It says something not too flattering about direct democracy rules in this province that the Fight HST folks are already planning their next move.

You'd think that after collecting more than 700,000 signatures, equivalent to almost half the voters in the last provincial election, they'd be basking in the glow of having changed public policy when it comes to the wildly unpopular harmonized sales tax. Surely an outpouring of that magnitude would result in some meaningful modifications to the way in which government operates, but, sadly, that doesn't appear it's going be the case.

With their efforts likely to result in little more than a failed bill in the legislature (at least from a procedural perspective), they will soon turn their attention to recall efforts against what they consider to be vulnerable Liberal MLAs.

And, just like the citizen petition, they'll find the sledding difficult because B.C.'s direct democracy legislation is simply set up for failure.

When it comes to recall, compared to the citizen petition, the numbers are daunting: rather than three months to collect the signatures of 10 per cent of registered voters, recall gives organizers just two months to sign up a much more hefty 40 per cent of those on the voters list. Granted, this only needs to be accomplished in a single constituency, not the entire province like the anti-HST petition, but even so it's such an uphill battle it's never been accomplished before, although one MLA did resign when recallers got close.

Delta South voters know just how difficult it is to recall an MLA, having lived through a near-successful one of former Liberal Val Roddick eight years ago. Even with widespread unrest over cuts to Delta Hospital services, it still wasn't enough to unseat our elected representative as a couple thousand invalid signatures dropped the total collected just below the threshold necessary for victory.

With Fight HST's petition doomed for failure in Victoria at the hands of the ruling Liberals, its volunteer army will more than likely be mobilized early next year to embark on the treacherous road that is recall.

It will be another attempt at making direct democracy work, an effort to get government to take notice of the electorate's discontent by plucking some of its members from the benches of the legislature.

Whether this dedicated bunch can make it happen remains to be seen. Legislation says it's possible, but history hasn't been so kind.