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www.pentictonwesternnews.com
Wednesday, November 27, 2013 Penticton Western News
Published Wednesdays and Fridays in Penticton at: 2250 Camrose St., Penticton B.C. V2A 8R1 Phone: (250) 492-3636 • Fax: (250) 492-9843 • E-mail: editor@pentictonwesternnews.com
EDITORIAL
opinion
Voters take long view With the senate scandal plastered all over the media, it would be easy to think the Conservatives didn’t stand a chance in Monday’s byelections. But there must be something in the drinking water in southern Manitoba, or perhaps the news doesn’t make it there. How else to explain the byelection wins by the federal Conservative party. Of the four ridings up for grabs in Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba, the Conservatives won two, both in Manitoba, both of which had elected a Conservative MP in the 2011 vote. Sure, the federal Liberal party made significant inroads in both ridings, improving their share of the popular vote from dismal to bridesmaid. The question is why voters even considered casting their ballot for the Conservatives? Since the last federal election, the Conservative government, headed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has done very little to improve the lot of Canadians or Canada. Rather, the Conservatives have muzzled scientists, tacked on two years to the working life of Canadians, that is if you can find a job because the taxpayer-funded employment action plan heralded by the Conservatives is more inaction than action. Canada’s treatment of aboriginal people is still embarrassing and our reputation at climate change summits is laughable. But the best the opposition parties can do is PENTICTON WESTERN bemoan and criticize the Conservatives without really coming up with their own plan to deal with the issues in a fiscally responsible manner. Perhaps the voters in southern Manitoba took the long view and opted for the one party with a clear vision.
NEWS NEWS PENTICTON WESTERN
2250 Camrose Street, Penticton, B.C. V2A 8R1 Tel: (250) 492-3636 Fax: (250) 492-9843 Publisher: Don Kendall Editor: Percy N. Hébert Sales Manager: Larry Mercier Creative Director: Kirk Myltoft
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Carbon neutral scheme is sinking Two days after Energy Minister Bill Bennett announced the demise of the Pacific Carbon Trust, the public accounts committee convened at the legislature to pound a few more nails into its carbon-sequestering coffin. Assistant auditor general Morris Sydor was there to defend his report from last March that concluded the B.C. government was not “carbon neutral” in 2010, because the trust paid $6 million for hastily arranged offset projects that were not valid. An Encana Corp. gas flaring reduction project at Fort Nelson and a forest preserve in the Kootenays would have proceeded without assistance from $25 a tonne carbon fee imposed on hospitals, universities, colleges and until last year, school districts. In fact they did proceed without this subsidy. The government continues to deny this, but not many people outside the international carbon
offset sales racket believe them. The Pacific Carbon Trust’s functions will continue, Bennett said. Instead of a board of directors and 18 staff, five people headed by an assistant deputy minister will evaluate projects and bestow millions taken from college, university and health authority budgets each year. B.C.’s school districts are still paying $5 million a year to offset such nefarious activities as heating their schools. But now the money goes into a “Carbon Neutral Capital Program,” and districts have to apply to get their money back for emission-reducing projects. This is going so well, according to Bennett, that post-secondary institutions and health authorities will be converted to a similar program in the years ahead. How is that school program going? Here are some examples. The Coast Mountains School District around Terrace paid $66,452
Tom Fletcher
B.C. Views for carbon offsets last year. It got back most of its three years of offset payments as a grant to complete a boiler upgrade for its Kitimat high school. Abbotsford and Nanaimo school districts each have to pay about $100,000 a year. They got money back for school boiler upgrades as well, although local school officials say that would not likely have been the top priority for spending, if it hadn’t been for the program that forces districts to spend grants immediately on
emission reduction. Surrey school district paid out $585,000 last year, and also upgraded boilers. Vancouver’s pitch this year was for three electric cars. Leaving aside the distortion of spending priorities caused by this restrictive tax-andspend scheme, what happens when they run out of boilers to upgrade? And has it occurred to the government’s “carbon neutral” braintrust that those new boilers are still burning natural gas? This program is about to be foisted onto universities and hospitals. Does anyone actually believe that heating hospitals and college classrooms is a key driver of global warming? Presumably our carbon czars know that 40 per cent of B.C.’s humangenerated greenhouse gas emissions are from transportation, and a few electric cars for school district staff aren’t going to change that. And what happens when colleges and
hospitals run out of boilers to modernize and insulation to upgrade? It won’t be long at this rate. In hindsight, this “carbon neutral government” scheme is perhaps the worst single idea implemented in 12 years of B.C. Liberal government. Gordon Campbell’s grand vision of a province where government sets the green standard and the private sector economy follows has simply not worked. The NDP presented a motion in April 2012 to relieve hospitals, colleges and universities of their carbon offset obligation. The idea was supported by a B.C. Liberal backbencher, who argued that B.C. should also scrap the carbon tax and quit pretending it can change the climate. His name? Bill Bennett. Tom Fletcher is legislature reporter and columnist for Black Press and BCLocalNews.com, Twitter:@tomfletcherbc E-mail: tfletcher@ blackpress.ca.