TORONTO - It's the monster that slayed premiers in Saskatchewan and British Columbia, a creature so abhorrent to voters that few western politicians would dare utter its name.
So why has the harmonized sales tax, which riled up so many in B.C., failed to topple the Ontario Liberals?
Opposition leaders predict Premier Dalton McGuinty will eventually suffer the same fate as his B.C. counterpart Gordon Campbell, who quit Wednesday over his botched introduction of the tax.
The HST, which took effect this summer in both provinces, sparked a major revolt in B.C. that forced Campbell's three-term government to its knees. Even a last-ditch, 15 per cent income tax cut failed to appease voter anger.
Some experts say this tale of two provinces really boils down to a clash of political cultures.
"B.C. is much more populist. The further west you move, the more populist it gets," said David Docherty, a politics professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont.
"In B.C., if you don't like something, you do something about it right now. ... Ontarians are more likely to say, 'We really don't like this, so in the next election, we're going to penalize you for it."'
With that election coming next October, many are wondering whether Ontario's quiet voters will send their government packing.
McGuinty hopes to lead the Liberals to a third straight majority government, but recent polls suggest he'll have a hard time hanging on to his job.
Mounting an attack in the legislature Thursday, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath warned the Liberals that they'll pay the same price as Campbell if they don't learn their lesson.
"People across Canada are tired of out-of-touch governments," she said.
"They are tired of them; tired of arrogant governments as well. They've seen friends and family members lose jobs all too often. They see that they are one paycheque away from losing the house or losing the car or having their hydro cut off."
Ontario voters don't have the same tools that allowed B.C. residents to force a referendum on the HST next September, but they will have their say in the upcoming election, said Opposition Leader Tim Hudak.
"I think it will be a referendum on Dalton McGuinty's constant grabs at our pocketbooks," he said.
"It's not just the HST, which is bad enough. Hydro bills are going through the roof, the eco tax, auto insurance -- average, hard-working families just can't take it."
Regardless of how things look in Ontario, there's no doubt that McGuinty is in trouble and it's worse than anything he's faced before, said Docherty.
"There's a number of things where this government is very, very vulnerable, and the voters are angry," he said.
"Having said all that, it's a year until the next election, and that's a lifetime in politics. That means that he's got plenty of time to recover."
Voters have already vented some of their outrage in recent municipal elections, and a federal vote may be called before the province heads to the polls, Docherty said.
"If there is (an election), voters may take out some of their anger on the federal Liberals or the federal Conservatives between now and then," he added. "So all that is working in his favour."
Finance Minister Dwight Duncan -- who played a key role in cementing the $4.3-billion HST deal with the federal Conservatives -- said he's not sure why Ontario hasn't seen the kind of backlash that befell Campbell in B.C.
McGuinty reversed course on the tax months before it was announced in the 2009 budget and dedicated a cabinet minister to spend a year selling the tax across the province.
Duncan said it may have something to do with how he packaged the tax, which included transition cheques, an income tax cut and rebates for low- and middle-income residents.
"I think we just laid the groundwork differently," he said after Campbell's resignation Wednesday.
"And accordingly, while it's not been an easy political issue to deal with, I think we've been able to manage it in a way that has allowed us to take a step forward in terms of building a brighter economy and more jobs for the future."
Former prime minister Brian Mulroney also played a small role in how Duncan put the package together.
The Mulroney Tories introduced a series of income tax cuts right before the 1988 election, knowing they would move ahead with the deeply unpopular GST.
If they had put them together in one tax package, it might have softened the blow.
"So there's been a mixed experience in Canada on the implementation," Duncan said.
"Wherever it's taken hold and there's been political success subsequent to doing it, it's because you had the right package."
