(Staff )--Many of Ontario's First Nations Grand Chiefs met at Queen's Park Wednesday to discuss how the upcoming HST will hit reserves hard in their pocketbooks.
The centre of the meeting was a report by business professor Dr. Fred Lazar, who claims the new integrated tax will cost First Nations in Ontario anywhere from $85 to $120 million in its first year.
"For a segment of the population that lives at or below the poverty line, and are struggling to build their economies, one wonders if it is really necessary for governments to collect another $100 million annually from the First Nations," stated Ontario Regional Chief Angus Toulouse.
The HST would eliminate the off-reserve point-of-sale PST exemption currently available to First Nations people.
The new report estimates that presently only 46% of consumer expenditures are subject to the PST and that with the move to the HST, the figure will climb to 56%. Native leaders at the discussion said they weren't consulted as the government went through the process of weighing the revamped tax.
Toulouse said the HST reminds him that First Nations people never agreed to the GST when it was introduced in 1991.
"The governments may have won a temporary battle but this has reawakened in First Nations the determination to protect against the further erosion of our rights by the Canadian and provincial governments," Toulouse said.
Last month, federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the Ontario government could create an exemption for Ontario's First Nations residents, but the federal government wouldn't respond to calls for changes to the HST.
Akwesasne Grand Chief Mike Mitchell did not attend the Queen's Park discussion and was unavailable for comment Wednesday.