
   "It's too bad," Fabbro said. "All the idiots they have now . . ."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)