Premier Christy Clark speaks at the B.C. Party convention in Penticton Saturday May 14, 2011.Daniel Hayduk/The Canadian Press
The B.C. Liberals started their convention on the weekend asking themselves if they should slink away from their name.
This is a party that has won three successive elections in British Columbia and is just rebounding with new leadership, so it seemed a little off-topic to be fussing about rebranding right now.
Perhaps it was just a chance to blow off steam. The anxiety in the party surrounds a more immediate problem.
If the B.C. Liberals hope to cling to power for another term, they must first put to bed the source of their current troubles - the controversy over the clumsy adoption of the harmonized sales tax.
Premier Christy Clark promised she will unveil a fix in the next two weeks, almost two years after her predecessor surprised British Columbians with the introduction of the tax.
Ms. Clark is on a path to call a provincial election this fall, but the HST stands in the way. B.C. voters will receive a ballot in the mail in June that will allow them to decide if the province will retain the current tax regime, or return to the former one, a mix of its own sales tax and the federal goods and services tax.
The promise of a sweetener just in time for the referendum is Ms. Clark's last chance to defuse public anger - and would put her on solid footing for an election.
Party members questioned whether the government really is ready to fight a ground war on the referendum.
The bigger, unspoken question is around election readiness. The Premier wants to go to the polls early despite a May 2013 election date fixed in law. Ms. Clark unveiled her election readiness team on Saturday and urged party members to prepare. That rallying cry will sound more effective if she can salvage her government's HST.